Data-Seeking Behaviour in the Social Sciences

Abstract: Purpose: Publishing research data for reuse has become good practice in recent years. However, not much is known on how researchers actually find said data. In this exploratory study, we observe the information-seeking behaviour of social scientists searching for research data to reveal impediments and identify opportunities for data search infrastructure. Methods: We asked 12 participants to search for research data and observed them in their natural environment. The sessions were recorded. Afterwards, we conducted semi-structured interviews to get a thorough understanding of their way of searching. From the recordings, we extracted the interaction behaviour of the participants and analysed the spoken words both during the search task and the interview by creating affinity diagrams. Results: We found that literature search is more closely intertwined with dataset search than previous literature suggests. Both the search itself and the relevance assessment are very complex, and man

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch
• Notes: Veröffentlichungsversion ; begutachtet (peer reviewed) ; In: International Journal on Digital Libraries (2021)

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Bibliotheks- und Informationswissenschaft

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (where): Mannheim
• (who): SSOAR, GESIS – Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften e.V.
• (when): 2021
• Creator: Krämer, Thomas ; Papenmeier, Andrea ; Carevic, Zeljko ; Kern, Dagmar ; Mathiak, Brigitte

Further information

• DOI: 10.1007/s00799-021-00303-0
• URN: urn:nbn:de:101:1-2022081607203122922595
• Rights: Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 25.03.2025, 1:55 PM CET