Tools for Science

We are developing (small) open source tools, one for each scientific research activity, all easily manageable and integratable through an AI agent.

The QDBench project

The scientific workflow consists of many steps, many of which can and should be supported by software tools. Putting them together is a laborious task fraught with risk. Tools may not work together, publicly funded tools might disappear for political reasons, commercial tools might simply get discontinued.

We are developing small research tools that together allow for complex individualized research workflows. All software tools are open source to ensure sovereignty of scientific research independent of the whims of politics and funding. All tools share a straightforward data model based on files and open standards. Individualized workflows are either created by hand or through the use of a supporting AI agent.

Example tools we are developing or want to develop are:

• QDRegister for tamper-proof and verifiable registration of planned research
• QDSaturate for assessing the code saturation of qualitative research work
• QDValidate for computing interrater reliability metrics on qualitative research work
• QDConvert for integrating proprietary formats from QDA tools in the research workflow

Many more are in planning. (We are just getting started.)

All tools are provided as open-source software on GitHub or a similar place. All projects are structured in the same or similar way:

• A core function library performing the desired work
• A command line tool suitable for using the function from the command line
• An MCP server for making the function available to AI support agents
• A web service for humans to access the function through a graphical user interface

Join us in creating the future of tool support for sovereign scientific work!