How can we maximise informed consent to link survey and digital trace data (DTD)?
> Understanding (Offline/Online) Society: Linking Survey and Digital Trace Data
Summary
A key step in linking survey and digital trace data (DTD) is receiving informed consent from participants to do so and enabling them to provide that access. If rates of consent or data provision are low, the risk of bias in the sample can increase and the quality of the research can be undermined. It can also reduce the amount of data available for analysis or increase costs, as more effort is required to reach sufficient sample sizes for robust analysis. It is also important to ensure that any decision is appropriately informed - for ethical and, potentially legal reasons.
Consulting the public can be a key step in ensuring that protocols developed for research are effective and ethical. By doing so we can understand the concerns of the people whose data are being processed, not just reflecting the assumptions of the researcher, and address them. As part of this work strand, we have conducted studies to establish consent rates, conducted experiments to measure the effectiveness of different approaches to improving them, and conducted analysis of the biases that non-consent introduces.
Outputs
2024
Presentation: How can we maximise informed consent to link survey and digital trace data (DTD)? (Slides 1) (Slides 2) (Video)
2023
Presentation: Linking survey and social media data: Experiences and Evidence.
Presentation: Consent to link survey and Twitter data in panel surveys - experimental evidence
Presentation: Is consent to link survey and Twitter data associated with reported Twitter behaviour?
2022
Paper: Understanding Society Innovation Panel Wave 14: Results from methodological experiments
Book chapter: Linking Twitter and Survey Data: Gaining Consent, Making the Link, and Maintaining Data Security
Presentation: Linking Twitter & Survey Data: Improving measurement of both data sources (pdf)
2021
Paper: Linking Twitter and survey data: Asymmetry in quantity and its impact
Paper: Views on social media and its linkage to longitudinal data from two generations of a UK cohort study
Presentation: Public attitudes to linking survey and Twitter data
Presentation: Public attitudes to linking survey and Twitter data
2020
Paper: Linking survey and twitter data: Informed consent, disclosure, security, and archiving
Paper: Methodological Briefing: Linking Survey and Social Media Data
2018
Paper: Understanding Society Innovation Panel Wave 10: Results from methodological experiments
2017
Book chapter: Users' view's of ethics in social media research: informed consent, anonymity and harm