qdaPy

Analyse the qualitative coding that the Zotero plugins zotQDA and qdaZ export.

Primarily the analysis half of the zotQDA ecosystem — that is where the full range is available. It also reads REFI-QDA (.qdpx) projects, so a study kept in MAXQDA, ATLAS.ti, NVivo, QDA Miner or Dedoose can borrow the metrics those programs do not document: confidence intervals on every agreement coefficient, the kappa paradox diagnostics, the reliability of the segmentation itself, saturation as a reportable number, and sample-size planning. A .qdpx supports a subset, reported on import.

import qdapy

frag = qdapy.read_fragments("zotqda-fragments.csv")
qdapy.gg.frequencies(frag)      # plotnine
qdapy.sns.frequencies(frag)     # seaborn

The distribution and the import name are the same: PyPI normalises qdaPy to qdapy.

pip install qdaPy          # pandas, scipy, plotnine, seaborn
pip install "qdaPy[vega]"  # plus altair, to render the plugin's own charts

Full documentation, including a section for anyone wanting to extend the package: https://qdapy.zotqda.org/

What it does

Reads the exchange files and checks them. Every file zotQDA writes carries a stamp in its first column that says what kind of export it is and which version of the exchange format it uses. qdaPy compares that stamp against the contract file both sides ship (qdapy.contract()). A file that claims a newer version than this package knows stops with an error instead of being guessed at:

qdapy.read_fragments("zotqda-codebook.csv")
# ContractError: expected a 'fragments' export but got 'codebook'

Draws the plugin's figures in three ways, from one set of tables. The tables live in qdapy.frames; the backends only decide how they look.

All backends export the same set of functions — frequencies, code_matrix, timeline, saturation, mds, level_agreement, ca_map, and qdapy.sns adds a dendrogram. None of them calls plt.show(), so figures appear when your script says so, not whenever the library feels like it.

Recomputes the reliability figures independently. Percentage agreement, Cohen's and Fleiss' kappa, Brennan and Prediger's kappa, Krippendorff's alpha and Gwet's AC1, computed here in Python, from the exported file alone. The plugin computes the same coefficients in JavaScript and qdaR in R, so a figure that ends up in a methods section has been produced three times by three code bases that share nothing but the contract. The test suite checks this against frozen plugin results on randomly generated coder matrices.

u = qdapy.units(frag, uncoded=qdapy.read_uncoded("zotqda-uncoded.csv"))
qdapy.agreement.agreement(u)     # every measure side by side
qdapy.level_agreement(u)         # and where in the code system agreement is lost

Building that matrix involves two decisions, and qdaPy makes you take them consciously instead of deciding behind your back. First: when both coders left a segment uncoded, they agreed the segment was irrelevant, but the matrix only knows about those segments if you pass the uncoded export. Second: when a coder put several codes on one segment, there is no single value to compare, so the segment is set aside and counted in multi_set_aside. Quote that count next to the coefficient. A kappa that quietly dropped a tenth of the material is not the kappa of your study.

Adds the statistics the plugins leave out on purpose. qdaZ sticks to description and never runs a significance test, because a test invites claims that many qualitative designs cannot carry. If your design does support one, this is where you run it, and you pick it yourself:

Carries code identity through. Codes get renamed, moved and merged while a project matures. Every export therefore names each code twice: code holds the path a person reads, codeId a stable identifier that stays put through all of that.

qdapy.units(frag, value="codeId")   # follows a code across revisions

If your analysis groups by the path, a code vanishes from it as soon as somebody renames or moves that code in Zotero. Grouping by codeId survives such housekeeping.

Checking the package itself

python -m pytest                  # the suite
ruff check src tests scripts      # style, plus the C901 complexity gate
mypy                              # the package ships py.typed: expected clean

python scripts/quality_metrics.py --baseline quality-baseline.json

The last one is a trend instrument rather than a verdict. It records complexity, maintainability, docstring and coverage figures, and fails only when a gated number moves the wrong way against the committed baseline. Absolute thresholds make a poor gate: Nagappan, Ball and Zeller (2006) 10.1145/1134285.1134349 found no metric set that fits every project and recommend calibrating against a project's own history instead. uv sync --group quality installs the pinned tools it needs.

The R twin

qdaR is the same tool written for R. It reads the same files, computes the same coefficients and draws the same figures, over there with ggplot2. A shared set of frozen fixtures keeps both packages honest: every release gets checked against the plugin's results and against the other package. Two genuine bugs in the R code turned up exactly this way.

Licence

AGPL-3.0-or-later (LICENSE), the same terms as zotQDA, qdaZ and the R twin qdaR.

What you produce with qdaPy is yours. Figures, tables, coefficients, reports: the licence places no condition on any of it, by an additional permission under section 7 of the AGPL (LICENSE-EXCEPTION.md). Strictly speaking that changes nothing, a copyleft licence has never reached into a program's output — but a figure in a submitted manuscript is not the place for a licensing question, so it is written down.

Commercial use does not need a commercial licence. The AGPL does not forbid it. What it asks is that a modified version you distribute, or let others use over a network, comes with its source. That is the only condition, and it holds for everyone: qdaPy is not dual-licensed, and no proprietary exception is for sale.

Contributions are welcome and nothing has to be signed. There is no contributor licence agreement, because there is no second licence that would need one. You contribute under the AGPL and keep your copyright.