NetSense Study Codebook

A Multiwave Study of Social Networks, Demographics, and Bluetooth Proximity at Notre Dame

Author

NetSense Research Team

Published

June 27, 2026

Introduction

The NetSense Study Codebook

A Comprehensive Research Portal for the Multiwave Cohort Study of Student Social Networks, Demographics, and Bluetooth Proximity at the University of Notre Dame.

🎓 203 Cohort Students

🔁 8 Longitudinal Waves

📱 165k+ Bluetooth Proximity Edges

Welcome to the NetSense Study Codebook. This is a modern, comprehensive documentation and exploration portal for the NetSense longitudinal study conducted at the University of Notre Dame.

The study tracks a cohort of students (Waves 1–8) from Summer 2011 to Winter 2014, capturing how their social networks, behaviors, attitudes, and physical proximity co-evolved over time.

Study Components

The NetSense dataset is organized into three primary streams:

  1. Longitudinal Surveys (surveys.qmd): Complete individual-level student demographics, personalities, academic performance (GPA), lifestyles, and preferences.
  2. Social Network Waves (networks.qmd): Wave-by-wave egocentric network nomination surveys capturing closeness, contact frequencies, emotional profiles, and social context of friendships.
  3. Bluetooth Proximity Logs (proximity.qmd): Weekly automated device-to-device proximity logs (Weeks 8–41) capturing continuous face-to-face physical interaction.
  4. Anonymized Telemetry Logs: Continuous logs of SMS, phone calls, emails, and address book contacts with out-of-network contacts securely hashed.

Data Schema & Entity Relationships

The diagram below shows how the various components of the study link together using standard identifiers.

graph TD
    Demographics[Demographics CSV<br>Surveys/demographics_longitudinal_clean.csv]
    Networks[Longitudinal Networks CSV<br>Data/network_surveys_longitudinal_clean.csv]
    Proximity[Weekly Bluetooth CSVs<br>Weekly Data/week*.csv]
    BTMap[Bluetooth Mapping Key<br>Metadata and Mappings/BT_egoid_mapping.csv]
    Telemetry[Anonymized Telemetry CSVs<br>Data/Anonymized_Telemetry/]

    Demographics -- "Linked by egoid" --> Networks
    BTMap -- "Maps btname to egoid" --> Proximity
    BTMap -- "Joins on egoid" --> Demographics
    BTMap -- "Joins on egoid" --> Networks
    Demographics -- "Linked by egoid / sender_id" --> Telemetry
    Networks -- "Linked by sender & receiver to sender_id & receiver_id" --> Telemetry
    
    style Demographics fill:#f9f,stroke:#333,stroke-width:2px
    style Networks fill:#bbf,stroke:#333,stroke-width:2px
    style Proximity fill:#fbf,stroke:#333,stroke-width:2px
    style BTMap fill:#bfb,stroke:#333,stroke-width:2px
    style Telemetry fill:#fdb,stroke:#333,stroke-width:2px
Figure 1: NetSense Dataset Relationship Diagram

Technical Setup

All files are programmatically prepared in highly accessible formats (.csv and .dta) using open-source, reproducible pipelines in R. The personal identifying information (PII) of all human subjects has been completely and programmatically scrubbed before inclusion in these public releases.