Working Groups

• Administrative Data Group
• Controlled Vocabularies Working Group
  
• Governance Task Force
• Qualitative Data Model Working Group
• RDF Vocabularies Working Group
• Survey Design and Implementation Working Group
• Technical Implementation Committee (TIC)
• Tools Catalog Group
• Web Site Maintenance Group
• DDI Developers Community

Administrative Data Group

Charge: DDI arose as a documentation standard for survey data. The Administrative Data Group will explore ways to enhance the DDI specification to document administrative data optimally.

Timetable:

• Stage 1: Survey the different ways administrative data is documented in different organizations.
• Stage 2: Summarize the special requirements of administrative data.
• Stage 3: Review the DDI content with respect to data collection and administrative data.
• Stage 4: Compare the requirements of administrative data with the capabilities of DDI.
• Stage 5: Create proposals for a modification of the DDI standard.

First results will be presented at the DDI-expert meeting in summer 2012.

Members: The group is currently under construction. New members are welcomed. Please contact David Schiller, Institute for Employment Research, Germany (Chair)

Controlled Vocabularies Working Group

Charge: To develop controlled vocabularies on already identified DDI elements. Stage 2: To determine which other DDI elements require controlled vocabularies and develop those.

Timetable: Start November 2007, Stage 1 completed April 2010. Stage 2 ongoing.

Membership opportunity: New members are welcomed. Please contact Sanda Ionescu for more information.

• Lucy Bell, United Kingdom Data Archive (UKDA)
• Joan Corbett, ScotCen Social Research
• Sanda Ionescu, Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)
• Taina Jääskeläinen, Finnish Social Science Data Archive (FSD)
• Meinhard Moschner, GESIS -- Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences
• Michaela Olde, Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)
• Hilde Orten, Norwegian Social Science Data Service (NSD)
• Jani Hautamaki, FSD - technical support

Group Report, 2010-2011

Group Report, 2011-2012

Governance Task Force

Charge: This group will revise the governance structure of the DDI Alliance through the creation of a new Charter and Bylaws, to be sent to the Expert and Steering Committees of the Alliance for a vote of approval.

Timeline: The group will meet virtually and by phone during 2011 and the first half of 2012 with the goal of having completed their work by the time of the next DDI Alliance Expert Committee meeting in June 2012.

Members:

• Ron Nakao, Stanford University, Chair
• Dan Gillman, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
• Vidgis Kvalheim, Norwegian Social Science Data Service
• Steve McEachern, Australian Data Archive
• Anita Rocha, University of Washington, Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology
• Jon Stiles, University of California, Berkeley, UCDATA
• Wendy Thomas, Minnesota Population Center
• Joachim Wackerow, GESIS

Qualitative Data Model Working Group

Charge: To develop a robust XML-based schema for qualitative data exchange (compliant with DDI) and encourage tools development based upon these needs.

Timetable: Start January 2010 -- First meeting, 19 April 2010; Gothenburg working meeting December 2011; Bergen working meeting November 2012

Progress: Draft QuDex schema produced outside of remit of the group in 2008. The group have built on this schema and evaluated its relationship to DDI. Three class views for qualitative data collection, archiving, and re-use have been modelled and an object definitions document created.

Convenor: Arofan Gregory, Metadata Technology
Chair: Louise Corti, UK Data Archive
Architects: Larry Hoyle, University of Kansas, and Agustina Martinez, Liverpool John Moores University
Observer: Joachim Wackerow, GESIS

Other Members:

Eirik Alvar, Norwegian Social Science Data Service (NSD)
Steve McEachern, Australia Data Archive
Cornelia Zuell, GESIS
Damien Gallagher, National University of Maynooth, Ireland
Tobias Gebel, University Bielefeld
Jani Hautamaki, Finnish Data Archive
Arja Kuula, Finnish Data Archive
Noemi Betancort Cabrera, Qualiservice, Bremen

RDF Vocabularies Working Group

A new working group has been formed, to create RDF vocabularies based on the DDI metadata model. This working group is formalizing a development effort which has been informal up to this point, with two initial work products: XKOS, an RDF vocabulary for describing statistical classifications, which is an extension of the popular SKOS vocabulary; and the DDI Discovery vocabulary, for publishing metadata about data sets into the Web of Linked Data. Other vocabularies are also being considered for development in future.

The work on both vocabularies began in a workshop on "Semantic Statistics for Socila, Behavioural, and Economic Sciences: Leveraging the DDI Model for the Linked Data Web" at Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz Center for Informatics, Germany, in September 2011 (http://www.dagstuhl.de/11372). This work has been continued at these three meetings: follow-up working meeting (Discovery vocabulary) at the 3rd Annual European DDI Users Group Meeting (EDDI11) in Gothenburg, Sweden, in December 2011 (http://www.iza.org/eddi11); second workshop on "Semantic Statistics for Social, Behavioural, and Economic Sciences: Leveraging the DDI Model for the Linked Data Web" at Schloss Dagstuhl in October 2012 (http://www.dagstuhl.de/12422); and a follow-up meeting (Discovery only) at GESIS-Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences in Mannheim, Germany, in February 2013.

DDI-RDF Discovery Vocabulary
Chair: Joachim Wackerow (GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Germany),
Members:
Thomas Bosch (GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Germany)
Sarven Capadisli (Bern University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland)
Franck Cotton (INSEE - Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques, France)
Richard Cyganiak (DERI, Digital Enterprise Research Institute, Ireland)
Arofan Gregory (ODaF - Open Data Foundation, USA )
Larry Hoyle (University of Kansas, USA)
Benedikt Kämpgen (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany)
Olof Olsson (SND - Swedish National Data Service)
Heiko Paulheim (University of Mannheim, Germany)
Dan Smith (Algenta Technologies Inc., USA)
Johanna Vompras (University Bielefeld Library, Germany)
Benjamin Zapilko (GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Germany)

XKOS RDF Vocabulary
Chair: Franck Cotton (INSEE - Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques, France)
Members:
Richard Cyganiak (DERI, Digital Enterprise Research Institute, Ireland)
Daniel Gilman (BLS - Bureau of Labor Statistics, USA)
Rob Grim (Tilburg University, Netherlands)
Yves Jaques (FAO of the UN)
Dan Smith (Algenta Technologies Inc., USA)
Wendy Thomas (MPC - Minnesota Population Center, USA)

Survey Design and Implementation Working Group

Charge: To develop requirements for new elements and attributes describing the process of survey design and implementation through the point of specifications for computer-assisted interviews. After completing the first phase of its work, which focused on documenting sampling and questionnaire design, the group has reconfigured itself to focus on weighting and paradata. 

Timetable: First draft 2012.

Membership opportunity: New members are welcomed. Please contact Peter Granda.

• Gina Cheung, University of Michigan, Survey Research Operations, Co-Chair
• Dan Gillman, Bureau of Labor Statistics
• Peter Granda, Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), Co-Chair
• Kirstine Kolsrud, Norwegian Social Science Data Service
• Steve McEachern, Australian Data Archive
• Amanda Norton, Australian Bureau of Statistics
• Anita Rocha, University of Washington
• Wendy Thomas, University of Minnesota
• Dan Zahs, University of Michigan, Survey Research Operations
• Adam Zammit, Australian Consortium for Social and Political Research Incorporated (ACSPRI)

Group Report, 2010-2011

Group Report, 2011-2012

Technical Implementation Committee (TIC)

Charge: To create, maintain, and enhance the DDI specification according to requirements of the DDI substantive content working groups and in alignment with other metadata standards and community-based needs.

Timetable: Ongoing work, with weekly phone conferences.

Membership opportunity: New members are welcomed. Please contact Wendy Thomas.

• J. Gager, Metadata Technology, Technical Consultant 
• Arofan Gregory, Metadata Technology , Technical Consultant
• Pascal Heus, Open Data Foundation (ODaF)
• Jeremy Iverson, Colectica, Invited Expert 
• Dan Smith, Colectica, Invited Expert
• Wendy Thomas, University of Minnesota, Minnesota Population Center, Chair
• Joachim Wackerow, GESIS -- Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Vice Chair

Group Report, 2010-2011

Group Report, 2011-2012

Tools Catalog Group

Charge: The Tools Catalog Group works to facilitate the use of the DDI standard by describing software and other tools to work with DDI. The group has created a catalog structure for tools and is now working to develop and implement incremental improvements based on community input.

Members include:

• Andias Wira-Alam, GESIS, Germany (Chair)
• Katherine McNeill, MIT, USA
• Jannik Jensen, Danish Data Archive, Denmark
• Sunny Kaniyathu, University of Saskatchewan, Canada
• David Schiller, Institute for Employment Research, Germany

Group Report, 2010-2011

Group Report, 2011-2012

Web Site Maintenance Group

Charge: This group maintains the DDI Alliance Web site, which is built using the Drupal content management system, and adds new content as appropriate. New members are welcomed, if you are interested please contact the chair or the DDI Alliance Director.

Timetable: Ongoing

• Olof Olsson, Swedish National Data Service (SND) (Chair)

Group Report, 2010-2011

DDI Developers Community

This is a group of developers of software implementations based on DDI. The group gets together periodically to discuss their implementations of the DDI specification.

Minutes of Developers Group meetings

Group Report, 2010-2011

Group Report, 2011-2012