[DDI-users] Improving the DDI Web Site

[Humphrey Southall]

This is sort of an answer to (4).  My impression is that I am a fairly rare 
example of a social scientist working in an ordinary academic department 
who knows about and works with the DDI, but there was discussion at the 
recent IASSIST meeting of the "data lifecycle", and the need for DDI 
standards to be used not just within data archives/libraries but by social 
scientists when gathering data, or when doing secondary analysis.

The current site clearly tries to reach out to other audiences, but I am 
not sure how far it succeeds.  My own detailed feedback would probably not 
be that helpful, as the mere fact that I go to IASSIST meetings makes me 
pretty unrepresentative, but I do think you need an area of the site better 
designed for more casual enquirers.  The best feedback would probably come 
from a bunch of social science academics grabbed off the (Ann Arbor) street 
and stuck in a focus group.

To be honest, this is a plea for a dumbed down part of the site -- but 
there are academics out there who work very extensively with social 
statistics but who know almost nothing about metadata, and how it can help 
them.

Best wishes,

Humphrey Southall

At 13:34 22/06/2005, you wrote:
>We're getting ready to re-design the DDI Web site, and I would like to
>gather feedback from site users on how best to improve it. We're
>especially looking for feedback on how to build a better navigation
>system. Please take a moment to answer the questions below. Detailed
>answers will greatly help us improve the site. Thanks for your assistance.
>
>1) What parts of the site do you visit most often?
>
>2) What site features work best for your needs?
>
>3) What site features don't work well for you? I.e., what do you think
>most needs improvement? How would you like to see them improved?
>
>4) What's missing from the site? What do we not offer that you feel would
>be a valuable addition?
>
>Matthew A. Richardson
>Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
>Phone: 734.615.7901
>Email: matvey at umich.edu
>"Everything tires with time, and starts to seek some opposition,
>to save it from itself." --Clive Barker, The Hellbound Heart
>_______________________________________________
>DDI-users mailing list
>DDI-users at icpsr.umich.edu
>http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/mailman/listinfo/ddi-users

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Humphrey Southall
Reader in Geography/Director,
Great Britain Historical GIS Project
Department of Geography, University of Portsmouth
Buckingham Building, Lion Terrace, Portsmouth PO1 3HE

GIS Project Office: (023) 9284 2500
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