[DDI-users] DDI Executive response to the open letter on directions for DDI development

[Steven McEachern]

Dear DDI community,

On behalf of the DDI Executive, I'm writing to follow up on the open letter sent by Dan Gillman on behalf of a number of community members back in September. In that letter, Dan and his colleagues outlined a number of concerns regarding the direction of future development of the DDI family of standards and other products. We wanted to thank the authors for the letter, and to put forward our current thinking in response.

In order to do so, the Executive has been working to develop a single response to the open letter since it was sent. We have however found it difficult to develop a single, agreed response among the Committee members. The reason for this is that, in developing a response, we have identified a number of open questions that we could not easily resolve - questions which we feel deserve wide consultation in order to understand the range of views we have heard anecdotally from community members. We see this debate as healthy, and one that needs to be had in order to move the community and the organisation forward.

As the Executive, we have an obligation to act in the best interests of the DDI Alliance membership and the community more generally. Technical development is a key issue here, but we also need to take account of the financial situation of the Alliance in any decisions that we make. It is this tension between future development, current products and financial constraints that has resulted in the lengthy discussion within the Executive - and we believe that a broader consultation on the questions we have identified is required.

To this end, we intend to provide a discussion paper to the community in the next month that outlines what we believe are the key questions we need input on, and the various positions we see pertinent to each question. This will be accompanied by a draft version of the DDI Strategic Plan, so that DDI members and community can see the current thinking we have undertaken thus far, and how the strategy can address these questions we have identified.

We hope you will understand our delayed response. We have been actively engaged in a debate among the committee to address these important issues, and look forward to input from you all in a robust and engaging discussion in the new year.

Regards
Steve
on behalf of the DDI Alliance Executive


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Dr. Steven McEachern
Director, Australian Data Archive
Australian National University
Ph. (+61)2 6125 2200
E: steven.mceachern at anu.edu.au
http://www.ada.edu.au
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