Hi all,
I'm a social psychologist, planning a study on how people navigate social networking websites. As such, I need to build a networking site, have people access and navigate it, and then see all of their activity. For those concerned about ethics, the fact that their activity will be public is going to be totally disclosed to the participants before the start of the study.
I'm looking for advice on whether elgg is an appropriate platform for such a site. The important criterion is that I have access to all of the data afterwards, with the exception of such private data as passwords. But I need to be able to see the emails sent within the site, for instance. I also want to incorporate surveys into the site, and need to have access to all responses to those surveys. In particular, what's important is that I have access to individual user data/activity, not just aggregate data--I don't care about how often, in general, a link is accessed, but rather I care about whether a particular user accesses that link.
I am planning to host my site using A2 hosting, who have assured me that whatever data elgg makes available, I will have access to as well.
Can someone let me know whether elgg is an appropriate platform, given my needs? Thanks so so much in advance--I really know very little about computing, and appreciate any help you can give.
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- Matt Beckett@Beck24
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- Social Psychologist@social.psychology
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- Matt Beckett@Beck24
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- Social Psychologist@social.psychology
Social Psychologist - 0 likes
You must log in to post replies.Yes Elgg can definitely do that. As an administrator you're not bound by the access controls that are enforced on users, so you can see private entities such as private internal messages if necessary. Not everything you mentioned is available out of the box but can definitely be done. I have a plugin called AU_Analytics which may be a good start - it can track individual pageviews both in aggregate and by individuals.
Most likely though, for a study, you'll want to hire someone to make sure your system will track and make available all of the information you require.
Hi Matt,
Thanks for the feedback--that was really helpful. It's mostly
Unfortunately, I don't have money to hire someone so I'm on my own on this one. Do you (or anyone else reading) happen to know of any guide/listing of all the data available via elgg? I'm happy to wade through a long, unnecessarily detailed document, if it exists. Thanks in advance!
I'm not sure such a detailed list exists, the real answer is *everything* - all data is/can be available. It's just a matter of teasing into a useful view/format.
Good to know. Thanks.