Draft:QDAcity

QDAcity is a web application for qualitative research developed by a group of scientists at University of Erlangen–Nuremberg (FAU). Its mission is to empower students and researchers by facilitating qualitative data analysis processes, thereby enhancing productivity and proficiency within their fields of study, and development of method competency through teaching.

Description and features
QDAcity is a cloud based web application for qualitative data analysis with a particular focus on interview analysis and collaborative QDA.

Users can code text data and PDFs concurrently, and it offers an assisted interview transcription feature.

QDAcity is also used in teaching of qualitative data analysis

QDAcity offers cross-platform compatibility, ensuring seamless utilization across various operating systems. This caters to the diverse needs of users, irrespective of their preferred operating system. Whether on Windows, macOS, Linux, or any other platform, QDAcity has a unified experience, fostering convenience and accessibility for individuals navigating across different systems. This adaptability underscores the commitment to inclusivity and user-centric design, enhancing the accessibility and usability for a broad spectrum of users.

Functionality
QDA for students: QDAcity is a tool for qualitative data analysis, particularly for students completing their final thesis. With QDAcity, users can efficiently code their data and collaborate with each other and their supervisor. QDAcity offers a user-friendly interface tailored for beginners, emphasizing essential features without unnecessary complexity.

QDA for research groups: QDAcity facilitates rigorous analysis of scientific data, providing a professional and intuitive user experience. The platform offers extensive collaboration features, allowing seamless teamwork among researchers. Users can create and manage user groups, enabling concurrent collaborative coding of the same dataset. Additionally, QDAcity provides metrics for assessing Intercoder Agreement, ensuring accuracy and consistency among coders.

QDA for marketing: Market research shares similarities with qualitative theory-building research. Whether it's understanding brand perception, evaluating strategies, or testing new products, QDAcity offers a solution for analyzing data with enhanced methodological rigor, improved documentation, and ultimately, more dependable results.

Teaching QDA: Teaching QDA to students can be challenging due to its complexity, often resulting in limited course capacities and difficulty integrating it into degree programs. QDAcity addresses these challenges by enabling the instruction of larger student cohorts simultaneously, while also streamlining grading processes through automation.

History
Development on QDAcity started in 2016 during a research project at the Professorship for Open-Source Software at University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, on the application of qualitative data analysis for requirements engineering in the software development process.

In 2019-2020 a team started forming at the research group developing the software, whose goal it was to start building a product out of the existing work.

The latest milestone in its journey was marked by the release of the product on 2024-04-05. This event reflects its dedication to continuous improvement and innovation, enabling real time collaboration.