Working Groups (updated)

Working Groups play a vital role in the development of DDI and its semantic products. They also advise the Executive Board or the Scientific Board on relevant topics and activities related to the operation, development and future of the Alliance. Anyone affiliated with a member organization with relevant knowledge and expertise on the given subject may apply to join a working group. Each group must have a designated leader for managing the work and reporting to its authorizing body.

If you would like to propose a new working group, please send an email to the DDI Alliance Executive Director. The DDI Alliance makes modest funding available for Working Group members to attend key meetings focused on development of the specification. The Funding Guidelines and Request Form can be found here.

All working groups' documentation, including past and inactive groups, is maintained on the DDI Collaboration Wiki.

To JOIN a working group, send an email to the chair of that group via the links below.

Controlled Vocabularies Working Group

Link to Controlled Vocabularies Wiki Page

This group develops controlled vocabularies on already identified DDI elements and determines which other DDI elements require controlled vocabularies and develops those.

Join Controlled Vocabularies Group

Marketing and Partnerships Working Group

Link to Marketing and Partnerships Wiki Page

This group works towards the following goals:

Increase DDI Alliance membership
Increase use and adoption of DDI and get new DDI users
Encourage new people to become involved in DDI stewardship (expand the community)
Work with other research standards bodies to integrate and exchange information between DDI and other standards
Initiate and coordinate marketing activities to promote DDI to a broad set of existing and potential audiences
Establish and maintain a DDI brand, basic description of DDI, and a core marketing message
Ensure consistency in promotional and educational messaging by coordinating with other DDI working groups

Join Marketing & Partnerships Group

Publications Working Group

Link to Publications Wiki Page

The publications working group contributes content and works to support and promote the various publications produced under the auspices of the DDI Alliance including, but not limited to:

DDI Newsletter (published 4 times a year, starting Q1, January 2017)
DDI Working Papers Series
DDI-related peer-reviewed published papers
DDI-related conference proceedings (EDDI, NADDI, ESRA, and others)

Join Publications Group

Training Working Group

Link to the Training Wiki Page

The purpose of the Training Group is to:

Improve people's comfort level and competence in working with DDI
Bring in new users (and members)
Gear training to specific audiences
Develop expertise within the community for training purposes

Join Training Group

Website Working Group

Link to the Website Wiki Page

This group maintains the DDI Alliance website, which is built using the Drupal content management system, and adds new content as appropriate.

Join Website Group

DDI Developers Community

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

Join the Google Group

Minutes of Developers Group meetings

Group Report, 2010-2011
Group Report, 2011-2012
Group Report, 2012-2013