The GESIS Panel Infrastructure (GPI, see also Figure 1) encompasses the well-established GESIS Panel Population Sample (Gesis Panel.pop) and the new GESIS Panel Digital Behavioral Data Sample (GESIS Panel.dbd) that will be fully operational in Q2 of 2024. The quarterly fielded GESIS Panel Population Sample is a self-administered probability-based mixed-mode (CAWI and PAPI) panel of the German-speaking adult population permanently residing in Germany with a total sample size of about 5,000 respondents. Established in 2013, it is open to the academic public for primary and secondary research. While about 75% of all respondents participate online, the remaining quarter of our panelists participate in the mail mode (about 1,400 respondents), which we deem important since not everyone in Germany has access to the Internet, the skills to use it, or does want to participate online. The GESIS Panel.pop pursues a unified mixed-mode design with a mobile-first approach to reduce mode measurement effects. Due to the limitations of the mail mode, we only allow a maximum of four experimental groups per wave. The GESIS Panel.pop allows the submission of cross-sectional as well as longitudinal studies. It is especially suited for drawing inferences about the general population. 

In 2022, GESIS expanded its data collection capabilities by setting up a new data collection infrastructure – the GESIS Panel.dbd – for collecting digital behavioral data (DBD) on the adult German-speaking population that can be linked with survey data. The new infrastructure is expected to be fully operational in Q2 of 2024. Initially, the GESIS Panel.dbd will focus on recording study participants' web browsing behavior ("web tracking"). For this purpose, GESIS maintains and uses a web browser plugin (WebTrack) that records desktop/laptop browser usage at the level of individual website visits. Integrating web tracking data with longitudinal survey data can be considered the gold standard in investigating and explaining online media use and information-seeking behaviors and their effects. Respondents for the GESIS Panel.dbd will be recruited from non-probabilistic online-based sources, e.g., via advertisements on Facebook and Instagram, but also from high-quality survey programs such as ALLBUS or the GESIS Panel.pop. We aim to recruit approximately 1,000 participants to join the web tracking data collection. Although the GESIS Panel.dbd cannot be used to draw inferences about the general population, it allows for sophisticated experiments and innovative collections of web-tracking data.

Projects that wish to collect data through the GESIS Panel infrastructure will have to take the following steps:

• Contact GESIS Panel management to reserve a survey slot as early as possible (via e-mail to gesis-panel@gesis.org)
• Fill out and submit the Stage 1 submission form, as well as the Questionnaire Template and the Self-Assessment on Research Ethics
• After a positive review of the Stage 1 submission, applicants are invited to fill out and submit the Stage 2 submission form along with the Questionnaire Template in German and English.
• We encourage researchers to take advantage of GESIS consulting services before submitting their proposals/questionnaires to the GESIS Panel. The services offered include general questionnaire consultation, pretesting service, and consultation to questionnaire translation.
• Researchers will be provided with their data between six to nine months after data collection.

Study Characteristics