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.