Hi all,

I was wondering if anybody could help me, I am currently in the middle of a little side project with my supervisor, where we are looking to collect some primary data through questionnaires and interviews, and then later add secondary data based on networks. If I explain a little further it might help -

So we are interviewing a selected sample of academics about their experiences in their work roles, and are looking to later add information from their personal pages on university websites about their publication history eg. how many per year, and whether they work with specific others, to see whether and where networks occur, and if the size of these networks have any correlation with some of their responses at the interview survey stage. Obviously they would be completely anonymous apart from to us as the researchers, for the purpose of adding secondary data.

Does anybody know of a study in any field that has used primary data and later added readily available data to each individual record. Are there legal data protection ramifications involved in such methodology can you think?

Any help or pointers would be greatly appreciated.

Hi,
Will the individuals you interview be aware of your intention to gain the secondary data before consenting to the initial interview? I can't think of any data protection issues if you are using published information. Sounds interesting - good luck!
Mog