[DDI-SRG] Future role of DDI-ID Working Group (fwd)

[Wendy Thomas]

I thought you would all be interested in this summary of the future role 
of the Instrumentation Group. They were our most productive working group 
and it is good to see that they have some specific tasks they want to 
complete and that they intend to retain an focuses interest on the issues 
around instruments.

Wendy

Wendy L. Thomas                          Phone: +1 612.624.4389
Data Access Core Director		 Fax:   +1 612.626.8375
Minnesota Population Center              Email: wlt at pop.umn.edu
University of Minnesota
50 Willey Hall
225 19th Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55455

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2007 10:19:16 -0700
From: Tom Piazza <piazza at berkeley.edu>
To: DDI-ID working group <ddi-id at icpsr.umich.edu>
Cc: Mary Vardigan <vardigan at umich.edu>, Wendy Thomas <wlt at pop.umn.edu>,
     Cathy Zahner <czahner at umich.edu>
Subject: Future role of DDI-ID Working Group

Hello to all,

We had an interesting conference call on Tuesday, and I would like to
summarize our conclusions as to the future role of this working group.


*1.  DDI-3 Schema Development - done

*Our work in this area is basically done.  We developed the model that
was used to create the schema, and it was implemented in DDI-3.  There
are bugs to be fixed and some changes to be made, but that is not
something that we as a group will deal with.


*2.  Development of Examples

*There are currently some hand-created examples on the DDI site, and
those are fine, up to a point.  However, we need to emphasize that the
creation of DDI for instruments of any realistic size can only be done
by means of a computer program.  And a few such examples would be
helpful to have on the DDI site.

It turns out that some of the developers of programs that will convert
CAI instruments to DDI are members of our working group.  So we will try
to put together some examples that show a small CAI instrument (in
Blaise, CASES, or CSPro) and then show the DDI file that results from
the converter.   When we have such examples, I will forward them to the
DDI group that maintains the Web site.


*3.  Presentation at FedCASIC in March 2008*

We have been asked to prepare a presentation on instrument documentation
for the next FedCASIC conference in Washington, DC, in March 2008.  John
Ladds and I are the organizers, and we will put together a program that
focuses on the instrument documentation module of DDI-3.   Lon, Jeremy,
and a Michigan person are likely participants so far.  If others are
also interested in participating, let me or John Ladds
(John.Ladds at statcan.ca) know.


*4.  Occasional Discussion of These Issues*

Although the main work of our group is now finished, we agreed that it
was useful to organize a conference call from time to time, to review
our current efforts to produce useful instrument documentation.

*We have set a date for the next such call -- Tuesday, Nov. 13, at 10:00
EST.
*For modifications to the calling list, contact Cathy Zahner at ICPSR
(czahner at umich.edu).



Finally I want to say thanks to all of you in this group who have
contributed so much time and effort to this project.   I think that the
instrument documentation module constitutes one of the main improvements
in DDI-3, compared to DDI-2.  And the entire DDI Committee is grateful
for your work on this project.


Until our next call,  my best to all of you.

Tom