[DDI-users] DDI Directions Volume VIV, Number 4, November 2015
mcianna at umich.edu
mcianna at umich.edu
Tue Nov 17 17:33:59 EST 2015
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From the Former Director
This is the last issue of DDI Directions that I will produce as I will be
retiring soon. One of the things I will miss the most in retirement is the
supportive DDI community. It has been a true pleasure to know all of you
and to work with you on the standard. Best of luck to DDI, to the Alliance,
and to all of you who have contributed so much.
Mary Vardigan, Former Director, DDI Alliance, vardigan at umich.edu
From the Director
This is the first issue of DDI Directions that I produce as Director. I
look forward to engaging with the community; feel free to contact me
directly with suggestions or questions (+1 734-763-6075 or lyle at umich.edu).
I have long admired how DDI facilitates discovery and interoperability of
data, as well as the ambitious efforts of the community, including: the
Moving Forward project (DDI4), outreach efforts to other metadata
specifications, and user community meetings in Europe and North America, to
name just a few.
Finally, I want to acknowledge the many contributions Mary Vardigan has
made to the DDI community. Her support has been unflagging. Please read
Chuck Humphrey's tribute to Mary, found on the last pages of this
newsletter. We wish Mary all the best as she moves into retirement.
Jared Lyle, Director, DDI Alliance, lyle at umich.edu
In This Issue
New Website Launched
Update from the World Bank
EDDI Conference to Take Place in December
Colectica User Conference to be Held in Copenhagen after EDDI
Save the Date for NADDI!
DDI Annual Report Available
Call for Proposals for RC33 9th International Conference on Social Science
Methodology
Call for Papers at 5th Biennial ACSPRI Social Science Methodology
Conference 2016
Successful DDI Metadata Workshop Held at Dagstuhl
New DDI4 Production Workflow
There's Something about Mary
Volume VIV, Number 4, November 2015
New Website Launched
A redesigned DDI website with simpler navigation and a new look and feel
was launched on Thursday, October 15. Kelly Chatain, Associate Archivist at
Survey Research Operations, Institute for Social Research, University of
Michigan, headed up the effort assisted by Michael Iannaccone (ICPSR), Olof
Olsson (Swedish National Data Service), Stephanie Roth (Swedish National
Data Service), Mary Vardigan (ICPSR), and Jing Wu (University of
Mississippi). The DDI Marketing & Partnerships Group and the DDI Training
Group also provided content suggestions and feedback.
DDI new website
DDI new website
Kelly notes that the website will continue to be enhanced and updated in a
second phase of development that will focus on adding relevant content and
cross-referencing functionality to improve access to that content. Some
items on this list include:
Adding citation and DOI fields to all publications
Creating DDI social media feeds
Updating the DDI Lifecycle Diagram
Adding more materials to the new Training Library
Cross referencing Working Group, Committee, and Board members
Adding new conferences and presentations
We would like to enlist a few more site editors to contribute new content
and update existing pages. If you would like to become a site editor,
please let Kelly know.
Update from the World Bank
Olivier Dupriez, Lead Statistician at the World Bank, has provided an
update on places around the world where DDI is now in use in government and
other agencies (more than 60 countries) through the International Household
Survey Network (IHSN). These locations are indicated on a new map on the
website showing global DDI usage.
map showing global DDI usage
Map of global DDI usage
Olivier also reports that in September 2015, Mexico published a regulation
in its "Diario Oficial de la Federacion" that made the DDI an official
standard for statistical metadata. In addition, the IHSN's NADA application
for creating data catalogs is being further enhanced and will become DDI-,
Dublin Core-, and ISO 19139-compatible. Also, the Survey Solutions CAPI
application developed by the World Bank has just released a new version
that exports metadata in DDI format.
EDDI Conference to Take Place in December
EDDI15 will take place on December 2-3, 2015, in Copenhagen, Denmark, at
the Royal School of Library and Information Science, University of
Copenhagen. The conference, hosted by Statistics Denmark (DST) and
DDA/National Archive of Denmark, will bring together DDI users and
professionals from all over Europe and the world. Anyone interested in
developing, applying, or using DDI is invited to attend. The program offers
30 presentations and posters, 3 tutorials, and 4 side meetings.
The conference will open on Wednesday, December 2, at 9:00 am and close on
Thursday, December 3, at 4:15 pm. Tutorials will take place on Tuesday,
December 1, from 9:00 am - 5:00 pm. Two side meetings will take place on
Friday, December 4 (the DDI Developers Meeting and the International
Colectica User Conference).
The detailed draft program including abstracts is available at:
http://www.eddi-conferences.eu/ocs/index.php/eddi/eddi15/schedConf/program
Registration for participants and accommodation booking are open:
Registration:
http://www.eddi-conferences.eu/ocs/index.php/eddi/eddi15/schedConf/registration
Accommodations:
http://www.eddi-conferences.eu/ocs/index.php/eddi/eddi15/schedConf/accommodation#Accommodation
EDDI15 is organized jointly by DST - Statistics Denmark and the DDA -
Danish Data Archive/National Archive of Denmark; GESIS - Leibniz Institute
for the Social Sciences; and IDSC of IZA - International Data Service
Center of the Institute for the Study of Labor.
Colectica User Conference to be Held in Copenhagen after EDDI
The second International Colectica User Conference (ICUC) will be held
December 4 in Copenhagen and hosted by Statistics Denmark:
http://www.colectica.com/icuc2015
The theme this year will be "Colectica and DDI in Official Statistics."
ICUC is co-located with the 7th European DDI User Conference to provide
four days of exciting content around the DDI metadata standard!
Dec 1st: DDI Workshops and Training
Dec 2nd: EDDI - Day 1
Dec 3rd: EDDI - Day 2
Dec 4th: ICUC 2015
Save the Date for NADDI!
NADDI 2016: Document, Discover, and Interoperate (April 6-8th, 2016)
University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
The North American DDI (NADDI) user conference provides opportunities for
all who are actively using or are interested in learning about this
community-developed metadata standard for observational research data. This
is a conference to come together, connect, and learn from one another.
NADDI 2016 will be a three-day conference consisting of hands-on workshops
(April 6) and both invited and contributed presentations (April 7 & 8).
These events will be of interest to a broad community, including research
and data professionals in the social and health sciences and other
disciplines, and at all levels of expertise, from novice to expert.
This year's conference theme is 'Document, Discover, and Interoperate'.
In the coming weeks the conference website will be launched, followed by an
official call for abstract submissions for those interested in presenting,
submitting a poster, or offering a workshop on topics of interest. Given
the theme of this year's NADDI conference, we are looking for submissions
that will fit into the following four broad categories:
Repository Platforms and Metadata
Metadata Production Systems
Discovery Platform
Interoperability
The hosts of this year's NADDI conference are the Health Research Data
Repository
(https://uofa.ualberta.ca/nursing/research/research-supports-and-services/hrdr)
and Faculty of Nursing Research Office of the University of Alberta.
For immediate inquiries or additional information at this time please
contact James Doiron at: jdoiron at ualberta.ca
DDI Annual Report Available
The 2015 DDI Annual Report is now available.
DDI new website
DDI Annual Report
Call for Proposals for RC33 9th International Conference on Social Science
Methodology
We are soliciting proposals for papers in the following session at the RC33
9th International Conference on Social Science Methodology which is taking
place in Leicester, England on September 11-15, 2016. The last Conference
in 2012 had a session on metadata and was well received.
The scope for the session: "Recent Developments in Metadata Capture,
Discovery and Harmonization in the Social Sciences"
This session invites presentations dealing with structured metadata in a
standardized form across the survey life-cycle: models, systems, and tools
for instrument design, data entry, data processing, maintaining data
documentation, and capturing and storing the metadata within a repository
for later reuse. There is increased interest in supporting the comparison
and harmonization of studies/waves over space and time, and across studies,
especially at the level of theoretical concepts, questions, and variables
to which structured metadata is well suited.
Capturing metadata as early on in the survey life-cycle as possible in a
structured way enhances transparency and quality and enables reproducible
research and reuse of survey components for other waves or surveys.
A wide range of different products and services for different users can be
generated on the basis of computer-processible metadata like web-based
information systems, traditional codebooks, command setups for statistical
packages, question banks, and searching and locating of data which assist
in the use or interpretation of the data.
Papers are invited on, but not limited to, the following topics: reuse of
metadata across space, time, and studies, metadata banks such as for
questions and classifications, metadata-driven processes, and
metadata-driven information systems, possibly using the major specification
for social science metadata, DDI Lifecycle (DDI 3 branch of the Data
Documentation Initiative). The session is aimed at survey designers and
implementers, data and metadata managers, information system managers of
cross-national surveys, metadata experts, and others.
To submit a paper abstract for the RC33 9th International Conference on
Social Science Methodology, you should visit:
http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/sociology/research/rc33-conference. After
landing on the homepage, navigate to 'Abstract Submission' and choose the
session Jon Johnson and Joachim Wackerow.
Please note that the maximum length of abstracts is 5000 characters, and
the deadline for the Call For Papers is Jan 12, 2016.
If you would like to discuss your proposal prior to submission please
contact us at either of the email addresses below:
Jon Johnson, j.johnson at ioe.ac.uk, UCL Institute of Education,
Joachim Wackerow, joachim.wackerow at gesis.org, GESIS - Leibniz Institute for
the Social Sciences
Call for Papers at 5th Biennial ACSPRI Social Science Methodology
Conference 2016
Session: "The Role and Benefit of Metadata Capture, Discovery and
Harmonization in Survey Research"
ACSPRI - Australian Consortium for Social and Political Research
Incorporated
Theme: Social science in Australia: 40 years on
Conference dates: Tuesday July 19 - Friday July 22, 2016
Venue: The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
Abstract/paper deadline: Friday March 4, 2016 (Abstract acceptance
notification will be by Thursday, March 24, 2016. Full paper
acceptance/notification will be by Friday April 29, 2016, after a peer
review process.)
Registration opens: Friday March 4, 2016 (The early bird registration
deadline is May 31, 2016)
Session description
This session invites presentations dealing with structured metadata in a
standardized form across the data life-cycle: case studies, systems and
tools for, eg, instrument design, data entry, data processing, maintaining
data documentation, and capturing and storing the metadata within a
repository for later re-use. Papers are invited on, but not limited to, the
following topics: reuse of metadata across space, time, and studies;
metadata banks such as for questions and classifications; and
metadata-driven information systems, possibly using DDI Lifecycle (Data
Documentation Initiative). The session is aimed at survey designers and
implementers, data and metadata managers, information system managers of
cross-national surveys, metadata experts, and others.
A unique feature of this conference is that it is multi-disciplinary and
brings together researchers and methodologists from a range of environments
and contexts.
Please note you are not required to submit a full paper for this
conference. This is optional.
Details of sessions are available here:
https://conference.acspri.org.au/index.php/conf/conference2016/schedConf/trackPolicies
Abstracts for papers will only be accepted through the online submission
form available here:
https://conference.acspri.org.au/index.php/conf/conference2016/schedConf/cfp
The conference website provides information about the conference, including
key dates and deadlines, registration fees and submission guidelines
available here:
https://conference.acspri.org.au/index.php/conf/conference2016
If you would like to discuss your proposal prior to submission please
contact Joachim Wackerow.
Successful DDI Metadata Workshop Held at Dagstuhl
A combined DDI Review and Sprint was held at Schloss Dagstuhl in Wadern,
Germany, on October 19-23. Members of the DDI community developing the
next-generation DDI specification met with seven experts knowledgeable
about other metadata standards:
David Barraclough, Chair, SDMX Statistical Working group, OECD
Gary Berg-Cross, Research Data Alliance, Chair of Spatial Ontology
Community of Practice
Michel Dumontier, Associate Professor, Stanford University
Martin Forsberg, ECRU Consulting
Alejandra Gonzalez-Beltran, Research Lecturer, Oxford e-Research Centre,
University of Oxford
Daniella Meeker, Director, Clinical Research Informatics, University of
Southern California
Eric Prud'hommeaux, W3C Working Groups
DDI new website
The experts provided their views on the approach to the model-driven
specification and gave freely of their time to offer advice and guidance
about improvements and new directions. A formal report about the review
will be available by the end of the year.
Progress on the model was made in the Data Description and Data Capture
areas as well.
Dates for two Dagstuhl workshops in 2016 have also been confirmed: October
17-24 and October 24-28, 2016.
New DDI4 Production Workflow
The DDI Technical Committee has implemented a new DDI4 production workflow
using Bamboo, one of the Atlassian products. Bamboo is a continuous
integration and delivery tool that ties automated builds, tests and
releases together in a single workflow. The goal is to automate the
production of publication packages to improve consistency and better manage
the workflow within the Atlassian environment.
If you find bugs or identify areas of work, feel free to raise them either
by emailing Sam or by raising a bug on Github.
There's Something about Mary
A tribute to the first director of the DDI Alliance, Mary Vardigan
By Chuck Humphrey
We have all benefited from Mary's steady leadership as Director of the DDI
Alliance. The Alliance emerged from a research-funded project during the
1990's into a community-based standards organization in 2002-2003. Mary has
been part of these developments from the earliest days of DDI in 1995 to
today's expanded Alliance operations, helping guide DDI through multiple
specification and control vocabulary releases. Throughout this time, Mary's
leadership has been critical to the success of the Alliance. Codebook and
lifecycle specifications of DDI have grown to maturity and a new unified
model is being readied. The coordination of the projects behind all of this
work has fallen on the Director and it is here that we have witnessed the
many gifts that Mary has as a leader.
A standards organization is bit of a Noah's ark, there are two of every
kind of specialist. As Director, Mary has worked with a variety of
technical specialists in defining, documenting, implementing, promoting,
evaluating, and educating others about DDI specifications and products. For
a community-based standards body to be productive, the contributors must be
committed to the community. Mary's warm and welcoming style has established
the perfect mix for the voluntary community making up the Alliance. She
also has the ability to nudge people gently forward in completing their
work. This is an important skill when working with volunteers.
Above all, Mary is an excellent communicator. She has a background in
literature and is an avid reader. If you happen to encounter Mary
travelling to a conference or a meeting, she will inevitably be reading a
novel. But a scholar of literature or an active reader does not in itself
make a communicator. In Mary's case, she has enriched these skills with a
talent to describe and explain complexity through clear and straightforward
language. She does a wonderful job of synthesizing discussions and boiling
content down to its basic components. Furthermore, she assembles this
content into concise messages for others to understand.
In the 20-year history of DDI, we have seen many changes in research data
management, which is now characterized as a global research data ecosystem.
Today, the DDI Alliance finds itself a player in this much larger
environment with mounting pressure from diverse stakeholders. Mary has
helped navigate the Alliance through this sea change and has been an
outstanding diplomat on behalf of our community in this new ecosystem.
Toward this end, she has been an active contributor in the Research Data
Alliance, bridging our standards organization with research data activities
around the globe.
While there is sadness in seeing Mary retire from the directorship, we are
very grateful for the years she served as the Alliance's Director. With
heartfelt thanks, we wish Mary the very best in the future.
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