A Centralized Access Point to Tens of Thousands of Questions and Variables in the Social Sciences

ReQuest is the new web application developed by the CDSP, offering centralized access to nearly 65,000 questions and variables from over 250 survey-based studies in the CDSP Databank.

An Interface and Features Designed in Collaboration with Users

Built to meet the needs of researchers, students, instructors, and data professionals, ReQuest enables easy navigation through survey questions from the CDSP Data Bank. Its main features include:

• Text search powered by the open-source ElasticSearch engine
• Advanced filters to refine results
• Comparison of identical or similar questions/variables across surveys
• Direct links to datasets on data.sciencespo.fr
• Export of standardized metadata

The interface was developed with input from design expert Lucie Vidal, based on over ten user interviews (researchers, instructors, engineers, and students) to ensure that the platform aligns with real-world user needs.

A Project Set to Evolve with Support from the French National Research Agency

Launched in 2024, the ReQuest project is led by the Documentation & Dissemination team under the supervision of Lucie Marie, with support from the Data Production and Digital Projects teams. It contributes to the CDSP’s core mission of enhancing the value of social science and political science data through high-quality curation of quantitative survey archives.

The portal is fully aligned with international metadata standards, particularly the DDI-Lifecycle standard recommended by CESSDA and the DDI Alliance.

Thanks to the third work package, “Upscaling metadata using AI,” of the FAIRwithDDI project (RESO call, funded by the ANR and coordinated by CDSP), ReQuest will continue to expand through new features and surveys by 2027. Future platform versions aim to integrate semantic concepts into metadata management, in line with best practices in research data management.

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Café de la donnée - AI and SHS metadata