EDDI 2019 was held at Tampere University and was jointly hosted by Statistics Finland and the Finnish Social Science Data Archive, who were celebrating their 20th anniversary.
With 89 participants, it was the largest EDDI since 2014, and also the largest ever turn out from the host country. Over half of the participants were from Scandinavia!
Tutorials included: an introduction to DDI (utilizing material from the DDI Train-the-Trainers initiative), using paradata with DDI, going beyond a DDI codebook, and how a syntax representation of the DDI 4 UML model can be generated in any language.
There were two keynotes. Marja Rantala from Statistics Finland gave an interesting and insightful talk on challenges in interoperability drawing on her extensive experience in aligning Nordic geography. The second keynote was from Damien Lecarpentier speaking about the challenges of building the European Open Science Cloud, which is bringing together a coherent infrastructure which it is hoped will foster cross disciplinary data sharing.
One theme of the program was how DDI is now embedded in many key infrastructures in Europe -- beyond data archives. Examples included the adoption of DDI controlled vocabularies in CESSDA and how they are key in solving the challenges of multilingualism, as well as the maturing of DDI-Lifecycle to support questionnaire development and longitudinal data management. Other presentations highlighted adoption of DDI in National Statistical offices as GSIM progresses from modelling into implementation.
The poster session is always a highlight of EDDI, and this year was no exception. Software and tools both in development and in maturity were demonstrated focusing on questionnaires and grappling with legacy data. Poster presentations showcased international developments, including three from Japanese participants! More information on presentations and posters are available from https://zenodo.org/communities/eddi19/.
The next EDDI conference will be in Paris, hosted by SciencePo, on the 1st & 2nd of December 2020.
Trotz einiger Herausforderungen wird erwartet, dass ihre Rolle in der Zukunft weiter wachsen mehr hier wird, wobei die Technologie das Gesundheitssystem weiterhin transformiert und verbessert.