While Free and Open Source software for quantitative data analysis (such as Jamovi) are emerging as strong and reliable alternatives to proprietary software, and as qualitative and mixed methods research becomes more popular, I notice that some free and open source Computer-aided qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS) which were quite promising, are not being updated regularly or not being maintained anymore.
The fatigue of developers could be one reason. But this does not hold for quantitative ones, JASP and Jamovi for instance.
Given that the major proprietary CAQDAS are all prohibitively priced, this is a new hurdle for open science and knowledge freedom. Why would the enthusiasm seen with quantitative FOSS software be absent when it comes to CAQDAS?
Cases in point:
The latest version of RQDA (0.2-8) was released in 2016
Coding Analysis Toolkit (CAT) seems to be abandoned since 2014
Creating and maintaining any kind of software is expensive, so what you are likely to find in free qualitative software is basic "code and retrieve" functions. If that is all you need then, RQDA and QDA Miner Lite should serve your purposes.
One newer program you might look at is Taguette, and Quirkos costs only $50 a year on an annual basis (or $5 per month on a monthly basis)
RQDA is no longer maintained.
More than the availability of features, I was concerned about free CAQDAS not being as actively maintained as some FOSS quantitative packages (like Jamovi which continues to grow and expand)
Besides money, it is also about the team. Is the software maintained by 1-2 developers alone? Or is there someone reaching out to actively get the community onboard so that developement can be decentralized. This is what makes software projects long lasting in my experience. And JASP and jamovie managed this in different ways for almost 10 years now. While jamovi is run by 2 core devs, the community has easy access to get new modules in fast. And JASP has good funding to cycle through devs which are recruited mostly through a central lab at the Uni Amsterdam, while right now its developement gets more decentralized via a community of many universities that hopped on board via spending dev-hours or money
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Social Psychology
- Attitude