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GESIS Guides to Digital Behavioral Data (forthcoming)

GESIS Guides to Digital Behavioral Data (GESIS DBD Guides) are a service in development that will offer expertise and structured overviews on digital behavioral data and the computational methods needed for successfully working with these data. The areas covered are the collection and acquisition of digital behavioral data, the pre-processing and analysis of digital behavioral data, data quality and documentation of digital behavioral data. Guide formats are conceived to be modular and range from short checklists to more comprehensive introductions and overviews.

The DBD Guides will add up to a knowlegde box that is open for use to researchers from all disciplines and do not require deep technical skills. However, they can contain lines of code and outlink to datasets for training or executable notebooks.

Our first guides will be available by the end of 2023. They will be complemented by more technical and in-depth method tutorials via our new Methods Hub in 2024 and are part of our broader efforts in computational social science capacity building.

For a start, we envisage these formats:

What is …                                

Introduction on the "What" (and the "Why") of a topic or method.
You are guided to an area of applied research in CSS or DBD.

How to …

Hands-on practical advise on specific DBD related tasks.
You are guided through a task or process.

Overview of …

Comparative account of tools or methods for a specific task.
You are guided to decide what serves your specific requirements.

Checklist for …

A list for a specific task, a tool, or challenge in DBD research.
You are guided to check your work and facilitate reproducibility.               

Expert Insights into …

An expert interview on new DBD research and data science methods.
You are guided to a current issue in the field.

 

The first guides will be available by the end of 2023.
Upcoming topics:

Overview on Generative Language Models  |  Overview on Approaches for Data Collection from Online Platforms 
How to Collect Data with the YouTube API  |  How to Collect Data from Online Platforms
Checklist for Documenting Digital Behavioral Data  |  Checklist for Reproducibility
Expert Insights into Concepts of Network Analysis  |  Expert Insights into Collecting Data from Mobile Devices
… and more