Metadata for digital behavioral data: the case of Web Tracking and Social Media data

Abstract Metadata plays a crucial role to make research data easily findable and reusable in the future. GESIS-Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences supports researchers throughout the research data lifecycle, spanning from study design over data collection to data archiving. With the current metadata infrastructure, GESIS effectively supports the archival of research data majorly coming from surveys by using the DDI metadata standard and applying the software Colectica Designer. However, the growing interest of researchers in new sources of social science data led to a new category of data, called Digital Behavioral Data (DBD). DBD includes all behavioral information traces produced through individuals’ interactions, activities, and engagements within the digital environment. Web Tracking and Social Media data currently are the two major categories of DBD at GESIS. To include DBD along with survey data, metadata for DBD needs to be integrated in the current metadata workflow at GESIS. This work includes the proposed metadata fields for DBD, how they could be used with the software Colectica Designer, and how the resulting Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) elements would be represented in the standard. This paper presents our contribution towards better metadata for DBD, ensuring well-documented research data, which in turn provides better findability and reusability of DBD across researchers. We see this as a basis for both researchers and other social science infrastructures to work with DBD and effectively document it through the suggested metadata fields and using their implementation via Colectica Designer.