[DDI-users] use of "source" attribute

[Sanda Ionescu]

Hi, Elizabeth, and all others !
The attribute "source" is indeed present in all DDI elements and a browser 
*would* display it (with its default value "producer") even if you didn't 
use Maddie or any other editing software and even if you chose not to fill 
it in.
This attribute is meant to indicate where the info contained in the element 
comes from - so even if the producer (study author, etc.) didn't send you 
DDI compliant documentation, s/he would still be the source for some of the 
information, like question text, category values, study title, sampling 
procedures, etc. An archive often contributes to the documentation, but at 
least some information is normally provided by the producers themselves.
In a DDI compliant document, the archive is usually the source for the 
elements in section 1.0 (docDscr) since this section describes the actual 
XML document as opposed to the original study or study documentation. In 
section 2.0 (stdyDscr) on the other hand, the producer is usually the 
source for most of the information.
Of course it is up to you to decide how you use this attribute from case to 
case but I'm afraid for the time being it cannot be removed.
My personal view (and I'm sure others would agree) is that it is actually 
quite useful in most elements - at least it helps distinguish between 
pieces of information that were provided by the original producer and those 
that were later contributed by the distributing archive. I also think that 
the default "producer" is more appropriate, since more often than not 
producers *are* the source for most of the information in a codebook.


Sanda Ionescu
Research Associate
Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)
311 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2211
Phone: (734) 998-9895
Fax (734) 998-9889





Hello, all --
I'm looking for some guidance about the use of the source attribute.
Because CPANDA initially used MADDIE to create DDI codebooks, all of the
elements in our codebooks contain the attribute "source=producer". In a
few places, we've got two versions of an element, e.g. an abstract, and
need to use the source attribute to distinguish between them, but in
most cases it seems to me that the source attribute is meaningless and
should be removed. Or perhaps we should use source=archive as our
default, since none of the data producers sent us a DDI-compliant
codebook (or any codebook at all, in some cases).
I'd appreciate some illustrations of actual practice, and the rationale
for why you're doing it that way.
I've read the Elements and Attributes documentation page, but it didn't
answer my question.
Thanks very much for your help -- and thanks to ICPSR for setting up
this list.
--Elizabeth
-- 
Elizabeth Z. Bennett
Project Manager/Associate Director
Cultural Policy and the Arts National Data Archive
609-258-7357
ezb@princeton.edu