Openqda

<div align="center"> <h2>OpenQDA</h2> <p>Collaborative Qualitative Research</p>

</div> <p align="center"> <img src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/openqda/.github/main/profile/bg_top_left_512x512_96dpi.PNG" alt="img data collection" width="200"/> <img src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/openqda/.github/main/profile/bg_bottom_left_512x512_96dpi.PNG" alt="img data preparation" width="200" /> <img src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/openqda/.github/main/profile/bg_top_right_512x512_96dpi.PNG" alt="img coding" width="200"/> <img src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/openqda/.github/main/profile/bg_bottom_right_512x512_96dpi.PNG" alt="img analysis" width="200"/> </p> <p align="center"> <img src="https://github.com/openqda/.github/blob/main/profile/zemki-und-uni-logo-weiss-1x.png?raw=true" alt="img ZeMKI" width="200"/> </p>

Quick links

• 🚀 Register now: https://openqda.org
• 📔 Read the user guide: https://openqda.github.io/user-docs/
• 📢 Give feedback and join the discussion: https://github.com/openqda/openqda/discussions
• 🏗️ Read the developer guide: https://openqda.github.io/openqda/
• 📧 Contact us: openqda@uni-bremen.de

What is OpenQDA?

OpenQDA is a sustainable, free/libre Open Source Software for collaborative qualitative data analysis.

It's developed by the ZeMKI (Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research) at the University of Bremen.

It's publicly available under https://openqda.org and is hosted on servers, integrated in the university's infrastructure.

If you are a user and want to learn OpenQDA, then we advise you to read the user documentation.

If you are still unsure about what OpenQDA is or does, then please consult our FAQ.

Publications and Citation

Citation

We provide a citation file to enable automated citations of this work.

Note: Every release obtains a DOI from Zenodo and there is also a base DOI for the project as a whole, which will always redirect to the latest current release: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11195871

If you prefer manual citation, then please use the following citation example (APA style):

Belli, A., Küster, J., Matayeva, L., Hohmann, F., Sinner, P., Krüger, G., Wolf, K., & Hepp, A. (2025). OpenQDA (1.0.0). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14772936

Third-Party Citation

The "aTrain" plugin for transcription is developed and licensed by Armin Haberl, Jürgen Fleiß, Dominik Kowald, Stefan Thalmann and is published under

Haberl, A., Fleiß, J., Kowald, D., Thalmann, S., 2023. “Take the aTrain. Introducing an Interface for the Accesible Transcription of Interviews.”, University of Graz, School of Business, Economics and Social Sciences Working Paper 2023-02.

Please note, that if you use the auto-transcription feature in OpenQDA then you must cite their work in your publication under certain conditions. Please read their license for this.

Roadmap

We are constantly updating our development roadmap in regard to the upcoming releases.

Development

If you have reached this section, chances are high your either want one of the following:

• run OpenQDA on your own infrastructure
• understand OpenQDA or hack a local version of OpenQAD
• improve OpenQDA
• learn research software engineering with OpenQDA as an example project

Developer Documentation and Guides

We provide a hosted developer documentation via https://openqda.github.io/openqda/ Note, the (markdown) files are also located in within the /docs folder.

API Docs

In addition to the development guides above, we also provide API docs:

• client api docs
• backend api docs (coming soon!)

Licenses

Software

OpenQDA is a sustainable, free/libre Open Source Software for collaborative qualitative research. Copyright (C) 2024 ZeMKI, Universität Bremen

The core software of this project is released under the APGL-3.0 license, which you can read in our license file.

Media Files

The OpenQDA logo and images are created by Florian Hohmann and are licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, which you can read in our media license file.

Plugins

Plugins (which includes services) may be distributed under a different license. Please see their own license files in their respective directories