Masu bincike scraped dalibi bayanai daga Facebook, merged shi da jami'a records, amfani da wannan merged data domin gudanar da bincike, sa'an nan kuma shared shi tare da wasu masu bincike.
Da farko a shekara ta 2006, a kowace shekara a tawagar furofesoshi, kuma bincike mataimakansa scraped da Facebook profiles dukan 'yan Class of 2009, a wata "bambancin masu zaman kansu koleji a arewa maso gabashin Amurka" Wannan tsaye bayanai daga Facebook kan abota da al'adu dandani aka garwaya da data kwalejin ya game da dalibai 'zama dorms da ilimi majors. Wannan merged data wakilta mai muhimmanci hanya ga masu bincike, kuma aka yi amfani da haifar da sabon ilmi game da batutuwa kamar yadda social networks form (Wimmer and Lewis 2010) da kuma yadda social networks da hali co-halittu farfadowa (Lewis, Gonzalez, and Kaufman 2012) . Bugu da ƙari, ta yin amfani da data ga nasu aiki, da dandano, huldar, kuma Time bincike tawagar sanya data samuwa ga wasu masu bincike, bayan shan wasu matakai don kare dalibai 'tsare sirri da kuma a cikin layi tare da buri na National Science Foundation ( wanda] a] en da binciken) (Lewis et al. 2008) .
Abin baƙin ciki, kamar kwanaki bayan data aka yi available, wasu masu bincike deduced cewa makaranta a question ya Harvard College (Zimmer 2010) . The Ku ɗanɗani, huldar, kuma Time masu bincike da aka zargi da a "gazawar to bi da'a bincike nagartacce" (Zimmer 2010) a sashi saboda dalibai ba azurta sanar yarda (duk hanyoyin da aka sake nazari da kuma amince da Harvard ta IRB da Facebook). Bugu da ƙari, zargi daga malamai, jaridar articles bayyana tare Adadin labarai kamar "Harvard bincike da ake zargi da saba Students 'Privacy" (Parry 2011) . Daga qarshe, da dataset aka cire daga intanet, kuma a yanzu ba za a iya amfani da sauran masu bincike.