IS&T’s Educational Technology, Training and Outreach team explored several options for a campus-wide solution to support qualitative data analysis. Between ETTO and the Teaching and Learning Governance Committee, a decision was made to purchase nVivo because of its strong local customer support, robust feature set, large current BU user base and the promised availability of an upcoming native Mac version.  A more detailed comparison of the leading QDA software packages is provided below.

	NVivo	Atlas.ti	HyperRESEARCH	Dedoose	C.A.T.
Software location	Desktop, future web	Desktop	Desktop	Web	Web
Business model	Paid	Paid	Paid	Paid	Open source
Customer support availability	High	Low	High	Medium	Low to none
Estimated size of current BU user base (from survey)	Large	Large	Medium	Small	None
Windows	√	√	√	√	√
Mac	On roadmap		Reduced functionality	√	√
Linux				√	√
Documentation quality	Fair	Good	Good	Poor	Poor
UI intuitiveness	Fair	Good	Excellent	Fair	Poor
Unicode aware (for foreign languages)	√	√		√	√
Add files to data set in bulk	√	√		√
Type data directly into application	√	√	√	√
Free trial	30 days	Limited function	Limited function	30 days	N/A (open source)
Include videos inline	√	√		Granular access control, per user/per object
Incorporates spreadsheets of responses	√
In-depth text queries (e.g. word tree)	√
Auto-coding	Robust	√	√
Network View		√
Theory Builder			√
Slow down videos for transcribing	√
Import from Word	√	√	√	√
Import from Excel	√	√	With plugin	√
Import from CSV	√	√	With plugin	√
Import from EndNote	√
Import from HTML			√	√	√
Import from NVivo	NA		With plugin	√
Import from Atlas.ti	√	NA	With plugin	√	√
Export to Word	√			√
Export to Excel	√	√		√
Export to EndNote			√
Export to HTML	√	√			√
Export to CSV	√		√
Export to PDF	√	√
Export to NVivo	N/A	√		√
Export to Atlas.ti		N/A		√	√
(Former name)	NUD*IST			EthnoNotes
Weaknesses not listed above			Cannot select multiple files to bulk add	– First login experience was a bug. – Bugs seriously hamper the experience (eg have to reopen window after upload)