Testing Real-World Qualitative Data Interoperability: Refi-Qda At 7

The REFI-QDA standard launched in 2019, promising a solution to a major challenge of qualitative data archiving and sharing - the lack of interoperability between qualitative data analysis software (QDAS) project formats. In theory, REFI-QDA's custom XML schema allows export of data from any of at least 10 QDAS such that many of the most common qualitative project elements (such as documents, codes, cases, and code applications) can be readily imported into any other participating QDAS. In reality, implementation is uneven, with some packages only supporting limited subsets of features or interacting with data exported from other specific packages in ways that can destroy the practical utility of ostensibly supported features. In this paper, we create maximally similar projects in each QDAS which claims to have at least partially implemented the REFI-QDA standard. Each project will include all major features supported in both the REFI-QDA schema and the given QDAS. Once created, each project will be exported to REFI-QDA and subsequently imported to each other QDAS. We document overall interoperability and any complications or quirks of transfer, including changes to project structure or display, for each combination of tools and each feature, presenting findings in both prose and tables. Additionally, the paper will include recommendation, based on the experiment, for QDAS users, QDAS developers, and data curators to maximize interoperability. All data used in the project will be archived at the Qualitative Data Repository (QDR).