[DDI-users] DDI-users Digest, Vol 65, Issue 3 - > in support of DDI and SDMX as complementary standards [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

Geoff Lee geoff.lee at abs.gov.au
Tue Feb 8 18:08:43 EST 2011


Hi My

I'm not a technical person, so I can't help you with the details, but I can
let you know that the Australian Bureau of Statistics, where I work, is
keenly interested in this topic.  We very much see DDI and SDMX as having
complementary roles which can work well together.  The reasons Wendy has
given are a concise summary - we see DDI as more natural for describing
objects like questionnaires, microdata files (which may have multiple
linked levels, eg households, persons, activities), while SDMX is built for
describing and exchanging tables.  We are still working on the best
handshake for things they obviously share (like codelists, classification
etc)

As an example, we have worked with a commercial software vendor to develop
a tabulation and confidentialisation tool which users outside ABS can use -
the structure of the microdata file that is input to the tool is described
in DDI, and the output (user specified) tables are described in SDMX.  This
is part of a wider initiative to make metadata truly "active" and drive our
processing from beginning to end.

Regards

Geoff Lee


                                                                                                                       
  From:       ddi-users-request at icpsr.umich.edu                                                                        
                                                                                                                       
  To:         ddi-users at icpsr.umich.edu                                                                                
                                                                                                                       
  Date:       09/02/2011 04:10 AM                                                                                      
                                                                                                                       
  Subject:    DDI-users Digest, Vol 65, Issue 3                                                                        
                                                                                                                       
  Sent by:    ddi-users-bounces at icpsr.umich.edu                                                                        
                                                                                                                       





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Today's Topics:

   1. SDMX and DDI (My Coyne)
   2. Re: SDMX and DDI (Wendy Thomas)

----- Message from My Coyne <mcoyne at boninc.com> on Mon, 7 Feb 2011 15:34:47
-0500 -----
                                                
      To: "DDI UserGroup"                       
          <ddi-users at icpsr.umich.edu>           
                                                
 Subject: [DDI-users] SDMX and DDI              
                                                

Hi All,


I have a few questions with regards to the relationship  between SDMX and
DDI.


1. I wonder how much of SDMX is covered by DDI.  Conversely, if I have a
document in SDMX and I would like to represent it  using DDI, would I miss
any element not being represented by DDI?


2.  Is there any documentation for the mapping of SDMX onto DDI?


3. Would one be able to create an XML file that  contains some SDMX grammar
and some DDI grammar, and such file would be validated by DDI framework?


Thanks in Advance



My Coyne
mcoyne at boninc.com
(cel): 301-399-6351
----- Message from Wendy Thomas <wlt at pop.umn.edu> on Mon, 7 Feb 2011
15:05:44 -0600 (CST) -----
                                                                                    
      To: mcoyne at boninc.com, Data Documentation Initiative Users Group              
          <ddi-users at icpsr.umich.edu>                                               
                                                                                    
 Subject: Re: [DDI-users] SDMX and DDI                                              
                                                                                    

See below:

On Mon, 7 Feb 2011, My Coyne wrote:

>
>
> 		   BODY { font-family:Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif;font-size:12px; }
> Hi All,
>
> 		 I have a few questions with regards to the relationship
between SDMX
> and DDI.
>
> 		 1. I wonder how much of SDMX is covered by DDI.  Conversely,
if I
> have a document in SDMX and I would like to represent it  using DDI,
> would I miss any element not being represented by DDI?
>
We did alignment between the two standards so that DDI can capture and
hold all of SDMX. SDMX handles well behaved structures as it was designed
for a well behaved world. DDI is flexible enough to handle structures that
are not as "well behaved". In addition DDI can capture how the content of
the cells was generated, whether from microdata or other sources. SDMX now
has structures to capture this information from DDI for informational
purposes but is not machine-actionable.


> 		 2.  Is there any documentation for the mapping of SDMX onto
DDI?
>
."DDI and SDMX: Complementary, Not Competing, Standards", A. Gregory, P.
Heus, Open Data Foundation, July 2007 (Paper)
http://www.opendatafoundation.org/papers/DDI_and_SDMX.pdf

."DDI and SDMX", Arofan Gregory (ODaF), Pascal Heus (ODaF), IDSC Workshop
on comparability of DDI/SDMX, Wiesbaden, Germany, June 18th 2008
(Presentation)
http://www.opendatafoundation.org/papers/200806_Workshop_DDI_and_SDMX.ppt

There is a project to provide a detailed mapping between the two and I'm
not sure what stage that is at, but I'll check.


> 		 3. Would one be able to create an XML file that  contains some
SDMX
> grammar and some DDI grammar, and such file would be validated by DDI
> framework?
If you are refering to element names then the answer is no, not without
extending the standard. If you are talking about the content of dimensions
or attributes, you would need to express the content in the chosen
standard for it to validate.

Wendy

>
> 		 Thanks in Advance
> My Coyne
> mcoyne at boninc.com
> (cel): 301-399-6351

Wendy L. Thomas                          Phone: +1 612.624.4389
Data Access Core Director		 		  Fax:   +1 612.626.8375
Minnesota Population Center              Email: wlt at pop.umn.edu
University of Minnesota
50 Willey Hall
225 19th Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55455

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