What do people do online?

Using data donation to understand digital behavior.

image of smartphone

Source: Image by Adem Ay via Unsplash

About the workshop

  • 💻 Workshop as part of the SPP Annual Meeting

  • 📅 22nd October 2025

  • 📍 LIfBi Bamberg

  • Workshop led by Frieder Rodewald (University of Mannheim & Institute for Employment Research) - frieder-rodewald.de - and Sebastian Prechsl (Institute for Employment Research & LMU Munich) - iab.de

  • Part of the DFG project “Integrating Data Donations in Survey Infrastructure” (see project website)

  • Based on a workshop at the CompText 2025 in Vienna (with Valerie Hase)

Overview

⏰ Part 1 What is digital trace data?
⏰ Part 2 What is data donation? - The participant’s perspective.
⏰ Part 3 What is data donation? - The researcher’s perspective.

Workshop materials

Part 1️⃣: What is digital trace data?

Part 2️⃣: What is data donation? - The participant’s perspective.

Part 3️⃣: What is data donation? - The researcher’s perspective.

All parts combined:

Further tutorials

  1. Bail, C. A. (2020). What is digital trace data? Link
  1. Jaursch, J., & Lorenz-Spleen, P.(2024). Researcher access to platform data under the DSA: Questions and answers. Link
  1. Kohne, J. (2025). Data donation with WhatsR. Link

Further literature

  1. Boeschoten, L., Ausloos, J., Möller, J. E., Araujo, T., & Oberski, D. L. (2022). A framework for privacy preserving digital trace data collection through data donation. Computational Communication Research, 4(2), 388–423. Link
  1. Carrière, T.C., Boeschoten, L., Struminskaya, B. et al. Best practices for studies using digital data donation. Quality & Quantity, 59, 389-–412 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-024-01983-x
  1. Haim, M., Leiner, D., & Hase, V. (2023). Integrating Data Donations into Online Surveys. Medien & Kommunikationswissenschaft, 71(1–2), 130–137. Link
  1. Keusch, F., & Kreuter, F. (2021). Digital trace data. In U. Engel, A. Quan-Haase, S. X. Liu, & L. Lyberg, Handbook of Computational Social Science, Volume 1 (1st Edition, p. 100–118). Routledge. Link
  1. Keusch, F., Pankowska, P. K., Cernat, A., & Bach, R. L. (2024). Do you have two minutes to talk about your data? Willingness to participate and nonparticipation bias in Facebook data donation. Field Methods, 36(4), 279-293. Link
  1. Lazer, D., Hargittai, E., Freelon, D., Gonzalez-Bailon, S., Munger, K., Ognyanova, K., & Radford, J. (2021). Meaningful measures of human society in the twenty-first century. Nature, 595(7866), 189–196. Link
  1. Stier, S., Breuer, J., Siegers, P., & Thorson, K. (2020). Integrating Survey Data and Digital Trace Data: Key Issues in Developing an Emerging Field. Social Science Computer Review, 38(5), 503–516. Link