This page lists data collection and analysis and other useful tools, available datasets of online extremism and terrorism content, online learning opportunities, and relevant articles and reports.
Got suggested additional tools and datasets that could usefully be added to this page? Drop us an email, with the details, to info@voxpol.eu.
Tools
DMPonline
VisitDMPonline is a web-based tool provided by the UK’s Digital Curation Centre (DCC) that supports researchers to develop good quality data management and sharing plans.
The University of Amsterdam’s Digital Methods Initiative (DMI), one of Europe's leading Internet Studies research groups, maintains a listing of over 60 tools for online data collection and analysis.
Using Twitter as a Data Source: An Overview of Social Media Research Tools
VisitThe University of Newcastle’s Wasim Ahmed provides a semi-annual accounting of available Twitter research tools in the form of a Blog post. This 2021 post is his most recent.
‘Flockwatch: Tracking Changes in Language in Text Datasets Over Time’
VisitSUNY Albany’s Sam Jackson developed the opensource tool described in and linked-to from this Blog post for VOX-Pol. Flockwatch monitors textual data collections for shifting language and automatically suggests new terms that researchers might want to use to collect data.
Open Access Datasets
Dark Web Project
VisitThis University of Arizona AI Lab archive hosts data collected from jihadi online forums and other jihadi online spaces between c.2009 and 2012, also the full content of a selection of ‘Patriot, Militia, Hate and Linked Websites’ collected in the same timeframe.
Aaron Zelin’s Jihadology is an archive of jihadi primary source material, including content circulated online, such as videos, magazines, etc. You will need an institutional email address to register and gain access.
Terrorist Content Analytics Platform (TCAP)
VisitTCAP is built by UNCTED-supported Tech Against Terrorism, with funding from the Canadian government. The TCAP tracks, verifies and analyses terrorist content across the internet to support the tech sector, academia and algorithmic augmentation. On Twitter @TCAPAlerts.
Online Learning Opportunities
FutureLearn
VisitFutureLearn is a digital education platform, partly owned by The Open University, that hosts both free and fee-based Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). In terms of data-heavy research on online extremism and terrorism, FutureLearn hosts multiple free courses on using Python and R.
Sage Research Methods
VisitThis site, which is accessible via many university libraries, is designed to guide users to the content they need to learn a little or a lot about a particular research method, either qualitative or quantitative (e.g. online interviewing, Python for social scientists). It includes access to books, book chapters, articles, ‘how to’ videos, and online courses.
Articles and Reports
RESOLVE Network Research Training and Curriculum Initiative
VisitAccess multiple reports on data-gathering for violent extremism and terrorism research, including on data challenges around lone actor terrorism research, conducting experiments, and building secondary source databases.
Wouter Van Atteveldt, Scott Althaus, and Hartmut Wessler. 2020. ‘The Trouble with Sharing Your Privates: Pursuing Ethical Open Science and Collaborative Research across National Jurisdictions Using Sensitive Data.’ Political Communication [online first].
VisitThis paper details the authors’ experiences in using computation research methods to conduct international comparative research on very large data collections, including the main problems encountered and some short-term approaches to mitigating some of these.
Judith Tinnes. 2013. 'The Art of Searching: How to Find Terrorism Literature in the Digital Age.' Perspectives on Terrorism 7(4).
VisitThIs free-to-access journal article "provides an overview on information retrieval techniques for locating high-quality literature on terrorism and counter-terrorism."
