Introduction to Web Scraping

Web scraping is the process of extracting data from websites. This lesson gives an introduction to the structure of websites, introduces some tools to extract data from well-structured websites and discusses the legal and ethical implications of extracting and using that data.

Difficulty rating: ★★☆☆ Beginner

Who is it for?

Both research staff and research students. No experience necessary!

Summary of the topics covered

  • The structure of a webpage and its underlying source code
  • Identification of different methods of gathering data from a webpage
  • Use of the WebScraper browser extension to extract data from webpages
  • Legal and ethical implications of using data gathered from a webpage

Prerequisites

Participants should be able to use a web browser but no other prior knowledge is necessary.

Duration

3 hours

Next course

10th March 2026 10:00 - 13:00 Book here

Can't attend?

We don’t have online materials for this session, but the course will run again — so you’ll be very welcome to join next time.