Past or Inactive Working Groups

  

Administrative Data Group

Charge: DDI arose as a documentation standard for survey data. The Administrative Data Group will explore ways to enhance the DDI specification to document administrative data optimally.

Timetable:

  • Stage 1: Survey the different ways administrative data is documented in different organizations.
  • Stage 2: Summarize the special requirements of administrative data.
  • Stage 3: Review the DDI content with respect to data collection and administrative data.
  • Stage 4: Compare the requirements of administrative data with the capabilities of DDI.
  • Stage 5: Create proposals for a modification of the DDI standard.

First results will be presented at the DDI-expert meeting in summer 2012.

Members: The group is currently under construction. New members are welcomed. Please contact David Schiller, Institute for Employment Research, Germany (Chair)

Data Description in R Working Group

Charge: Read and write DDI Formats in R.

More details: Data Description in R

Documentation Working Group

Charge: Re-usable Structured Documentation: As DDI releases a first version of the Codebook Functional View to the community, documentation and documentation structure becomes essential for its successful implementation. The work during this week, will concentrate on developing both high-level and field-level documentation to assist archives, libraries, and statistical agencies, migrating from an older version of DDI to DDI 4.

More details: Documentation Working Group

Experimental Data Working Group

Charge: This Group will explore and recommend ways to enhance the DDI specification to better document experimental data, such as randomized controlled trials.  The group will develop requirements for new/changed elements and attributes in the specification.

Timeline: The group will meet virtually and by phone during the coming year, with the goal of presenting a proposal for changes to the specification to the Technical Committee before the next DDI Alliance Expert Committee meeting in June 2014.

Membership opportunity: new members are welcomed.  Please contact Kate McNeill for more information.

Chair: Katherine McNeill, MIT

Members:

  • Limor Peer, Yale University
  • Wolfgang Zenk-Moeltgen, GESIS-Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences 

Publications Working Group

Charge: The publications working group contributes content and works to support and promote the various publications produced under the auspices of the DDI Alliance.

More details: Publications Working Group

Qualitative Data Model Working Group

Charge: To develop a robust XML-based schema for qualitative data exchange (compliant with DDI) and encourage tools development based upon these needs.

Timetable: Start January 2010 -- First meeting, 19 April 2010; Gothenburg working meeting December 2011; Bergen working meeting November 2012

Progress: Draft QuDex schema produced outside of remit of the group in 2008. The group have built on this schema and evaluated its relationship to DDI. Three class views for qualitative data collection, archiving, and re-use have been modelled and an object definitions document created.

Convenor: Arofan Gregory, Metadata Technology
Chair: Louise Corti, UK Data Archive
Architects: Larry Hoyle, University of Kansas, and Agustina Martinez, Liverpool John Moores University
Technical Committee representative: Joachim Wackerow, GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences

  • Other Members:
  • Eirik Alvar, Norwegian Social Science Data Service (NSD)
  • Noemi Betancort Cabrera, Qualiservice, Bremen, Germany
  • Damien Gallagher, National University of Maynooth, Ireland
  • Tobias Gebel, University Bielefeld, Germany
  • Jani Hautamaki, Finnish Data Archive
  • Arja Kuula, Finnish Data Archive
  • Steve McEachern, Australian Data Archive
  • Cornelia Zuell, GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Germany

Group Report, 2012-2013

In 2013 the group released a white paper describing the model: A Qualitative Data Model for DDI.

RDF Vocabularies Working Group

Charge: To develop RDF vocabularies for efficient use of DDI metadata in the contect of the Semantic Web/Linked Data.

Work is under way on two RDF vocabularies, the DDI-RDF Discovery vocabulary for publishing metadata about datasets into the Web of Linked Data, and XKOS, an RDF vocabulary for describing statistical classifications, which is an extension of the popular SKOS vocabulary.

The work on both vocabularies began in a workshop on "Semantic Statistics for Social, Behavioural, and Economic Sciences: Leveraging the DDI Model for the Linked Data Web" at Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz Center for Informatics, Germany, in September 2011 (http://www.dagstuhl.de/11372). This work has been continued at these three meetings: follow-up working meeting (Discovery vocabulary) at the 3rd Annual European DDI Users Group Meeting (EDDI11) in Gothenburg, Sweden, in December 2011 (http://www.iza.org/eddi11); second workshop on "Semantic Statistics for Social, Behavioural, and Economic Sciences: Leveraging the DDI Model for the Linked Data Web" at Schloss Dagstuhl in October 2012 (http://www.dagstuhl.de/12422); and a follow-up meeting (Discovery only) at GESIS-Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences in Mannheim, Germany, in February 2013.

DDI-RDF Discovery Vocabulary
Chair: Joachim Wackerow (GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Germany),

Members:

  • Thomas Bosch (GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Germany)
  • Sarven Capadisli (Bern University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland)
  • Franck Cotton (INSEE - Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques, France)
  • Richard Cyganiak (DERI, Digital Enterprise Research Institute, Ireland)
  • Arofan Gregory (ODaF - Open Data Foundation, USA )
  • Larry Hoyle (University of Kansas, USA)
  • Benedikt Kämpgen (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany)
  • Olof Olsson (SND - Swedish National Data Service)
  • Heiko Paulheim (University of Mannheim, Germany)
  • Dan Smith (Algenta Technologies Inc., USA)
  • Johanna Vompras (University Bielefeld Library, Germany)
  • Benjamin Zapilko (GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Germany)

XKOS RDF Vocabulary

Chair: Franck Cotton (INSEE - Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques, France)

Members:

  • Richard Cyganiak (DERI, Digital Enterprise Research Institute, Ireland)
  • Daniel Gilman (BLS - Bureau of Labor Statistics, USA)
  • Rob Grim (Tilburg University, Netherlands)
  • Yves Jaques (FAO of the UN)
  • Dan Smith (Algenta Technologies Inc., USA)
  • Wendy Thomas (MPC - Minnesota Population Center, USA)

Group Report, 2012-2013


Survey Design and Implementation Working Group

Charge: To develop requirements for new elements and attributes describing the process of survey design and implementation through the point of specifications for computer-assisted interviews. After completing the first phase of its work, which focused on documenting sampling and questionnaire design, the group has reconfigured itself to focus on weighting and paradata. 

Timetable: First draft 2012.

Membership opportunity: New members are welcomed. Please contact Peter Granda.

  • Gina Cheung, University of Michigan, Survey Research Operations, Co-Chair
  • Dan Gillman, Bureau of Labor Statistics
  • Peter Granda, Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), Co-Chair
  • Kirstine Kolsrud, Norwegian Social Science Data Service
  • Steve McEachern, Australian Data Archive
  • Amanda Norton, Australian Bureau of Statistics
  • Anita Rocha, University of Washington
  • Wendy Thomas, University of Minnesota
  • Dan Zahs, University of Michigan, Survey Research Operations
  • Adam Zammit, Australian Consortium for Social and Political Research Incorporated (ACSPRI)

Group Report, 2010-2011

Group Report, 2011-2012

Group Report, 2012-2013


Tools Catalog Group

Charge: The Tools Catalog Group works to facilitate the use of the DDI standard by describing software and other tools to work with DDI. The group has created a catalog structure for tools and is now working to develop and implement incremental improvements based on community input.

Members include:

  • Andias Wira-Alam, GESIS, Germany (Chair)
  • Katherine McNeill, MIT, USA
  • Jannik Jensen, Danish Data Archive, Denmark
  • Sunny Kaniyathu, University of Saskatchewan, Canada
  • David Schiller, Institute for Employment Research, Germany

Group Report, 2010-2011

Group Report, 2011-2012

Group Report, 2012-2013

Web Site Group

Charge: Development and maintenance of the DDI Alliance web site.

More details: DDI Alliance Web Site Group

Workflows for Dataverse Working Group

Charge: To develop use cases for improved support of DDI in the Dataverse repository platform, and, to coordinate development projects that utilize DDI generated by or with Dataverse in support of research data across the lifecycle.

More details: DDI Workflows for Dataverse