Integrating Data Donations in Online Surveys

Abstract

Data donations represent a user-centered approach to data collection where researchers ask EU participants to exercise their right of access (GDPR) vis-à-vis intermediaries and to donate the digital trace data they receive to academic research. These data donations are often combined with survey data to gain deeper insights into the questions under investigation. Although initially promising, this process is complex for respondents and involves serious methodological, ethical, and legal challenges for researchers. A series of recently developed software solutions facilitate and streamline data donation studies. However, these stand-alone systems work separately from survey software. As a result, respondents typically face two platforms, one for the survey and one for the data donation. To facilitate their combination, we integrated two existing software solutions for online surveys (SoSci Survey) and data donations (OSD2F). We present our integrated solution and report on experiences with the approach from two exemplary studies.