Since January 2020, the COVID-19 crisis has affected everyday life around the world, and rigorous government lockdown restrictions have been implemented to prevent the further spread of the pandemic. The consequences of the corona crisis and the associated lockdown policies for public health, social life, and the economy are vast. In view of the rapidly changing situation during this crisis, policymakers require timely data and research results that allow for informed decisions. Addressing the requirement for adequate databases to assess people’s life and work situations during the pandemic, the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) developed the High-frequency Online Personal Panel (HOPP). The HOPP study started in May 2020 and is based on a random sample of individuals drawn from the administrative data of the Federal Employment Agency in Germany, containing information on all labour market participants except civil servants and self-employed. The main goal of the HOPP study is to assess the short-term as well as long-term changes in people’s social life and working situation in Germany due to the corona pandemic. To assess individual dynamics the HOPP collected data on a monthly (wave one to four) and bi-monthly (wave five to seven) basis. Furthermore, respondents were divided into four groups. The different groups of a new wave were invited to the survey at weekly intervals (wave two to four) or bi-weekly intervals (wave five to seven). This gives us the advantage of being able to provide weekly data while each participant only had to participate on a monthly or bi-monthly basis. In this article, we delineate the HOPP study in terms of its main goals and features, topics, and survey design. Furthermore, we provide a summary of results derived from HOPP and the future prospects of the study.

Zwischen August 2020 und Februar 2021 stieg die Zahl der Beschäftigten, die Homeoffice nutzen, vor allem aufgrund des Infektionsgeschehens von 25 auf 36 Prozent. In dieser Zeit nahmen auch die Vorbehalte von Arbeitgebern und Beschäftigten gegenüber Homeoffice deutlich ab. Allerdings eignet sich noch immer gut die Hälfte aller Tätigkeiten nicht für die Arbeit von zu Hause aus.

Within the survey context, a geofence can be defined as a geographical area that triggers a survey invitation when an individual enters the area, dwells in the area for a defined amount of time or exits the area. Geofences may be used to administer context-specific surveys, such as an evaluation survey of a shopping experience at a specific retail location. While geofencing is already used in other contexts (e.g., marketing and retail), this technology seems so far to be underutilized in survey research. We implemented a geofence survey in a smartphone data collection project and geofenced 410 job centers with the Google Geofence API. Overall, the app sent 230 geofence-triggered survey invitations to 107 participants and received 224 responses from 104 participants. This article provides an overview of our geofence survey, including our experiences analyzing the data. We highlight the limitations in our design and examine how those shortcomings affect the number of falsely triggered surveys. Subsequently, we formulate the lessons learned that will help researchers improve their own geofence studies.

The new European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) imposes enhanced requirements on digital data collection. This article reports from a 2018 German nationwide population-based probability app study in which participants were asked through a GDPR compliant consent process to share a series of digital trace data, including geolocation, accelerometer data, phone and text messaging logs, app usage, and access to their address books. With about 4,300 invitees and about 650 participants, we demonstrate (1) people were just as willing to share such extensive digital trace data as they were in studies with far more limited requests; (2) despite being provided more decision-related information, participants hardly differentiated between the different data requests made; and (3) once participants gave consent, they did not tend to revoke it. We also show (4) evidence for a widely-held belief that explanations regarding data collection and data usage are often not read carefully, at least not within the app itself, indicating the need for research and user experience improvement to adequately inform and protect participants. We close with suggestions to the field for creating a seal of approval from professional organizations to help the research community promote the safe use of data.