Research Infrastructure for Data from Large Online Platforms (RIDLOP)

GESIS has proposed a concept for a new Research Infrastructure for Data from Large Online Platforms (RIDLOP). The proposal has been submitted for review as part of the call for large research infrastructures for the national prioritization process of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

Today, large online platforms (LOPs) exist for various domains and purposes, attracting billions of users every day. Despite the central role of LOPs in contemporary human life, academic knowledge of their societal, economic, political, and cultural impact remains limited. The two challenges are 1) a lack of access to online platform data for academic research, and 2) a lack of transparency and quality of the datasets that are available for academic research. To establish reliable and quality-assured access to online platform data, RIDLOP aims to enable direct access, provide and archive online platform data. Academic users shall be able to access, assess the quality of and directly analyze online platform data relevant to their research. Realizing this vision requires a large infrastructure project that is unique within the German and European academic landscape.

In case of approved funding, RIDLOP will enable new opportunities for a wide range of research on the role of Large Online Platforms (LOPs) such as social media platforms or search engines. RIDLOP’s data portfolio relies on three different ways of acquiring data: 1) data provided by the platform providers themselves, 2) data donations provided by platform users for scientific purposes, and 3) data collected and provided by researchers. RIDLOP includes a scalable computing infrastructure that contains a data lake for data storage, archiving and retrieval as well as a virtual secure enclave for data provision and remote analysis.

The concept to develop RIDLOP is supported by national and international academic institutions working in the areas of research infrastructure and digitalization research.

Related activities at GESIS

GESIS has expertise in working with digital behavioral data, including those collected from large online platforms. GESIS is engaging in different activities in the context of the EU’s Digital Services Act, with GESIS’ members participating in different national and international working groups to discuss aspects of data access and data quality. We have submitted a response to the draft Delegated Regulation on data access provided for in the Digital Services Act.

Contact

For questions and potential collaborations please contact Katrin Weller and Sebastian Stier.