Most qualitative researchers never think about file formats until they’re forced to — a collaborator uses different software, a university licenses a new tool, or a journal’s data-sharing policy requires a format the original software doesn’t export. REFI-QDA exists specifically for that moment: an open standard for exchanging qualitative project data between different QDA programs, so a coded project isn’t permanently locked inside the software it was built in.
What the standard actually does
REFI-QDA defines a shared, open format for the core pieces of a qualitative project — documents, codes, coded segments, and the relationships between them — so that a project built in one QDA program can, provided both programs implement the standard, be opened in another without starting the coding over from scratch (Evers, Caprioli, Nöst, & Wiedemann, 2020). The point isn’t to make every QDA tool identical; it’s to stop the coding work itself — the actual analytical labor — from being trapped behind one vendor’s file format.
What’s actually been tested
An evaluation run at the Lorentz Center tested the standard across four separate research projects using real empirical data, with researchers transferring previously coded projects between different QDA software packages (Evers et al., 2020). The transfers worked — participating researchers successfully moved already-coded data from one package to another — but the evaluation was also candid that cross-software transfer isn’t entirely frictionless: implementations still have to account for practical differences in how each program models and displays the same underlying data (Evers et al., 2020).
That’s a useful, honest finding: REFI-QDA solves the core problem — your coded data isn’t permanently welded to one piece of software — without pretending every detail of every project will look pixel-identical after a transfer.
Why this matters even if you never switch tools
Portability isn’t only useful when you’re actively leaving a piece of software. It matters for:
- Collaboration — a co-author or team member using different software can still work with your coded project.
- Longevity — a project coded five years ago should still be openable, even if the original software has changed or been discontinued.
- Data-sharing requirements — some journals and funders now expect qualitative data to be archivable in a non-proprietary format, not locked inside one application.
- Leverage — knowing your work isn’t hostage to one vendor is simply a healthier position to be in as a researcher, independent of whether you ever act on it.
What to check before you rely on it
Support for REFI-QDA import/export varies by software and by version, and — per the Lorentz Center evaluation — even standard-compliant transfers can require some project-specific adjustment on the other side (Evers et al., 2020). Before assuming a project will transfer cleanly, it’s worth doing a small test export/import early in a project rather than discovering a gap only when you actually need to move it.
Portability in Byleron QDA: your project’s codes, coded segments, and documents export in the REFI-QDA format, so the analysis you build here is never something you can only use inside Byleron QDA.
References
- Evers, J., Caprioli, M., Nöst, S., & Wiedemann, G. (2020). What is the REFI-QDA Standard: Experimenting With the Transfer of Analyzed Research Projects Between QDA Software. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 21(2). https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-21.2.3439