Validity Issues of Digital Trace Data for Platform as a Service: a Network Science Perspective

Abstract

Data validity becomes a prominent research area in the context of data science driven research in the past years. In this study, we consider an application development on a cloud computing platform as a promising research area to examine digital trace data belonging to records of development activity undertaken. Trace data display such characteristics as found data that is not especially produced for research, event-based, and longitudinal, i.e., occurring over a period of time. Having these characteristics underlies many validity issues. We employ two application development trace data to articulate validity issues along with an iterative 4-phase research cycle. We demonstrate that when working with digital trace data, data validity issues must be addressed; otherwise it can lead to awry results of the research.