A summary of responses to a recent egroup request by Geoff Fitzgerald – many thanks to Geoff for preparing this
I think the initial premis of trying to find any new/leading edge Qual analysis software to help automate the coding is a distant aspiration.
This is still a painful process but there are providers out there that you can outsource to (QDA Services is one – Christina Silver, ICG member). They can also help you to establish the best analysis tool to use based on the task in hand.
I believe there are also is some basic automation available in tools like QDA Miner Lite (free) – https://provalisresearch.com/products/qualitative-data-analysis-software/freeware/, but I’m sure there are others.
Some people are using analysis spreadsheets but it’s clear that setting these up need some thinking through.
However, it is also clear that there are many more Qual analysis software tools out there than I originally thought. Some of these are more suitable for specific types of analysis. The CAQDAS Networking Project at the Uni of Surrey has reviews of lots of options: https://www.surrey.ac.uk/computer-assisted-qualitative-data-analysis/resources/choosing-appropriate-caqdas-package, courtesy of Christina. I think the review covers around 15 different software tools.
* ATLAS.ti review<https://www.surrey.ac.uk/sites/default/files/ATLAS-7_distinguishingfeaturesFINAL.pdf> (PDF)
* DEDOOSE review<https://www.surrey.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2020-08/dedoose-distinguishing-features-and-functions.pdf> (PDF)
* Delve review <https://www.surrey.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2020-04/delve-distinguishing-features-march-2020.pdf> (PDF)
* Digital replay system (DRS) review<https://www.surrey.ac.uk/sites/default/files/DRS_distinguishingfeatures.pdf> (PDF)
* DiscoverText review<https://www.surrey.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2019-12/discovertext-distinguishing-features.pdf> (PDF)
* f4Analyse review<https://www.surrey.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2018-09/f4analyse-review-august-2018.pdf> (PDF)
* HyperRESEARCH review<https://www.surrey.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2020-09/hyperresearch.pdf> (PDF)
* Leximancer review<https://www.surrey.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2020-12/cnp-leximancer-5-review.pdf> (PDF)
* MAXQDA review<https://www.surrey.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2019-12/maxqda-distinguishing-features.pdf> (PDF)
* MiMeG review<https://www.surrey.ac.uk/sites/default/files/MiMeG_distinguishingfeaturesFINAL.pdf> (PDF)
* NVivo review<https://www.surrey.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2018-10/nvivo-12-windows-distinguishing-features-august-2018.pdf> (PDF)
* Transana review<https://www.surrey.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2018-04/transana-distinguishing-features-october-2017.pdf> (PDF)
* QDA Miner review<https://www.surrey.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2020-11/qda-miner-distinguishing-features.pdf> (PDF)
* Quirkos review<https://www.surrey.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2019-05/quirkos-distinguishing-features-and-functions.pdf> (PDF)
* webQDA review<https://www.surrey.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2018-09/webqda-review-august-2018.pdf> (PDF)
Other, specific tools mentioned by ICG members include (in no particular order other than alphabetic):
* Condensio,
* Considrly (“most impressive”)
* Delve (“it doesn’t do the coding for you (as in full automation) it’s quick and easy to set up your code frame. Much easier to use than Nvivo, which I used for many years”)
* “Kapiche”
* NVivo (“Potentially you can use nVivo as well, which is much more powerful, but it fries my brain every time I try and set it up!”)
* Quirkos (“I have used Quirkos…”) – and I do personally – Daniel at Quirkos is very helpful.
* The Coding Tool from Chattering Monkey – “It is supposedly AI powered – but while it produced a few extra insights, it was still quite complex to implement. It is available on a monthly subscription and is SaaS based. It was developed originally to automate coding of open ends, and the team is UK based. It might be worth looking at” https://www.chatteringmonkey.co.uk/the-coding-tool
* “wordnerds (coding a range of things including social media comment, and verbatim responses to open-ended Qs in an otherwise quant survey)” https://www.wordnerds.ai/
Another info source would be Mike Steven’s Insight Platforms; I think there are various webinars running on topics like this.