Visualizing QualCoder code networks with R using a GUI (rk.network.graphs)

[AlfCano]

Hi everyone,

First of all, thank you to the developers and contributors for maintaining such an amazing open-source tool for qualitative research. As a social researcher, I deeply value open science and accessible QDA software.

I just wanted to share rk.network.graphs, a graphical user interface (GUI) plugin for RKWard (an easy-to-use IDE for R).
📦 You can check it out here:

https://alfcano.r-universe.dev/rk.network.graphs

and here:

https://github.com/AlfCano/rk.network.graphs

While QualCoder does a fantastic job organizing and coding the data, you can export your code matrices or edge lists (as CSVs) and bring them into R for statistical and visual network analysis. From a co-currence matrix or the default query: "GET_CODING_TABLE" .

This plugin provides a simple, point-and-click interface inside RKWard to generate these network graphs directly from your datasets—no R programming skills required.

Potential Workflow:

1. Code your text/audio/video in QualCoder.
2. Export your reports/matrices (e.g., co-coccurrences).
3. Import the data into RKWard.
4. Use the rk.network.graphs GUI to easily plot,
5. Export it to GEXF for Gephi visualization.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this workflow. Also, if anyone has ideas on how to standardize QualCoder's CSV exports to make them instantly readable by this RKWard plugin, I am completely open to collaborating to make the bridge between both tools as seamless as possible.

Thank you for your time, and keep up the great work with QualCoder!

Best regards,

Alfonso

Creating an igraph object:

Selecting aesthetics:

Assigning the network to the workspace:

Exporting to GEXF:

[Salomon-Mazatlan]

Hi @AlfCano

Very interesting, I wasn't aware of this plugin, thanks for sharing it.

I wanted to mention that QualCoder already has some network analysis features built into the Co-occurrence Report that may complement your workflow. From there it's currently possible to:
-Generate a co-occurrence graph (codes as nodes, co-occurrence counts as edge weights).
-Generate a community cluster graph using the Louvain algorithm (with greedy modularity as fallback), which groups densely connected codes into communities.
-Export both as high-resolution PNG images.
-Export the network directly to GraphML (.graphml), ready to open in Gephi.

Internally this uses NetworkX for graph construction and community detection, and Matplotlib for the static rendering.

The GraphML export might actually be a useful entry point for your plugin, since igraph in R can read it natively with read_graph(file, format = "graphml"), that could bypass the need to standardize CSVs, at least for the network analysis side.

I haven't explored other export matrix formats yet, but I'd be happy to test the bridge between QualCoder's GraphML output and your plugin if that's useful.

Thanks again for the contribution, this kind of interoperability between QDA and statistical tools is exactly what the open-science ecosystem needs.

Best,
Lorenzo Salomón

[AlfCano]

Thank you!!
Can you point me to how to find those features?

I don't see them in my version:

I have QualCoder 3.8.2 installed.

[qwertygc]

It's for the next version (4.0), not release yet.

[ccbogel]

If you are on Windows, and have a recent version of python installed, you can follow the instructions on the main page to install the most current code.
https://github.com/ccbogel/QualCoder

[AlfCano]

I am on KDE Neon, I'll see how it goes,...
Many thanks!

[Salomon-Mazatlan]

Saludos, @AlfCano
He estado revisando la presentación alojada en tu sitio de Google (Recursos de RKWard) sobre análisis mixto con QualCoder y Gephi. Me ha parecido un material bastante completo y enriquecedor.

He tomado algunas notas con la idea de proponer, más adelante, nuevas funcionalidades relacionadas con la exportación de informes compatibles con Gephi, especialmente a partir de la Coding Table.

[AlfCano]

Hola. Gracias por darte el tiempo de compartir lo que estás haciendo. Creo que hay mucho potencial en aprovechar la funcionalidad de GET CODING TABLE, sobre todo porque aporta profundidad al pasar de sólo del conteo de las coocurrencias al grado de las incidencias. Gracias nuevamente por tu tiempo y disposición. Saludos Alfonso El jue, 21 de may. de 2026 3:01 a. m., Salomon-Mazatlan < ***@***.***> escribió:

…

Saludos, @AlfCano <https://github.com/AlfCano> He estado revisando la presentación alojada en tu sitio de Google (Recursos de RKWard <https://sites.google.com/viep.com.mx/recusosderkward/p%C3%A1gina-principal>) sobre análisis mixto con QualCoder y Gephi. Me ha parecido un material bastante completo y enriquecedor. He tomado algunas notas con la idea de proponer, más adelante, nuevas funcionalidades relacionadas con la exportación de informes compatibles con Gephi, especialmente a partir de la Coding Table. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#1276 (reply in thread)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AMEHRQKH3GPOK4LRZDI4TMD433AU7AVCNFSM6AAAAACY6Z5ULWVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43URDJONRXK43TNFXW4Q3PNVWWK3TUHMYTOMBQGE4TOOA> . Triage notifications on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS <https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1477376905?ct=notification-email&mt=8&pt=524675> or Android <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.github.android&referrer=utm_campaign%3Dnotification-email%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dgithub>. You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***>