WebData Research Infrastructure

The project facilitates research on data from the internet. The data is collected from the National Library of Norway’s Web Archive, which has harvested the Norwegian part of the internet since the 1990s. When the project is completed in 2029, users of the infrastructure will be able to search, visualize, and extract historical internet data for research purposes.

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Main Objectives

During the project period (2025-29), we will:

  • build a research platform for searching, exploring, and retrieving data,
  • automatically classify and clean texts containing (sensitive) personal data
  • annotate data in order to provide analytical services (e.g. event extraction, sentiment analysis, analysis of language development)
  • develop the infrastructure in close collaboration with the research community through needs and representation studies
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Prerequistes

The Research Infrastructure follows key principles for research data and cultural heritage:

  • user-oriented development, where services and tools are designed to meet the needs of researchers
  • the FAIR principles, ensuring that research data is Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable.
  • the CARE principles for indigenous data.
  • providing as much data as possible to as many as possible, while respecting copyright and data protection legislation.
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Newsletter

Researchers and other interested parties can subscribe to our newsletter, issued 2–3 times a year. Receive updates on seminars and workshops, and follow the progress of the project. Maybe you end up becoming a test user?

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    What Researchers are Saying

    WebData is supported by leading scholars and institutions in Norway and abroad. Here are some of the supporting testimonials we received when developing the project.

    Scholarly access will open new and unforeseen opportunities for academic research in the Humanities and Social Sciences […] with possibilities to apply a multitude of digital methods
    DHKO

    DHKO

    Norwegian Network for Digital Humanities and Cultural Organisation

    WebData constitutes the stepping stone for a great and necessary leap forward for researchers, as well as the Norwegian society and culture at large
    Niels Brügger

    Niels Brügger

    Prof. Media Studies (Aarhus University)

    WebData will give our researchers the possibility of studying digitial storytelling on the web over time
    Jill Walker Rettberg

    Jill Walker Rettberg

    Prof. Digital Culture (University of Bergen)

    The development of WebData can be of great value to the research on Norwegian culture and politics
    Anne Sæbø

    Anne Sæbø

    Senior Academic Librarian (University of Oslo)

    An easily navigable research infrastructure for web data could be a groundbreaking asset for bringing Norwegian Humanities and Social Sciences to the frontier in researching the history, sociology, languages, politics and media-phenomena of our current historical moment
    Anders Malvik

    Anders Malvik

    Prof. Literature Studies (Norwegian University of Science and Technology)