[DDI-SRG] FW: [DDI-users] DDI usage scenario

[Wendy Thomas]

Mary,

There were a number of points I've brought up on the TIC list and Alerk 
is on out listserve.

1) Universe is required in any study. A study needs to be about something. 
The only way around this is to publish not a study but a ResourcePackage 
of ConceptSchemes and VariableSchemes (containing VariableGroups).
2) DDI references explicitly state "Used for referencing an identified 
entity epxressed in DDI XML..." so yes it needs to be in DDI. If not 
available in DDI you could enter the content of the variable and then 
reference it. (VariableGroups only include by reference.

I'll send a summary of what issues this use case raises on the DDI User 
list.

Wendy


On Fri, 6 Feb 2009, Mary Vardigan wrote:

> Dear TIC,
>
> I was wondering if someone could take a look at this and get back to the
> senders. Not knowing as much as you all do, I had a couple of questions:
>
> * Is Universe mandatory? It seems not to make sense in this context.
> * Do the variable references presume that there is a DDI 3.0 file with
> the full variable information somewhere else? What if that is not the
> case? Can the text of the variable (question, variable label, and
> category labels) be put into this instance?
>
> This is an interesting use of DDI 3.0. Let me know what you think.
>
> Thanks much,
> Mary
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ddi-users-bounces at icpsr.umich.edu
> [mailto:ddi-users-bounces at icpsr.umich.edu] On Behalf Of Alerk Amin
> Sent: Friday, February 06, 2009 11:49 AM
> To: ddi-users at icpsr.umich.edu
> Cc: Rob Grim
> Subject: [DDI-users] DDI usage scenario
>
> Hello,
>
> We are are currently trying to use DDI 3 as the output for a
> documentation tool that we are working on. Our needs do not fall into
> the normal "lifecycle" model, and we are running into some issues. We
> would appreciate any help or insight about how we can use DDI with our
> project.
>
> First, a short description of our project. We are building a website
> that allows researchers to document their publications and the concepts
> that they use in the publication. A example of a concept in a article
> would be 'household income' referenced by a variable in the dataset that
> contains the actual household data values. Another example would be
> 'active social participation', measured through a group of variables.
>
> In our project we use a datasets that reside in data archives and for
> which pre DDI 3.0 documentation is available through Nesstar.
> Researchers typically only use a selection of variables from a dataset
> in their publications. We want to capture and reference only the
> variables that the researcher used and the concepts that - as the
> example shows - can be tied to one or more variables.
>
>
> Using our website, researchers can create concepts that they are
> studying in their publication, and then select the variables they used
> to measure that concept. We want to create a DDI instance for each
> publication that captures the additional metadata for that publication.
> In this case, that would be the list of concepts and the list of
> variables for each concept (in case a concept is represented by more
> than one variable). The concepts are "new" information, but the
> variables should link back to the original XML for the dataset.
>
> The attached sample.xml file contains a small example showing how we
> think this information should be captured with DDI for one publication.
> Does this seem like an appropriate solution? Or should we use a
> different method for placing this information inside DDI XML?  We would
> appreciate any comments or suggestions. Thank you for your help.
>
> Best,
> Alerk, Rob
>
> --
> Alerk Amin
> Senior Software Developer
> CentERdata
> Room K737 (Tilburg University, Koopmans Building) Postal address : PO
> Box 90153, 5000 LE Tilburg, The Netherlands Visiting address :
> Warandelaan 2, 5037 AB Tilburg, The Netherlands Telephone : +31-13-466
> 2243 / 8325 Fax : +31-13-466 2764 WWW : www.centerdata.nl Disclaimer :
> See http://www.centerdata.nl/maildisclaimer.
>

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