The Center for Study Management (CSM) creates the conditions necessary for high-quality data collections and thus plays a key role in generating data for excellent educational research. As an infrastructure department, the CSM combines expertise in organization, technology, communication, and data protection and it plans, coordinates, and supports studies throughout the entire data collection process. By developing innovative and practical solutions, supporting researchers in implementing their projects, and continuously improving the survey infrastructure, the CSM contributes to the generation of high-quality research data that is collected efficiently and sustainably usable.
The responsibilities and expertise of the CSM are organized within five working units: Survey Administration and Controlling, Survey Coordination, Study Communications, Data Protection in Surveys, and Survey Technology.
The CSM’s daily work and ongoing methodological development in survey operations are grounded in the following frameworks: the Survey Life Cycle approach, the Longitudinal Survey Life Spirals, the Total Survey Quality and Total Survey Error frameworks, the Time-Cost-Scope principle, project management certification, open-source software development, the FAIR data principles, and the General Data Protection Regulation.