Metadata for Social Media and Web Tracking Data

At GESIS, we plan to collect more digital behavioral data, e.g. social media data and web tracking data. Data sources are currently X/Twitter and tracking data collected by GESIS. The GESIS Web Tracking software works via a browser plugin on desktop devices. To document these data sources for archiving, additional new information is needed beyond the usual survey metadata. Challenges are the different sources, types of data collection methods, and new data preparation and selection procedures. Another challenge is the sensitive character of some of the collected data that needs some preprocessing before it can be shared. Further consideration needs to be given to legal aspects of data collection and data sharing. The presentation will report the proposals to capture existing and additional types of information for these new social science datasets and what an implementation could look like. We use Colectica as a tool for documentation and will highlight possible usages and extensions of the current DDI-Lifecycle standard for the purpose of documenting social media and web tracking data.