News | Page 11 | Data Documentation Initiative

New Training Working Group Co-Chairs

Submitted by lyle on Mon, 2021-12-06 23:40

Congratulations to the two new Co-Chairs of the DDI Training Working Group: Alina Danciu (Sciences Po) and Hayley Mills (CLOSER). And special thanks to outgoing Co-Chairs Jane Fry (Carleton University) and Anja Perry (GESIS), who recently completed their two year terms leading the working group!

The mission of the Training Working Group is to:

Introduce people to DDI and improve people's competence in working with DDI
Gear training to specific audiences
Develop expertise within the community for training purposes
Maintain a training library with updated training material for reuse

Anyone may join the group, which meets monthly. Please contact the chairs about how to join!

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Liaison with the DDI Alliance

Submitted by lyle on Tue, 2021-11-30 16:43

The DDI Alliance Scientific Board has approved the establishment of a "simple liaison" relationship with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to coordinate activities in the field of data description, especially around specification development. The goal of a simple liaison is for both parties to gain a better understanding of their respective activities and look for opportunities to work together. Most often, W3C establishes simple liaisons with peer organizations, other standards bodies, or any other non-profit entity that may wish to build consensus around an emerging Web technology.

The W3C contact is Pierre-Antoine Champin, W3C fellow and coauthor of JSON-LD. The DDI Alliance contact is Joachim Wackerow, DDI Scientific Board member and collaborator with W3C experts in the context of the Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz Center for Informatics workshops on DDI and metadata. Since 2011, twelve experts involved in W3C activities (six of them are members of the W3C DXWG) have participated in Dagstuhl workshops on DDI and metadata.

The main W3C activity affected by the liaison is the Dataset Exchange Working Group (DXWG), which created the Data Catalog Vocabulary (DCAT). Data description specifications are increasingly used in combination with other specifications, especially in the semantic web. An important example is the combination of DCAT with a specification that describes more granular elements (e.g. variables); DDI-Cross Domain Integration (DDI-CDI) is a candidate as a domain-independent specification. Other DDI-relevant W3C specifications include: RDF Data Cube Vocabulary, CSV on the Web, Data Catalog Vocabulary, and Provenance Ontology (PROV-O).

New Executive Board Chair and Vice Chair

Submitted by lyle on Mon, 2021-11-22 17:13

In their November 2021 meeting, the Executive Board elected a new Chair (Bill Block, Cornell University) and Vice Chair (Barry Radler, University of Wisconsin-Madison).

The Chair and Vice Chair serve two year terms. In addition to leading the Executive Board, which is the policymaking and oversight body of the DDI Alliance, the Chair and Vice Chair also lead the Annual Meeting of the DDI Membership Representatives.

Special thanks to Steve McEachern, Australia Data Archive (ADA), who served the previous three consecutive terms as Chair of the Executive Board.

New DDI Glossary Working Group

Submitted by lyle on Wed, 2021-11-17 19:49

A new working group has been formed under the auspices of the Scientific Board to produce, maintain, and update the DDI Glossary of terms. The DDI Glossary is a resource that users may consult for gaining a better understanding of DDI products. Other standards development efforts produce glossaries for their user communities - an example within the national statistical office community is the UNECE Statistical Metadata Glossary. SDMX maintains a glossary of their terms, too, at SDMX Glossary.

The Glossary Working Group is led by Dan Gillman. The WG are looking for other participants to join them. Please contact Dan (Gillman.Daniel@bls.gov) to join.

EDDI 2021 Training Fair

Submitted by lyle on Tue, 2021-11-16 09:51

The DDI Training Group has organized a series of tutorials around the upcoming EDDI 2021 users conference. This includes a general overview of the DDI standards on Friday, November 26, followed by a series of more detailed tutorials on Monday November 29, and a session describing the software tools and services available for implementing DDI.

More information and links to registration can be found at:

https://www.eddi-conferences.eu/eddi-2021/eddi-2021-training-fair-26-29-11/

All of the EDDI 2021 events are free of charge, and are open to anyone who is interested. The sessions will be virtual, and will be recorded.

Welcome New Member: HiveWorx

Submitted by lyle on Sun, 2021-11-14 22:17

The DDI Alliance welcomes HiveWorx (Mubashar Ghafoor, member representative) as an Associate Member! HiveWorx is technology firm specializing in healthcare terminology, data governance, and advanced analytics.

Event Reports: Expert Workshops in September 2021

Submitted by lyle on Thu, 2021-11-04 13:27

The DDI Alliance, CODATA and other partners organised three workshops in September 2021 on topics relating to FAIR data sharing and implications for data and metadata management. Two of the workshops were hybrid in format, using the Schloss Dagstuhl location in conjunction with other remote locations and participants. The third workshop in Australia was a purely virtual event due to COVID restrictions.

The topics of the workshops were as follows:

Further Development of the DDI Cross Domain Integration Model for FAIR Data Sharing across Discipline and Domain Boundaries, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz Center for Informatics, Wadern, Germany, September 20-24, 2021 [LINK TO REPORT]
Interoperability for Cross-Domain Research: Use Cases for Metadata Standards, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz Center for Informatics, Wadern, Germany, September 27 to October 1, 2021 [LINK TO REPORT]
Interoperability for Cross-Domain Research: FAIR Vocabularies, Canberra, Melbourne, and other sites in Australia, September 27 to October 1, 2021 [LINK TO REPORT]

The workshop on DDI-CDI focused on technical topics which provided input to the subsequent workshop on use cases for metadata standards.

The two workshops on ‘Interoperability for Cross-Domain Research’ built on the outcomes of two previous Dagstuhl Workshops in 2018 and 2019 on the alignment of standards and technologies for cross-domain data integration.

The workshops were organised as a cooperative effort between CODATA and the DDI Alliance by the long-time organizing team Simon Cox, Arofan Gregory, Simon Hodson, Steven McEachern, Hilde Orten, and Joachim Wackerow. Additional organizers contributed to specific workshops: Rowan Brownlee, Kheeran Dharmawardena and Lesley Wyborn. Profound thanks go to Schloss Dagstuhl - the Leibniz Center for Informatics for continuing to provide an excellent meeting facility and support for these efforts.

So führte die online komplexe Behandlung einschließlich der manuellen Therapie zur Korrektur von Überlastungen zu einer deutlichen Verringerung und bei einigen Patienten zum vollständigen Verschwinden der Hauptsymptome der chronischen Prostatitis - der Schmerzen.

Provisional Program Published for European DDI User Conference

Submitted by lyle on Tue, 2021-10-19 12:39

The 13th Annual European Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) User Conference (EDDI21), "DDI - The Basis of Managing the Data Life Cycle," will be held virtually 30 November - 1 December 2021.

* Conference Days: November 30 - December 1, 2021

* Hosts: Sciences Po, Center for Socio-Political Data (CDSP), CNRS, Paris

* Conference web page: https://eddi21.sciencesconf.org

The provisional program is now available at <http://eddi.sciencesconf.org/program> and consists of 25 presentations in 6 different thematic slots. EDDI21 is organized jointly by the Center for Socio-Political Data (CDSP) <https://cdsp.sciences-po.fr/en/>, GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences <http://www.gesis.org/en/home/> and IDSC of IZA <http://idsc.iza.org/> - International Data Service Center of the Institute for the Study of Labor.

Free registration is expected to open on October 25, 2021.

DDI Alliance Scientific Work Plan, 2021-2022

Submitted by lyle on Mon, 2021-10-18 11:29

Dear DDI community,

The Scientific Board of the DDI Alliance is pleased to announce its finalized Scientific Work Plan, 2021-2022. The Scientific Work Plan is created by the Scientific Board within the frames of the DDI Alliance Strategic Plan, 2021-2023, based on input from the Working Groups and the Technical Committee. We would like to thank the Working Groups and the Technical Committee, as well as the DDI Scientific Community at large, for input to and feedback on this new plan.

The Scientific Work Plan is divided into four sections:

I. Proceedings and Workflow of the new Scientific Board internally and externally

II. Reachable Short-Term Goals for 2021 and 2022

III. Preparations of issues to be covered within the next Scientific Plan for 2023

IV. Long Term Vision for DDI products and processes

We are looking forward to working together with the Working Groups and Committees as well as with the DDI Scientific Community at large, within the frames of the new Scientific Work Plan.

Thank you very much to everyone for your great contribution to the scientific work of the DDI Alliance!

Best wishes,

Ingo and Hilde

Chair and Vice-Chair of the DDI Alliance Scientific Board

DDI Alliance Strategic Plan, 2021-2023

Submitted by lyle on Wed, 2021-10-13 16:52

The DDI Alliance is pleased to announce its finalized Strategic Plan, 2021-2023. We thank the community for their input and feedback on this new plan, including at the annual Meeting of Members and the annual Meeting of the Scientific Community.

The plan identifies three overarching priorities:

The DDI User Community: how do we engage with the DDI community and understand the community’s needs?
The DDI Alliance as an Organisation: what structures and systems does the Alliance need in order to meet those needs, and how will it maintain those structures and systems in the long term?
Standards and Work Products: what standards and products does the Alliance provide and maintain, and how do those meet the needs of the Alliance and the broader community?

We look forward to working with the community to carry out the strategic actions described in this new plan.