News

DDI Executive Board Election Results

DDI member representatives voted in May 2022 to elect one member to fll Joachim (Achim) Wackerow's vacancy on the DDI Executive Board. Twenty-three of the 28 voting eligible DDI member representatives participated in the election. According to the Alliance Bylaws, the election is decided on the basis of those candidates getting the most votes.

The election results (number of votes are indicated in parentheses):

The Executive Board is composed of seven voting members: six elected by the Designated Member representatives and one member appointed by the Host Institution. Members serve for a term of four years. The Executive Director serves as an ex officio member, without vote. The Executive Board is the policymaking and oversight body of the Alliance.

I want to thank Libby for accepting the nomination and for her willingness to serve on the Board.  Libby's biosketch and position statement are listed below.  I also want to thank Achim Wackerow for his many years of service on the DDI Executive Board.

Sincerely,
Jared

 

Jared Lyle
Executive Director, DDI Alliance
ICPSR, University of Michigan

 

Dr. Libby Bishop

Biosketch

Dr. Libby Bishop is the Coordinator for International Data Infrastructures in the Data Archive for the Social Sciences at GESIS Leibniz-Institute for Social Sciences in Germany. GESIS is a service provider to the Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives (CESSDA). She manages the relationship between GESIS and CESSDA, leads a project that is building a resource for repository staff, and coordinates additional projects between GESIS and other European research data infrastructures on topics such as digital behavioral data. She is also Team Leader of the GESIS Metadata Standards and Interoperability Team. She recently completed a task on developing remote secure access for sensitive data within the European Open Science Cloud initiative via the Social Sciences and Humanities Open Cloud Project. Prior to coming to GESIS in 2017, she worked at the UK Archive for almost 15 years, focusing on expanding reuse of qualitative data. Her research explores the methodological and ethical challenges posed when curating data for sharing and reuse.

Position Statement

In my career with data, I have worked near, but not directly with, DDI. I look forward to deepening my knowledge and leveraging my other experiences to support the strategic goals of the DDI Alliance. One of those goals is engagement with global digital research infrastructures, and I believe my (human) network spanning the US, the UK, Germany, and other European countries will be useful. A second goal concerns integrating new forms of data. I learned lessons (some the hard way) in integrating qualitative data at UKDA, and this learning continues with new forms of non-survey data at GESIS, especially social media data. Finally, perhaps some of my training experiences and knowledge of resources (e.g., a guide for making training videos) will prove relevant for the strategic goals related to training.

2022 DDI Annual Meetings: Registration + Agendas

Dear DDI community,

We look forward to seeing you at our two annual meetings in early June!  Registration information, including meeting agendas, are described below.  We invite anyone who is interested in DDI activities to attend these meetings.  

DDI Alliance Annual Meeting of Members (virtual only)
June 1, 2022 (Wednesday) 16:00-18:00 CEST, 10:00-12:00 EDT

View the agenda

Register in advance for this meeting: https://umich.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEqfuCpqTwiEtaBNve_ieKJkJH8DxWV2rXY.  After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

The Annual Meeting of Members reviews activities of the Alliance, reviews and approves the activities of the Executive Board, and provides a forum for discussion and feedback.  The annual Meeting of Members is chaired by the Chair of the DDI Executive Board.  This meeting will be virtual.

DDI Alliance Annual Meeting of the Scientific Community (hybrid: in-person at IASSIST meeting & virtual)

Room J335, Göteborgs universitet Humanistiska fakulteten | Humanisten, Renströmsgatan 6, 412 55 Göteborg, Sweden walking map)

June 7, 2022 (Tuesday) 16:15-17:45 CEST, 10:15-11:45 EDT

View the agenda

Register in advance for this meeting: https://umich.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIqf-6hqzgjGdATpCxuYrMqdmRH_HIW7InG.   After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

The Annual Meeting of the Scientific Community reports on the activities of the Scientific Board to the DDI Scientific Community. The meeting provides a forum for member organization discussion and feedback, reviews and approves the activities of the Scientific Board in the preceding year, and reviews and approves the Scientific Work Plan for the coming year.  The Scientific Board will convene the annual meeting, which will be hybrid -- in-person (TBD location) at the IASSIST meeting in Sweden, with an option for virtual attendance.
 
Past annual meeting materials are available on the DDI web site: https://ddialliance.org/annual-meetings.  If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out.  
 
Sincerely,
Jared

 
 

Jared Lyle
Executive Director, DDI Alliance
ICPSR, University of Michigan
lyle@umich.edu

Follow the DDI Alliance on Twitter
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Vive les Métadonnées! (Les bases de DDI en français / DDI basics in French)

NOUVEAU webinaire en français: Vive les Métadonnées! (Les bases de DDI en français) // NEW webinar in French: Long live metadata! (DDI basics in French): 13/06/2022, 14.00-15.30 UTC. 

Annonce bilingue FR+EN  //  Bilingual announcement FR+EN

Français:

Le deuxième webinaire de la série de webinaires 2022 de CODATA-DDI Alliance aura lieu le lundi 13 juin 2022 (14.00 – 15.30 UTC) sur le thème 'Vive les Métadonnées ! (Les bases de DDI en français)'.

Les inscriptions sont désormais ouvertes sur : https://codata.org/initiatives/data-skills/ddi-training-webinars/vive-les-metadonnees-les-bases-de-ddi-en-francais-ddi-basics-in-french/

Cet atelier présente les standards et les produits de l’Alliance DDI pour la collecte, la gestion et la diffusion des données. Il s’agit d’un excellent moyen de répondre aux injonctions liées aux données FAIR dans le monde de la recherche d’aujourd’hui. DDI fournit une approche indépendante de toute plateforme, offrant une granularité fine pour la description et valorisation des données provenant des sciences sociales, comportementales et économiques, ainsi que de la santé publique et des statistiques officielles. De plus, DDI cherche à optimiser non seulement  les métadonnées dans ces domaines, mais aussi des ensembles de données composites provenant de tout le spectre des données scientifiques. Les normes et les modèles se situent à la fois au niveau technique et conceptuel.

Cet atelier donnera un aperçu des normes et des produits, et une introduction à leur utilisation. Bien que ces normes et produits soient déjà utilisés au niveau international, ce sera le tout premier atelier organisé par l’Alliance DDI en français.

Les conférenciers seront Alina Danciu (Sciences Po, Centre de Données Socio-Politiques - CDSP), Christophe Dzikowski (Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques - INSEE), Simon Hodson (CODATA), Hilde Orten (SIKT), Nicolas Sauger (Sciences Po, CDSP).

Inscrivez-vous dès maintenant pour nous rejoindre le 13 juin !

 

English:

The second webinar in the 2022 CODATA-DDI Alliance webinar series will take place on Mon 13 June 2022 (14.00 – 15.30 UTC) on the topic, Vive les Métadonnées! (DDI basics in French).  Please note this event will be conducted in French.

Registration is now open at: https://codata.org/initiatives/data-skills/ddi-training-webinars/vive-les-metadonnees-les-bases-de-ddi-en-francais-ddi-basics-in-french/

This workshop introduces the standards and products of the DDI Alliance for data collection, management, and dissemination. It is an excellent way of meeting the demands for FAIR data in modern research. DDI provides a platform-independent, fine-grained approach to metadata and data documentation for data which supports social, behavioural, and economic research, as well as public health and official statistics. Increasingly, it is looking to optimize metadata not only within these domains, but also for integrated data sets drawn from across the scientific data spectrum. The standards and models are at both technical and conceptual levels.

This workshop will give an overview of the standards and products, and an introduction to their use. Although used internationally, this will be the first workshop conducted by the DDI Alliance in the French language.

Presenters will include Alina Danciu (Sciences Po, Centre de Données Socio-Politiques - CDSP), Christophe Dzikowski (Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques - INSEE), Simon Hodson (CODATA), Hilde Orten (SIKT) and Nicolas Sauger (Sciences Po, CDSP).

Register now to join us on 13 June!

 

New Video: Introduction to DDI Metadata

The DDI Alliance is proud to announce the release of a promotional "Introduction to DDI Metadata" video that highlights how DDI products and standards support FAIR data principles. The video -- about 90 seconds long -- is meant to grab attention and generate interest in DDI,. Please reuse it, widely!

Many thanks to: Kristi Winters and GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, who produced and narrated the video; the DDI Marketing and Partnerships working group, which initiated and coordinated the development; and the DDI Training working group for input on content.

DDI Alliance ID Registry Updates

Since 2011, the DDI Alliance has maintained the DDI Registry, a free service for DDI users to obtain permanent agency identifiers. The registry is connected with the global DNS system, allowing DDI URNs to be resolved using standard tools. Permanent identifiers in DDI instances specify the authoritative source of the data and metadata.

We are excited to announce new updates recently made to the DDI Registry, including:

  • New support for DDI users in providing information for DDI URN resolution. You may now post your DDI objects at a web addressable location, organized according to specific identifier parts making your DDI content available to others without hosting a resolution service on your local system.
  • If you have your own DNS SRV service records, you may specify the host and port for specific services such as a website, API endpoint, custom server, etc.
  • If you do not have a local resolution service, you may install and set up your own agency or sub-agency registry and local resolution service. The registry provides links to the open source software and instructions.

For more information, please visit the DDI Agency ID Registry product page on the DDI web site or watch Dan Smith’s presentation from the 2021 European DDI User Conference (EDDI), "DDI Agency Registry Upgrades."

Registry updates were completed by Colectica (Dan Smith and Jeremy Iverson) and funded by the DDI Alliance.

DDI Alliance and CODATA collaboration at Schloss Dagstuhl

Workshops held at Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz Center for Informatics have been an important activity for the DDI Alliance and many of its partner and member organizations over the years. Since 2018, CODATA has collaborated closely on a series of workshops looking at cross-domain interoperability based on DDI and other metadata standards. 

Since 2007, members of the DDI community have organized twenty-eight workshops on different topics related to DDI and metadata, with a total of 548 participants over that time (see detailed list of workshops). These workshops have made a critical contribution to the DDI Alliance’s work program including the development of new versions of the specification, training activities, and coordination with relevant standards bodies. 

More recently, the workshops have explored issues that are fundamental to the objectives and methodology of the CODATA Decadal Programme ‘Making Data Work for Global Grand Challenges’. This includes identifying ways of improving the interoperability of metadata standards and testing solutions against real-world case studies. DDI standards have played a significant role in this work and the development of DDI Cross Domain Integration (DDI-CDI) represents an important step forward.

Always, in keeping with the mission of Schloss Dagstuhl, these events have focused on the forward-looking aspects of DDI specifications from a computer science perspective, whether they addressed development, support, implementation, or inter-standards collaboration. Dagstuhl is a unique facility, providing an immersive environment that enables intensive and productive work. This has helped create a network of DDI users and metadata experts which is the excellent basis of further cooperation and exchange beyond the workshops in Dagstuhl. Furthermore, workshops have historically resulted from a partnership between several organizations, with GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, the DDI Alliance, and CODATA being the most important of these. All have provided not only their expertise to the workshops, but financial resources as well, to facilitate travel and similar expenses for participants. 

The current focus is on the relationship between DDI specifications and the emerging set of FAIR-enabling standards and specifications. At the heart of the European Commission-funded WorldFAIR project are eleven domain and cross-domain case studies: these will form an important part of the workshop activity in the near-term and are test cases for the emerging cross-domain interoperability framework. While DDI-CDI is the most obvious point of connection, DDI Lifecycle and DDI Codebook also fit into this picture as exemplary domain standards. Other DDI Alliance specifications such as XKOS (Extended Knowledge Organization System) and SDTL (Structured Data Transformation Language) are also relevant.

Due to COVID, many Dagstuhl seminars have been postponed, and this year the DDI-CODATA team has only been able to confirm a single week (August 28-September 2) because of scheduling requirements at Schloss Dagstuhl. We will return to having two workshops from 2023, and dates have been approved for the weeks September 24-29 and October 1-6. The working titles are ‘Defining a core metadata framework for cross-domain data sharing and reuse’ and ‘DDI-CDI: Realising interoperable data services in the metadata ecosystem’ respectively. 

The preliminary description of the 2022 workshop on ‘Interoperability for Cross-Domain Research: Machine-Actionability & Scalability’ is currently being used to recruit experts for the workshop.

We look forward to continuing what has been a fruitful collaboration, and will provide information regarding our planning activities in reports like this one moving forward. Schloss Dagstuhl has always provided a unique and highly effective venue for us to focus on forward-looking topics related to the DDI specifications, and we hope that this tradition will continue into the future.

The Dagstuhl Organizing Team:
Arofan Gregory, CODATA and DDI.
Hilde Orten, DDI and SIKT.
Joachim Wackerow.
Simon Cox, CODATA and CSIRO.
Simon Hodson, CODATA and DDI.
Steve McEachern, CODATA and DDI and ANU.

Seeking Nominations for a DDI Executive Board Vacancy

Dear DDI community,

The Executive Board, which is the policy making and oversight body of the Alliance, is seeking to fill a vacancy. Joachim (Achim) Wackerow retired from GESIS at the end of February and is no longer able to serve as an official member on the Executive Board. Achim's term runs through June 2023. According to the DDI Bylaws, "Any member vacancy will be filled by election as soon as possible and that member will begin serving when elected for the remainder of the vacating member's term."

If you are interested in serving, or know of someone else who would make a good candidate, please email me (lyle@umich.edu) by 29 April 2022. We will hold an election in May to fill the vacancy.

Bill Block and Barry Radler, Executive Board Chair and Vice Chair, are copied on this message. Feel free to reach out to them or me with questions.

Sincerely,
Jared

 

Jared Lyle
Executive Director, DDI Alliance
ICPSR, University of Michigan

DDI Scientific Board Election Results

DDI member representatives voted in March 2022 to elect one member to fll Joachim (Achim) Wackerow's vacancy on the DDI Scientific Board. Seventeen of the 28 voting eligible DDI member representatives participated in the election. According to the Alliance Bylaws, the election is decided on the basis of those candidates getting the most votes.

The election results (number of votes are indicated in parentheses):

The Scientific Board is composed of seven voting members elected by the Members of the Alliance. The Executive Director and the Chair of the Technical Committee are ex‐officio members, without internal vote. The Scientific Board may appoint up to two external Advisory Members, without internal vote. The Scientific Board is the scientific and technical body of the Alliance which represents the Scientific Community. The Scientific Board proposes the scientific work plan to the membership for approval and facilitates the scientific and technical work activities.

I want to thank Wolfgang for accepting the nomination and for his willingness to serve on the Board.  Wolfgang's biosketch and position statement are listed below.  I also want to thank Achim Wackerow for his many years of service to the DDI scientific community.

Sincerely,
Jared

 

Jared Lyle
Executive Director, DDI Alliance
ICPSR, University of Michigan

 

Wolfgang Zenk-Möltgen

Biosketch

Wolfgang Zenk-Möltgen is a researcher at GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Germany, and has been involved in DDI activities since his start at the Data Archive in the late 1990s. He took part in many of the annual DDI training and workshop series at Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz Center for Informatics in Wadern, Germany, where he worked on further development of the standard and published several working papers together with colleagues from the DDI Alliance. Both at GESIS and within CESSDA, he has been actively promoting the DDI standard with database development and standardization projects. These topics were also covered by presentations at IASSIST and EDDI conferences. Wolfgang is also a member of the programme committee of the European DDI User Conference (EDDI).

Position Statement

As a Social Science researcher with some technical and Computer Science knowledge, I am concerned with providing practical solutions with a DDI standard that supports real world use cases. I like the promise of the DDI Alliance to cover the whole data life cycle of research data and to help organizations and individuals to collaborate on the basis of data and metadata. I am convinced that the combination of subject independent standards with standards that are designed to support subject specific research will help to create a vivid working environment for researchers using data and metadata as their basis of knowledge.

2022 DDI Annual Meetings

Dear DDI community,

Each year, the DDI Alliance hosts annual meetings to discuss Alliance business, learn about activities, and provide feedback on priorities for the coming year.  This year, we will host two separate meetings in June, which are described below.  We invite anyone who is interested in DDI activities to attend these meetings.  

DDI Alliance Annual Meeting of Members (virtual only)
June 1, 2022 (Wednesday) 16:00-18:00 CEST, 10:00-12:00 EDT
 
Register in advance for this meeting: https://umich.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEqfuCpqTwiEtaBNve_ieKJkJH8DxWV2rXY.  After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

The Annual Meeting of Members reviews activities of the Alliance, reviews and approves the activities of the Executive Board, and provides a forum for discussion and feedback.  The annual Meeting of Members is chaired by the Chair of the DDI Executive Board.  This meeting will be virtual.

DDI Alliance Annual Meeting of the Scientific Community (hybrid: in-person at IASSIST meeting & virtual)
June 7, 2022 (Tuesday) 16:15-17:45 CEST, 10:15-11:45 EDT

Register in advance for this meeting: https://umich.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIqf-6hqzgjGdATpCxuYrMqdmRH_HIW7InG.   After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

The Annual Meeting of the Scientific Community reports on the activities of the Scientific Board to the DDI Scientific Community. The meeting provides a forum for member organization discussion and feedback, reviews and approves the activities of the Scientific Board in the preceding year, and reviews and approves the Scientific Work Plan for the coming year.  The Scientific Board will convene the annual meeting, which will be hybrid -- in-person (TBD location) at the IASSIST meeting in Sweden, with an option for virtual attendance.
 
Agendas will be distributed the month before the respective meetings.  Past annual meeting materials are available on the DDI web site: https://ddialliance.org/annual-meetings.  If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out.  Looking forward to seeing many of you in June!  
 
Sincerely,
Jared

 
 

Jared Lyle
Executive Director, DDI Alliance
ICPSR, University of Michigan
lyle@umich.edu

Follow the DDI Alliance on Twitter
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Webinar (28 March): DDI Working Together with Other Standards

Register now! New webinar 28 March: DDI Working Together with Other Standards

The first webinar in the new series offered by CODATA and the DDI Alliance is now open for registration!
https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/1789729374315971088

Standards promote interoperability, transparency across agencies, and reduce development time. Systems used for the collection, management, production, and dissemination of data regularly employ several different standards for modelling and transmitting their data and metadata. DDI is often a core part of this suite, but it is rarely the only one.

The way in which DDI aligns and interacts with other standards has evolved over time: from a static, archival ‘XML codebook’, it has become a metadata resource for helping to drive systems and provide the basis for reuse and data harmonisation. Looking forward, DDI promises to support FAIR data in significant ways, as part of an integrated suite of standards.

This free webinar looks at the different DDI metadata standards and how they relate to both each other and to other models and standards in common use in applications today, including schema.org, DCAT, and Dublin Core. Speakers will include Alina Danciu (Sciences Po), Christophe Dzikowski (INSEE) and Arofan Gregory (CODATA). The session will be introduced by Geneviève Michaud (Sciences Po). There will be time for questions and answers, moderated by Adrian Dusa (University of Bucharest).

There is no fee to attend, but registration is required. We look forward to seeing you on 28 March!

Registration is open now at: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/1789729374315971088