News | Page 23 | Data Documentation Initiative

Call for Nominations : DDI Executive Board

Submitted by Kelly Chatain on Fri, 2016-09-30 15:11

For all DDI Alliance member representatives:

We have an opening on the Executive Board and are looking for nominations for candidates to fill this elected position through June 2017, when a new round of elections for four-year terms will take place.

This is a good opportunity for members who are interested in participating on the Executive Board, but without the long-term commitment. We are especially looking for representatives from Europe to fill this opening.

If you would like to nominate yourself or a colleague to this position, please contact Jared Lyle, DDI Alliance Director, by October 7th. Email or phone: lyle@umich.edu or (734) 763-6075.

Two Workshops to be Held at Schloss-Dagstuhl - Leibniz Center for Informatics

Submitted by Kelly Chatain on Tue, 2016-09-27 11:46

Two weeks of workshops will begin on October 17th, to be held at Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz Center for Informatics.

The first week (Oct. 17-21) will focus on interoperability between DDI and other metadata standards. The workshop will bring together representatives from the following metadata standards: World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and RDF community, Statistical Data and Metadata eXchange (SDMX), Research Data Alliance (RDA), Generic Statistical Information Model (GSIM), health standards, DDI, and other related standards. The meeting will focus on the review of the current DDI work, discuss how best to work collaboratively, how to be aware of each standard’s developments, and to investigate opportunities for developing joint projects. To read more about the first workshop, please follow this link.

The second week (Oct. 24-28) continues the development work of the model-based specification of DDI (DDI Version 4). The focus of this ‘sprint’ is spread across four main areas: Documentation, expansion of data capture and description, controlled vocabularies, and funding opportunities. To read more about the second workshop, please follow this link.

DDI has a strong relationship to the internationally renowned informatics center in Germany, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz Institute for Informatics, Wadern. Since 2007, seventeen DDI development and training workshops have been held in this extraordinary venue.

EDDI16: Draft Program Available and Registration Open

Submitted by lyle on Tue, 2016-09-27 00:37

The 8th Annual European DDI User Conference (EDDI16) will take place December 6-7, 2016 in Cologne, Germany. EDDI16 is organized jointly by GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences and IDSC of IZA - International Data Service Center of the Institute for the Study of Labor.

The meeting will bring together DDI users and professionals from all over Europe and the world. The program offers 2 keynotes, 28 presentations, 3 discussion sessions, and 6 posters. Three tutorials and 6 side meetings will take place before and after the conference. This year, the conference organizers are encouraging papers which focus on re-use of software and re-use of administered software. Examples of this could be question banks, re-use of software components and provision of services which foster re-use. Also encouraged are papers which discuss barriers to the creation and uptake and maintenance of such re-use. Anyone interested in developing, applying, or using DDI is invited to attend and present.

Registration is now open. More information is available on the Conference web page.

DDI Directions newsletter published

Submitted by lyle on Thu, 2016-09-22 00:01

The latest issue of DDI Directions was published on September 22nd. It includes reports on the NADDI 2016 conference in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and the Annual DDI meetings held in Bergen, Norway. The newsletter also highlights the contributions of DDI members engaged in working groups or committees, including the Marketing and Partnerships Group, the Training Group, the Technical Committee, and the Moving Forward project. Also in this issue is a new column, "ReadWrite-Execute (RWX)", written by Knut Wenzig (DIW Berlin), that will highlight both existing and new DDI and metadata-related publications produced by the DDI Community.

Welcome New Member: Consortium of Social Science Data Archives (CESSDA)

Submitted by lyle on Mon, 2016-08-29 00:08

The DDI Alliance welcomes the Consortium of Social Science Data Archives (CESSDA) as a Full Member! Hossein Abroshan, Chief Technical Officer, is the Member Representative and the Scientific Representative.

Welcome New Members: mStats DS–Data Science and Statistical Software and University of Wisconsin Institute on Aging–MIDUS study

Submitted by lyle on Mon, 2016-08-29 00:00

The Alliance recently welcomed mStats DS – Data Science and Statistical Software (Marcel Hebing, representative) and the University of Wisconsin Institute on Aging – MIDUS study (Barry Radler, representative) as Associate Members.

Annual Meetings Held in Bergen, Norway

Submitted by lyle on Wed, 2016-06-01 00:25

The DDI Alliance Annual Meeting of Member Representatives and the Meeting of the Scientific Board were held on May 30 in Bergen, Norway, in advance of the IASSIST 2016 conference. The Annual Meeting of Member Representatives included a State of the Alliance presentation by Steve McEachern's (Chair of the Executive Board), as well as reports from theMarketing, Training, and Moving Forward groups; the Meeting of the Scientific Board included an activity report by the Technical Committee. Both meetings were well attended and productive.

Achim Wackerow and Michelle Edwards elected as Chair and Vice-Chair of the Scientific Board

Submitted by lyle on Mon, 2016-05-30 00:42

In May, elections were held for the positions of Chair and Vice-Chair of the Scientific Board. Achim Wackerow (GESIS) was elected as Chair, with Michelle Edwards (CISER) elected as Vice-Chair. The Scientific Board: 1. Contributes to the substantive content of DDI standards and semantic products and approve major version revisions. 2. Evaluates technical proposals through the Alliance standards review process. 3. Undertakes research and testing concerning proposals for DDI standards and semantic products. 4. Develops and promulgates best practices for use of DDI standards and semantic products. 5. Assesses progress and barriers to progress. 6. Suggests future directions and activities for the Alliance. The Technical Committee is a standing committee of the Scientific Board. The Scientific Board also has direct oversight of the Moving Forward project (DDI4).

NADDI 2016 Report

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 2016-04-14 00:04

With 75 registered participants representing 34 organizations, many of whom were new to the DDI community, the 4th Annual North American DDI Conference was held in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada April 7-8. The Health Research Data Repository hosted the event, supported by the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Alberta.

The conference program of 15 presentations and 4 workshops reflected a wide variety of potential and practical uses of DDI within the social science community and beyond, such as helping to drive a new health data ecosystem, managing heterogeneous longitudinal weather data, and addressing the needs of geospatial data and time-based media. Keynote addresses were given by Dr. Lawrence Richer, Associate Director of the Women and Children's Health Research Institute, and Dr. Larry Hoyle ("The Evolution of DDI - Concepts and Technology"), Senior Scientist at the University of Kansas Institute for Policy & Social Research. In addition to the program, Colectica and Nooro Online Research partnered to provide a demonstration of DDI's interoperability by creating, distributing, and documenting the conference's feedback survey in real-time.

NADDI 2017 will be held at Ithaca, New York on April 5-7, 2016.

DDI Directions newsletter published

Submitted by lyle on Sun, 2016-02-07 21:45

The latest issue of DDI Directions was published on February 3rd. It includes a review of the successful EDDI 2015 conference in Denmark, as well as a reminder about the upcoming NADDI conference in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. There are a lot of exciting DDI 4.0 activities announced in the newsletter, including DDI-Views, a report from the recent Copenhagen Sprint, and a save-the-date notice for the April Sprint at NADDI.

Thanks go to Kelly Chatain for putting together this newsletter and to all of the hardworking people who support DDI and are helping to spread its adoption.

http://www.ddialliance.org/system/files/ddi-directions-2016-02.pdf