DDI (Data Documentation Initiative)

A widely used, international standard for describing data from the social, behavioral, and economic sciences. Two versions of the standard are currently maintained in parallel:

Both versions are XML-based and defined using XML Schemas. They were developed and are maintained by the DDI Alliance.

Summary Edit

Standard Website
http://www.ddialliance.org/
Specification
http://www.ddialliance.org/Specification/
Related Vocabularies
DDI Controlled Vocabularies
Mappings
DataCite Metadata Schema
Dublin Core
Subjects
Arts and Humanities
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Disciplines
Demography
Economics
Health Policy
Historical and Philosophical Studies
History by Area
Human and Social Geography
Law
Planning (Urban, Rural and Regional)
Politics
Social Policy
Sociology
Statistics

Extensions Add

CESSDA MLI - Council of European Social Science Data Archives Minimum Level of Information Edit

A common base profile of DDI for use by the member archives of CESSDA.

GSIM (Generic Statistical Information Model) Edit

A reference framework that provides a common terminology acroos and between statistical organisations; aligns with DDI and SDMX.

Tools Add

DDI Tools Edit

The Data Documentaion Initiative website's list of tools to implement the DDI standard.

DdiEditor Edit

DdiEditor is a DDI-Lifecycle Editing Framework developed by the DDA - Danish Data Archive.

DDI on Rails Edit

Server-side software for building a data portal, with a particular focus on survey datasets. It uses DDI to provide access to the data at the level of concepts and variables. For an example of it in use, see the SOEPinfo data portal.

Geodoc Metadata Editor Edit

The Geodoc metadata editor tool allows users to create, validate, edit and export geospatial metadata records. It also supports the creation and export of metadata records as XML output files compliant with a number of standards, including UK AGMAP 2.1, ISO 19115, FGDC, DDI, and Dublin Core.

Stat/Transfer Edit

A tool to enable the automated transfer of statistical data between programs. The software supports version 3.1 of the specification and will read and write XML schemas and associated delimited data files.

Use Cases Add

CESSDA Catalogue Edit

Provides a seamless interface to datasets from social science data archives across Europe using the CESSDA MLI profile of DDI.

DDI Projects Edit

The Data Documentation Initiative website's list of projects adopting or encouraging DDI as a standard.

DDI Use Case Literature Edit

Links to DDI 3 use case papers, which were the outcomes of a workshop held at the Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz Center for Informatics in Wadern, Germany, November 2-6, 2009.

ICPSR (Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research) Edit

A data archive providing leadership and training in data access, curation, and methods of analysis for the social science research community; all metadata conforms to the DDI standard.

The Institution for Social and Policy Studies (ISPS) Data Archive Edit

Provides members of the scholarly community with access to files associated with scholarly studies for the purpose of replication, for all studies conducted by ISPS-affiliated researchers. ISPS metadata records conform to DDI requirements and include a minimal set of Dublin Core metadata elements.

UKDA (UK Data Archive) Edit

Curator of the largest collection of digital data in the social sciences and humanities in the United Kingdom, the archive uses DDI as the basis for its catalogue records.