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New forms of data

Social scientists are increasingly drawing on new forms of data beyond the traditional genres of surveys and interviews. These data include administrative records, commercial transactions, social media and internet data, geo-spatial data, and image and audio data. These types of new data present challenges for technical infrastructure, legal governance, and ethically responsible research and digital preservation.

Researchers at GESIS are investigating several vital topics in this domain:

  1. linking digital behavioral data (e.g., social media) with survey data
  2. digital preservation of social media data to enable access while protecting privacy
  3. georeferencing surveys to link them to small-scale neighborhood information found in geo-spatial data

Learn more about our consulting and services:

  • Strotmann, Andreas, and Arnim Bleier. 2013. "Author name co-mention analysis: testing a poor man's author co-citation analysis method." 14th International Society of Scientometrics and Informetrics Conference.
  • Rahlf, Thomas, and Katrin Weller. 2013. "Visualisierung großer Datenmengen in sozialen Medien." Soziale Medien - Gegenstand und Instrument der Forschung. 10. Wissenschaftliche Tagung gemeinsam mit dem Arbeitskreis Deutscher Markt- und Sozialforschungsinstitute e. V. (ADM) und der Arbeitsgemeinschaft Sozialwissenschaftlicher Institute e. V. (ASI).
  • Lietz, Haiko. 2013. "Diagnose von Emerging Science: Die Fälle "New Science of Networks" und Szientometrie." In Wissen - Wissenschaft - Organisation, edited by Heinz-Peter Ohly, Fortschritte der Wissensorganisation 12, 357-371. Würzburg: Ergon. http://www.haikolietz.de/docs/emergingscience.pdf.
  • Weller, Katrin, and Isabella Peters. 2012. "Citations in Web 2.0." In Science and the Internet, edited by Alexander Tokar, Michael Beurskens, Susanne Keuneke, Merja Mahrt, Isabella Peters, Cornelius Puschmann, Timo van Treeck, and Katrin Weller, 209-222. Düsseldorf: Düsseldorf University Press. http://www.uni-duesseldorf.de/home/fileadmin/redaktion/DUP/PDF-Dateien_/Open_Access/Science_and_the_Internet_OA.pdf.
  • Thelwall, Mike, Kayvan Kousha, Katrin Weller, and Cornelius Puschmann. 2012. "Assessing the Impact of Online Academic Videos." In Social Information Research, edited by Gunilla Widén, and Kim Holmberg, Library and Information Science, 195-213. Emerald Publishing. doi: https://doi.org/ 10.1108/S1876-0562(2012)0000005011.