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Working Paper Series

The DDI Working Paper Series (ISSN 2153-8247) is intended as a dynamic publication avenue for authors working in the DDI space. Currently, the series includes papers on new and emerging themes as well as papers on best practices and use case literature.

If you are interested in publishing a paper to be part of the DDI Working Paper Series, please contact us.

Best Practices

Management of DDI 3.0 Unique Identifiers (PDF)

By Nikos Askitas, Arofan Gregory, and Maarten Hoogerwerf.

This best practice specifies the technical requirements and procedures for ensuring well-managed identifiers for both internal use and external references.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/DDIBestPractices10
 

DDI 3.0 URNs and Entity Resolution (PDF) 

By Askitas, Nikos, Janet Eisenhauer, Arofan Gregory, Rob Grim, Pascal Heus, Maarten Hoogerwerf, and Wolfgang Zenk-Moltgen.

This document is a recommendation about appropriate architecture for the effective resolution of DDI URNs.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/DDIBestPractices11
 

High-Level Architectural Model for DDI Applications (PDF)

By Dinkelmann, Karl, Pascal Heus, Chuck Humphrey, Jeremy Iverson, Jannik Jensen, Sigbjorn Revheim, and Joachim Wackerow.
 
This best practices document looks at a possible architectural model to enable effective design of components that can be combined to create DDI applications.
 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/DDIBestPractices12
 

Documenting a Wider Variety of Data Using the Data Documentation Initiative 3.1 (PDF)

By Block, William C., Christian Bilde Andersen, Daniel E. Bontempo, Arofan Gregory, Stan Howald, Douglas Kieweg, and Barry T. Radler.
 
This paper is intended to provide implementers and those delivering longitudinal data with recommendations on how to use DDI most effectively to support the presentation of longitudinal studies.
 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/DDILongitudinal01
 

Enabling Longitudinal Data Comparison Using DDI (PDF)

By Hansen, Sue Ellen, Jeremy Iverson, Uwe Jensen, Hilde Orten, and Johanna Vompras.
 
This paper looks at the growing variety of data sources in research -- e.g., biomarkers -- that are not traditional question-based surveys, and how these can be usefully documented.
 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/DDILongitudinal02
 

Generic Longitudinal Business Process Model (PDF)

By Barkow, Ingo, William Block, Jay Greenfield, Arofan Gregory, Marcel Hebing, Larry Hoyle, and Wolfgang Zenk-Moeltgen.
 
This paper looks at the unique characteristics of longitudinal data and offers recommendations for structuring metadata in a manner that facilitates analysis over time and metadata reuse.
 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/DDILongitudinal05
 

Metadata for the Longitudinal Data Life Cycle (PDF)

By Hoyle, Larry, Fortunato Castillo, Benjamin Clark, Neeraj Kashyap, Denise Perpich, Joachim Wackerow, and Knut Wenzig.
 
This paper proposes a reference model, the Generic Longitudinal Business Process Model (GLBPM), for the process of longitudinal data production and use, with an emphasis on the specification.
 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/DDILongitudinal03
 

Implementation and Governance (PDF)

By Edwards, Michelle, Jane Fry, Peter Granda, Kirstine Kolsrud, Stefan Kramer, Ken Miller, Ron Nakao, and Mary Vardigan.
 
This best practice covers the process of developing agreements and guidelines for implementation and governance of DDI as a metadata scheme for a community.
 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/DDIBestPractices01
 

Presenting Longitudinal Studies to End Users Effectively Using DDI Metadata (PDF)

By Kramer, Stefan, Randy Banks, Vicky Chang, Ingo Sieber, Mary Vardigan, and Wolfgang Zenk-Moeltgen.
 
This paper proposes best practice for the use of DDI to ensure that there are appropriate metadata to compare data produced across repeated data collection over time.
 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/DDILongitudinal04
 

Work flows - Data Discovery and Dissemination: User Perspective (PDF)

By Dinkelmann, Karl, Michelle Edwards, Jane Fry, Chuck Humphrey, Ron Nakao, and Wendy Thomas.
 
This best practice escribes the best practices for metadata producers to provide end users with the resources for data discovery and dissemination.
 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/DDIBestPractices02
 

Work flows - Archival Ingest and Metadata Enhancement (PDF)

By Dinkelmann, Karl, Michelle Edwards, Jane Fry, Chuck Humphrey, Kirstine Kolsrud, Stefan Kramer, Jenny Linnerud, Hans Jorgen Marker, Meinhard Moschner, Ron Nakao, Wendy Thomas, Achim Wackerow, and Wolfgang Zenk- Moeltgen.
 
This Best Practice discusses workflows for DDI usage in the context of archival ingest and metadata enhancement, beginning at the point of the handoff between the data provider and the archive.
 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/DDIBestPractices03
 

Work flows for Metadata Creation Regarding Recoding, Aggregation and Other Data Processing Activities 

By Marker, Hans Jorgen, Wolfgang Zenk-Moeltgen, Wendy Thomas, and Achim Wackerow.
 
This best practice discusses the capturing, in DDI metadata, of the processes of data aggregation, recoding and data processing.
 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/DDIBestPractices04
 

Controlled Vocabularies (PDF)

By Granda, Peter, Stefan Kramer, Jenny Linnerud, Hans Jorgen Marker, Ken Miller, and Mary Vardigan.
 
The benefits of using controlled vocabularies, which offer consistency, precision, and interoperability, within DDI metadata creation are the primary underlying principles behind this best practice.
 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/DDIBestPractices05
 

Creating a DDI Profile (PDF)

By Ionescu, Sanda.
 
This document outlines recommended best practices for creating a local DDI 3.0 Profile, which is a subset of DDI 3.0 fields to be used by an organization or shared by a community of users.
 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/DDIBestPractices06
 

DDI 3.0 Schemes (PDF)

By Linnerud, Jenny, Hans Jorgen Marker, Meinhard Moschner, and Wendy Thomas.
 
This best practice covers DDI publishing structures that promote reuse of common material by removing certain metadata content from the context of a specific study and publishing it for wider use.
 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/DDIBestPractices07
 

Versioning and Publication (PDF)

By Edwards, Michelle, Janet Eisenhauer, Jane Fry, Pascal Heus, Kirstine Kolsrud, Meinhard Moschner, Ron Nakao, and Wendy Thomas.
 
This best practice is designed to provide some guidelines to metadata creators and publishers about how to version metadata and publish it for others to use to comply with requirements for machine-
 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/DDIBestPractices08
 

DDI as Content for Registries (PDF)

By Askitas, Nikos, Peter Granda, Arofan Gregory, Rob Grim, Pascal Heus, Maarten Hoogerwerf, Jeremy Iverson, Ken Miller, Sigbjorn Revheim, and Jannik Vestergaard Jensen.
 
This document defines registries and provides a justification for using them.
 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/DDIBestPractices09
 

Use Cases

An Archive's Perspective on DDI 3 (PDF)

By Kleemola, Mari, Michelle Edwards, Sanda Ionescu, Uwe Jensen, Olof Olsson, Ornulf Risnes, and Wendy Thomas.
 
This paper describes the DDI 3 evaluation process at the Finnish Social Science Data Archive (FSD), and the issues that came up during this work, including how to address multilinguality and metadata reuse.
 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/DDIUseCases07
 

Questasy: Documenting and Disseminating Longitudinal Data Online Using DDI 3 (PDF)

By Amin, Alerk, Michelle Edwards, Oliver Hopt, Jannik Jensen, Dan Kristiansen, Olof Olsson, and Joachim Wackerow.
 
This paper describes how Questasy, a Web application developed to manage the dissemination of data and metadata for panel surveys, was designed and implemented.
 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/DDIUseCases01
 

Building a Modular DDI 3 Editor (PDF)

By Jensen, Jannik, Dan Kristiansen, Alerk Amin, Arofan Gregory, Agostina Martinez, Martin Mechtel, Mary Vardigan, and Wolfgang Zenk-Moeltgen.
 
This paper focuses on the creation of an open source DDI 3 editor built using a layered architecture at the Danish Data Archive (DDA).
 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/DDIUseCases02
 

Using DDI 3 for Comparison (PDF)

By Ionescu, Sanda, Larry Hoyle, Mari Kleemola, Martin Mechtel, Olof Olsson, and Wendy Thomas.
 
This paper explores how archives can use DDI 3 to support and document data comparison and harmonization.
 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/DDIUseCases03
 

Extracting Metadata From the Data Analysis Workflow (PDF)

By Hoyle, Larry, Joachim Wackerow, and Oliver Hopt.
 
This paper is an exploration of what metadata can be harvested from several commonly used programs, and therefore by deduction what else is not available from these programs.
 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/DDIUseCases04
 

Questionnaire Management and DDI: The QDDS Case (PDF)

By Hopt, Oliver, Alerk Amin, Arofan Gregory, Jannik Jensen, Dan Kristiansen, and Mary Vardigan.
 
This paper describes the Questionnaire Development Documentation project, a system created by GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences to permit permanent electronic documentation of questionnaire development and the final state of the instrument.
 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/DDIUseCases05
 

Grouping of Survey Series Using DDI 3 (PDF)

By Jensen, Uwe, Sanda Ionescu, Mari Kleemola, Agostina Martinez, Wendy Thomas, Mary Vardigan, and Wolfgang Zenk-Moeltgen.
 
This paper is an exploration and evaluation of DDI 3 to determine its suitability for marking up and managing cross-national comparative surveys like the International Social Survey Programme data.
 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/DDIUseCases06
 

Semantic Web

Scenarios for the DDI-RDF Discovery Vocabulary (PDF)

By Vompras, Johanna, Arofan Gregory, Thomas Bosch, Joachim Wackerow. 2015
 
In this paper, the authors introduce representative real world scenarios that show (1) the usage and importance of the DDI-RDF Discovery Vocabulary for the social, behavioural, and economic sciences and the Linked Data community and (2) the interaction between Disco and other vocabularies. These scenarios have in common that they represent real information needs of researchers. The Disco specification itself contains example data which can be consulted to get details of how to construct Disco instance data and to get a feeling of the full potential of Disco to represent metadata on statistical data.
 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/DDISemanticWeb02
 

Using RDF to Describe and Link Social Science Data to Related Resources on the Web: Leveraging the Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) Model (PDF)

By Kramer, Stefan, Amber Leahey, Humphrey Southall, Johanna Vompras, and Joachim Wackerow.
 
This paper looks at leveraging DDI to enable semantic linking of social science data to other data and related resources on the Web and is organized into five use cases: (1) Linking related publications; (2) Linking people and organizations; (3) Linking geography; (4) Linking related studies; (5) Linking to licenses.
 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/DDISemanticWeb01
 

Other

Exploring the Relationship Between DDI, SDMX and the Generic Statistical Business Process Model (PDF)

By Vale, Steven. 2010
 
This paper, presented at the Second Annual European DDI Users Group Meeting in Utrecht, Netherlands, in December 2010, investigates the similarities and degree of overlap among the DDI, SDMX, and GSBPM standards.
 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/DDIOtherTopics01
 

How Do We Manage Complex Questions in the Context of the Large-Scale Ingest of Legacy Paper Questionnaires into DDI Lifecycle? (PDF)

By Gierl, Claude and Johnson, Jon. 2014
 
This paper explores metadata capture challenges when ingesting large volumes of legacy paper questionnaires into a DDI-Lifecycle repository, focusing on how to represent complex and tabular questions within DDI 3.2. The authors discuss trade-offs in designing an editing profile and the implications for search, metadata consistency, and usability.
 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/eDDIGierl
 

Encoding Provenance of Social Science Data: Integrating PROV with DDI (PDF)

By Carl Lagoze, Jeremy Williams, Lars Vilhuber, William Block. 2013
 
This working paper investigates how to represent provenance metadata -- information about the history, origin, and derivation of data -- within the context of the DDI metadata standard by integrating it with the W3C PROV model. Provenance metadata is essential for assessing data quality, reproducibility, reliability, and trustworthiness in social science research. 
 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/eDDILagoze
 

Using Extended Attributes in Data Analysis Software- Controlled Vocabularies, Tools and DDI (PDF)

By Larry Hoyle . 2013
 
This paper examines how extended attributes supported by common data analysis software (e.g., SAS, Stata, SPSS, R) can be used to capture meaningful metadata -- beyond traditional variable labels -- and how such attributes might be integrated into DDI-based documentation practices to enhance data reuse, replication, and documentation quality.
 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/eDDIHoyle
 

Representing and Utilizing DDI in Relational Databases (PDF)

By Amin, Alerk, Ingo Barkow, Stefan Kramer, David Schiller, and Jeremy Williams.
 
This paper, which resulted from a workship hosted by the Leibniz Institute for Educational Research and Educational Information (DIPF) and held in Frankfurt, Germany, on April 7-8, 2011, explores the use of relational databases to represent DDI XML.
 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/DDIOtherTopics02
 

Communicating in Time and Space: How to Overcome Incompatible Frames of Reference of Producers and Users of Archival Data (PDF)

By Sundgren, Bo.
 
This paper, written by Professor Bo Sundgren of Stockholm University, was the basis of the Keynote Address at the European DDI Users Group Meeting (EDDI) held December 5-6, 2011, at the Swedish National Data Service (SND) in Gothenburg, Sweden.
 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/DDIOtherTopics03
 

Developing a Model-Driven DDI Specification (PDF)

By Participants in 2012 Dagstuhl Seminar on DDI Moving Forward.
 
This paper, an outcome of a 2012 Dagstuhl seminar on "DDI Moving Forward," captures the decisions and deliberations of the seminar participants on the approach to creating a new model-based standard.
 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/DDIWorkingPaper04
 

A Qualitative Data Model for DDI (PDF)

By Hoyle, Larry, Louise Corti, Arofan Gregory, Agustina Martinez, Joachim Wackerow, Eirik Alvar, Noemi Betancort Cabrera, Damien Gallagher, Tobias Gebel, Jani Hautamaki, Arja Kuula, Steve McEachern, and Cornelia Zuell.
 
This paper, informed by key qualitative data use cases, presents a model describing qualitative data.
 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/DDIWorkingPaper05
 

DDI-CDI and Other Standards

DDI Working Paper Series, No. 35
By the DDI-CDI Working Group (2025).
 
This paper explores how DDI-Cross Domain Integration (DDI-CDI) interacts with other standards to enable cross-domain data interoperability, emphasizing the need for multiple standards to address different aspects of data integration. It argues that DDI-CDI should be used alongside additional standards to enhance data and semantic interoperability across domains.
 
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11223221