The Minneapolis Sprint, the seventh sprint focused on the model-driven DDI4 specification, will take place at the Minnesota Population Center on May 25-29, 2015. Local arrangements information can be found here.
The sprint will focus on Release 3, which is currently proposed to include the components described below. These will be confirmed and further developed through consultation currently under way with the user community. There will also be further work done on the production framework.
More information on the status of the modeling effort is available at lion.ddialliance.org/.
Complex Data Description Functional View. This will build on the Simple Data Description model, supplementing it with elements and attributes necessary to document more complex data collections, for example, longitudinal data, time series.
Enhanced Citation. This will introduce and formalize the structure for different (non-annotation) description types: attribution (citation), sourcing, and characterization. These would be available to all versionable objects. This is needed to support the description of new forms of data capture such as medical instruments and tests as well as provide clear provenance at the object level.
Complex Instrument Functional View. This will build on the Simple Instrument, adding new functionality to cover methods of data capture beyond simple surveys.
Simple Codebook Functional View. This will involve a merging of elements related to Discovery, Simple Data Description, and Simple Instrument.
Methodology. This complex area will be modeled to the extent possible during the week. The intent is to scope this area before the May 2015 Sprint so that the parameters of Methodology are well understood by Sprint participants. The work will describe the study design specifications underlying the conduct of a research/business project. This is distinct from the execution of the design – which is captured elsewhere (in Data Collection, Fieldwork, Data Processing and Data Analysis) – but should be able to be related to the execution in the conduct of the study. There are a variety of possible areas to cover such as study inception, data management planning, survey development, sampling, weighting, estimation, imputation, etc.