The Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) Fostering Community Engagement and Adoption Breakout 9 RDA Sixth Plenary, Paris Mary Vardigan, ICPSR, University of Michigan

Presentation Outline DDI description and background Best practices for engagement and adoption Funding and sustainability Governance Tools Engagement mechanisms Relationship to other standards

What is DDI? A freely available international metadata standard Began in the social, behavioral, and economic sciences but now branching out to related fields Two development lines: DDI Codebook and DDI Lifecycle Documents data at the study, file, and variable levels Structured, machine-actionable, optimized for metadata re-use

DDI Website From the website, you can: Download the specification Explore tools Learn more about DDI Join the DDI Alliance And more…

DDI Alliance Organizational Structure New Charter and Bylaws (2013) detail the structure of the DDI Alliance 40 current members – repositories, libraries, national statistical offices, data centers Member Representatives – Vote on administrative matters Executive Board – Elected by the members Scientific Board – Vote on changes to the specification Technical Committee (TC) – Makes changes to the specification

Working Groups and Committees Controlled Vocabularies Working Group Experimental Data Working Group Qualitative Data Model Working Group RDF Vocabularies Working Group Web Site Development Group Marketing and Partnerships Group Training Group DDI Developers Community

Funding and Sustainability Funding a standards effort can be challenging 1995: DDI established by ICPSR as a volunteer effort 1997: ICPSR received funding to enhance and beta-test the specification 2003: DDI transitioned to a self-funded membership Alliance ($2500 annual institutional fee) 2015: Tiered membership structure adopted (fees will increase to $3000 minimum in 2017) Voluntary contributions not sufficient -- need to be supplemented by other sources

Governance A recognized organizational infrastructure is important DDI’s administrative home is in ICPSR in the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan Original Charter and Bylaws had ICPSR, the Roper Center, and others as Host Institutions with seats on Steering Committee An External Review in 2011 recommended “democratizing” the governance; now an elected Executive Board Governance of the standard itself is also important – clear procedures for development and updates needed

Tools Good tools are key to success, but as a standards body the DDI Alliance does not build tools itself DDI owes much of its uptake to the Nesstar tool, which produces native DDI XML The World Bank’s International Household Survey Network provides Nesstar Publisher to data producers in low-income countries DDI now used in over 60 countries of the world

Tools Tools producing metadata should ideally be part of software that researchers use routinely DDI for Excel is one such tool, with versions for SPSS and Stata planned StatTransfer also produces DDI Capturing metadata at the source – e.g., from Computer Assisted Interviewing software – the best approach Some RFPs to survey firms are mandating export in DDI XML to document the questionnaire – See A Call to Action for Questionnaire DocumentationA Call to Action for Questionnaire Documentation

Engagement Mechanisms Over the years, we found these methods effective: Nurture communities of practice. With some support, User Meetings emerged from the community – one held in Europe and one in the Americas annually Encourage training. Yearly training at Schloss Dagstuhl in Germany supported by DDI members. The Alliance supports a “train the trainer” program Conduct outreach for visibility. Presentations given each year at IASSIST, other meetings; Marketing Committee is targeting new conferences Have a communications strategy and infrastructure. DDI Annual Report, Newsletter, lists, collaboration platform (Atlassian products), GoToMeeting

Relationship to Other Standards With disciplinary boundaries blurring, standards need to be aware of each other and potentially interoperate Mappings to other standards are good resources to have DDI developing an Information Model: To increase understanding by others, especially other metadata standards efforts To permit flexibility in rendering – e.g., XML, RDF, relational databases To broaden content coverage Dagstuhl workshop in October to focus on review of DDI model, with representatives from other standards

Random Lessons Learned Researchers are most difficult audience to reach Finding champions is key It’s easy to get too complicated; tools need to handle complexity and hide it from users Support for specific expertise often needed – DDI provides modest support to a technical consultant and support for “sprint” participants Periodic outside reviews are a good practice

Questions? Mary Vardigan