Much of modern social research depends on data extracted from social media platforms to provide insight into public sentiment, trends and community structure. Web Data Research Assistant (WDRA) is an existing plugin for Google Chrome, developed by researchers at the University of Southampton, which allows social researchers to capture this data without any programming expertise.
WDRA Extender is a web service which researchers may use to enrich the data collected using the Chrome plugin and perform basic data analysis to highlight potential interesting features in the data. The RSG is converting this service from a collection of Bash scripts to a more robust Python-based service capable of supporting a much greater number of users with confidence.