The purpose of the REFI-QDA (Qualitative Data Analysis) standard is to enable the exchange of qualitative data between QDA programs. The standard has been developed by QDA software companies ATLAS.TI, Dedoose, f4 analysis, MAXQDA, NVivo, QDAMiner, Quirkos and Transana. The standard consists of two parts:

• REFI-QDA Codebook, for exchanging codebooks.
• REFI-QDA Project for the exchange of information about projects.

The specifications of the REFI-QDA standard are openly available and the format is based on XML. See: https://www.qdasoftware.org.

The REFI-QDA (Qualitative Data Analysis) standard is a preferred format for file type Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis (CAQDAS).