[DDI-users] DDI usage scenario

Alerk Amin a.amin at uvt.nl
Fri Feb 6 11:49:21 EST 2009


Hello,

We are are currently trying to use DDI 3 as the output for a
documentation tool that we are working on. Our needs do not fall into
the normal "lifecycle" model, and we are running into some issues. We
would appreciate any help or insight about how we can use DDI with our
project.

First, a short description of our project. We are building a website 
that allows researchers to document their publications and the concepts 
that they use in the publication. A example of a concept in a article 
would be 'household income' referenced by a variable in the dataset that 
contains the actual household data values. Another example would be 
'active social participation', measured through a group of variables.

In our project we use a datasets that reside in data archives and for 
which pre DDI 3.0 documentation is available through Nesstar. 
Researchers typically only use a selection of variables from a dataset 
in their publications. We want to capture and reference only the 
variables that the researcher used and the concepts that - as the 
example shows - can be tied to one or more variables.

Using our website, researchers can create concepts that they are 
studying in their publication, and then select the variables they used 
to measure that concept. We want to create a DDI instance for each 
publication that captures the additional metadata for that publication. 
In this case, that would be the list of concepts and the list of 
variables for each concept (in case a concept is represented by more 
than one variable). The concepts are "new" information, but the 
variables should link back to the original XML for the dataset.

The attached sample.xml file contains a small example showing how we 
think this information should be captured with DDI for one publication.
Does this seem like an appropriate solution? Or should we use a 
different method for placing this information inside DDI XML?  We would 
appreciate any comments or suggestions. Thank you for your help.

Best,
Alerk, Rob

-- 
Alerk Amin
Senior Software Developer
CentERdata
Room K737 (Tilburg University, Koopmans Building)
Postal address : PO Box 90153, 5000 LE Tilburg, The Netherlands
Visiting address : Warandelaan 2, 5037 AB Tilburg, The Netherlands
Telephone : +31-13-466 2243 / 8325
Fax : +31-13-466 2764
WWW : www.centerdata.nl
Disclaimer : See http://www.centerdata.nl/maildisclaimer.
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