[DDI-users] Manage Open Data and DDI with SledgeHammer 1.0

[Pascal Heus]

Metadata Technology North America is proud to announce the official
release of SledgeHammer 1.0  (http://www.openmetadata.org/sledgehammer),
an innovative tool enabling the production and reuse of open data.  It
is the first major application being release as a component of our
OpenDataForge toolkit aiming at facilitating the management of open data
and the adoption of global metadata standards and related best
practices. Development and Early Adopters versions of SledgeHammer tools
were presented at recent IASSIST and EDDI/NADDI conferences.

SledgeHammer focuses on the packaging of data into open and reusable
formats for publication, processing, analytical, or preservation
purposes. The tool builds upon our extensive expertise in statistical
and scientific data management and leverages industry standard
information technology and global metadata specifications such as the
Data Documentation Initiative (DDI).

The tool is available as a cross-platform desktop based application
under both freeware and low cost commercial licenses.

Key features includes:
* Reading data and extracting metadata from: SQL, Stata, SPSS, SAS,
DDI+ASCII, and Stat/Transfer+ASCII;
* Transforming data into ASCII text format (fixed, csv, delimited), with
various optimizations;
* Producing standard metadata from input files. Supported specifications
include  DDI-Codebook (1.0-2.1 and 2.5), DDI LifeCycle (3.1-3.2), and
Triple-SSS (1.1, 2.0)
* Computing descriptive statistics at the variable and category levels
for inclusion in DDI or for other purposes;
* Generating scripts for reading ASCII data into R, SAS, SPSS, Stata,
and various flavors of SQL (MS-SQL, MySql, Oracle, Vertica, HSQLDB), and
selected cloud platforms. The database scripts support the creation of
database schemas along with bulk loading of the ASCII data.

SledgeHammer is an essential tool for data managers, researchers, and
users interested in working with open data and global metadata
standards. For download or more information, visit
http://www.openmetadata.org/sledgehammer.