Data Donation

Software Service

This software service enables you to configure an online data donation study and make it available for respondents to donate their digital trace data in a privacy-preserving manner. The data donation workflow can be easily published on the Next platform. This software service is also known under the name Port.

Features

• The following pages are optional:
  • About page to inform respondents about your study
  • Consent page for informed consent
  • Helpdesk page‍
  • Privacy statement (pdf file upload)
• When the above pages are added, these are all visible for participants when clicking the "i" at the bottom corner. The about and consent pages are part of the onboarding of respondents and will also be shown before respondents enter the data donation workflow.
• Choose the language for your respondents:
  • English
  • Dutch
  • German
  • Italian
  • Spanish
• Add custom branding to your data donation workflow, by changing the header image and adding a logo, title and subtitle.
• Add as many tasks to your data donation workflow as you want in any order you like, the following tasks are available:
  • PDF manual: upload a pdf manual for your respondents on how to request or download the digital trace data.
  • Step-wise manual (mobile friendly): Create a step-wise mobile friendly manual with participant instructions on how to request or download the digital trace data.
  • Donate: workflow to donate the data in a privacy-preserving manner. Here you can upload the data donation flow application created with feldspar.‍
  • Questionnaire: link to a Qualtrics questionnaire with a round-trip back to the Next platform.
• Get a link to the online data donation workflow and add a custom Participant ID that can be forwarded to your Qualtrics questionnaire and is used in the filename of the donated data.
• Easily access, export and remove the donated data in your project data card
• Monitor how many respondents have donated data and export a per respondent progress report

All features can be configured in the content management system (CMS) on the Next platform.

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What can we do for you?

• Publish a data donation study on the Next platform: By creating an account on the Next platform, you can easily configure your data donation study in the Next platform CMS and publish it on our high-availability environment by simply clicking publish, after this it will be readily available for your participants. We take care of the availability and security.
• Support with developing the data donation flow application script: A custom data extraction script needs to be developed to extract the data from the digital trace data packages that is relevant for your research question. With this python script data can be extracted in a privacy preserving manner locally on your respondents device, after which only the data relevant for your research question can be donated. If you or anyone on your team do not have the skills to develop this script (see feldspar repository) we can develop the script for you. We can also review the script in case you would like to have a quality assurance check.
  
• Advise on how to set up a data donation study: If you are not sure how to set up a data donation study, you can check out the data donation website. Need some further advice? Contact us to see what we can do for you.
• Data donation study in the LISS panel: We closely collaborate with Centerdata for data donation studies in the LISS panel.

Use the service

Thank you for your interest in using the data donation software service on the Next platform!

Publishing a data donation workflow on the platform requires a payment. This contribution directly supports the sustainable development of the Next ecosystem—an open-source infrastructure for social science, humanities, and health research.

We offer:

• Data donation workflow hosting at a fixed rate
• Optional support packages through a credit-based system

Credits give you the flexibility to use support services when needed, such as:

• Technical support and onboarding
• Script reviews and consultations
• Custom script development and workflow setup

👉 Download our pricing information here.

Fair use policy

We want the data donation service to work well for everyone. This Fair Use Policy helps make sure the service is used responsibly, participant privacy is respected, and our shared infrastructure stays sustainable.
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👉 Read the Fair Use Policy here.

Ready to get started?

If you’d like to use the data donation service, just fill out our contact form. We’ll be happy to schedule a short call to discuss your needs and answer any questions.

Collaboration and Funding

The data donation software service was mostly developed in collaboration with:

• Laura Boeschoten and Daniel Oberski (Utrecht University)
• Theo Araujo and Niek de Schipper (University of Amsterdam)

With input from the broader D3i team. The development of this software service is mostly funded by the UU, PDI-SSH (D3i project), and Eyra. Additional features were added by users from Centerdata (LISS panel), Cambridge University and University of Mannheim among others. Next platform users support the continued availability of the software service. For more information about the D3i project, visit their data donation website.

Related literature

• Boeschoten, L., Mendrik, A., van der Veen, E., Vloothuis, J., Hu, H., Voorvaart, R., & Oberski, D. L. (2022). Privacy-preserving local analysis of digital trace data: A proof-of-concept. Patterns, 3(3).
• 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.
• Carriere, T. C., Boeschoten, L., Struminskaya, B., Janssen, H. L., de Schipper, N. C., & Araujo, T. Best practices for studies using digital data donation.
• Boeschoten, L., De Schipper, N.C., Mendrik, A.M., Van der Veen, E., Struminskaya, B., Janssen, H. and Araujo, T. (2023). Port: A software tool for digital data donation. Journal of Open Source Software, 8(90), 5596.