As Belarus is in the news a bit I wanted to highlight the massive role the country has played in recent developments in the @GGP_i. Thread...

In 2017, Belarus was the first country to use the new GGS centralized fieldwork system. The system is built around software called Blaise and used an entirely new version of the software which was effectively in beta testing.

The software was unbelievably buggy at this time and it was the first experience that the GGP had of running a centrally coded and operated survey. It was even my first time running fieldwork...

For those who who don't know the GGS questionnaire, it is quite complex and intricate and collects individuals whole life histories. This was the first time it had been coded in software that was half baked and by someone who was pretty much flying blind.

The Belarus team had all of that to deal with but also the fact that this was the first time they were using tablets for interviews. They had to retrain all their interviewers to use the tablets and work in some pretty tricky fieldwork conditions.

The team at Belarus State University were exceptional but one person in particular went so far above and beyond. His name is Victor Pravdivets. I would work into the night to implement updates to the questionnaire. I would email Victor at midnight to say it was ready for testing

I am not exaggerating when I say that by 6am when I woke up again I would have a full and detailed bug report of the new version. This went on, almost daily, for about 6 weeks.

He helped set up the server configuration, tested the questionnaire routing, look and feel of the questionnaire and work through so many practical issues of international fieldwork implementation. It was a crucial proof of concept for the new GGS...

So if you happen to use the GGS data in the coming years (there is a lot coming) then please raise a glass to Victor, his team and Belarus. Many international social science projects are built off the back of huge expertise at the local level and they are all too often forgotten

Many Academics in privileged positions will build their career off of @SHARE_MEA @WVS_Survey @ESS_Survey @evs_values or similar datasets. They download the data for free and these local folks are rarely credited and cited. So Cite your Data and be generous in giving credit.