News

The Technical Committee met in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A. August 1-5, 2022. The focus of this meeting was finalizing the work needed to move DDI-Lifecycle to the COGS production platform.

The COGS production platform, currently used by SDTL, captures the content of DDI-Lifecycle in a set of CSV files and related documentation text which is then transformed into multiple implementation languages (XML, RDF, JSON, UML/XMI, C++, etc.) and a documentation file in Sphinx. The primary goal is to provide a platform that supports intermittent testing, greater access for developers, and generated documentation and implementation structures. This will move DDI-Lifecycle out of being a hand-crafted structure.

In a series of sessions, the members also discussed the focus of the Technical Committee over the next few years given the role of the new Scientific Board and the diversification of the DDI product line.

An executive summary of the meeting is posted on the Technical Committee section of the DDI wiki: https://ddi-alliance.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/DDI4/pages/2847703041/Aug...

The “Interoperability for Cross-Domain Research: Machine-Actionability & Scalability” workshop was held at Schloss Dagstuhl from August 28 to September 2, 2022 (https://www.dagstuhl.de/22353). The workshop was the fourth in a series, starting in 2018, exploring the role of metadata standards and the issues around interoperability in the cross-domain sharing and reuse of research data. It was jointly supported by CODATA, the DDI Alliance, Schloss Dagstuhl, the Leibniz Center for Informatics, and the EU-funded WorldFAIR project, of which CODATA is the coordinator. With the current interest in the FAIR principles and their application to interdisciplinary research data, the focus of the workshop was on specific approaches which could be employed within large-scale infrastructures spanning domain boundaries.

The workshop involved 23 participants from 10 countries, and included experts from many disciplines and organisations, including infectious disease, the social, behavioural, and economic sciences, environmental science, disaster risk reduction, geographic information science, and others. The work was divided into three groups, looking at different aspects of interoperability: integration of primary and reference data; access to sensitive data; and common approaches to large-scale oceans and disaster data. Several WorldFAIR case studies contributed to these groups. A fourth group looked at how the findings in each area could be combined in a cross-domain interoperability framework, and a fifth looked at the RDF expression of some core data and metadata models. Further information on the workshop themes and the groups’ activity can be found on the workshop wiki.

The workshop was very successful in meeting its agreed goals. One was the production of an initial draft of a cross-domain interoperability framework (CDIF), which is central to the work of the WorldFAIR project and other fora looking at cross-domain interoperability. CDIF is a proposed set of recommended best practices for using a coordinated set of domain-agnostic standards – most often as specific subsets or profiles of those standards – to support a core set of functions for cross-domain FAIR reuse. The group work on specific topics has resulted in a number of planned publications, and one or more collaborative projects between some of the participating institutions.

The workshop showed that Schloss Dagstuhl’s reputation as a venue for intensive collaborative work is well-deserved. Over the course of this series of workshops, solutions to the problem of cross-domain interoperability have gained a sharper focus, leading to the concrete outputs which will serve as a basis for ongoing work. A fifth workshop in the series, ‘Defining a core metadata framework for cross-domain data sharing and reuse’, is planned for the fall of 2023, as well as a workshop on the application of DDI’s Cross-Domain Integration standard.

A first preliminary release of the European Statistical System’s most widely used statistical classifications is available on the EU Vocabularies website as Linked Open Data.  The vocabularies have been modelled using the XKOS ontology, the extension of SKOS for modeling statistical classifications. XKOS is a product of the DDI Alliance.

The 2022 European DDI User Conference (EDDI22) is organized jointly by CDSP [https://cdsp.sciences-po.fr/en/], Center for Socio-Political Data, GESIS [http://www.gesis.org/en/home/] - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences and IDSC [http://idsc.iza.org/] of IZA - International Data Service Center of the Institute for the Study of Labor.

The EDDI22 Conference website is at: [https://eddi22.sciencesconf.org]

It will be hosted by Sciences Po in their buildings at Rue Saint-Peres, in the Saint Germain district, Paris, from Tuesday 29 November 2022 to Thursday 1 December 2022.

Online participation will also be available for those unable to travel.

The Data Documentation Initiative (DDI)[http://www.ddialliance.org/] is an international standard for describing the data produced by surveys and other observational methods in the social, behavioral, economic, and health sciences.

The meeting will bring together DDI users and professionals from all over Europe and the world. Anyone interested in developing, applying, or using DDI is invited to attend and present.

We are seeking presentations, talks, papers on all things DDI:

• Case Studies
• Mature implementations
• Early Implementations
• Interplay of DDI with other standards or technologies
• Projects in early phases in which DDI is under consideration
• Critiques of DDI

Proposed topics of the conference

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We expect that many presentations will cross over between topic areas but that should not discourage proposals, although you will be asked to nominate one category when submitting. Please also note that the possible topics are not exclusive to those listed:

 

User Needs, Efficient Infrastructures and Improved Quality

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Rich, standard-based metadata can a) improve the fulfillment of the need for better documentation for researchers and other users; b) improve efficiency by providing infrastructures that drive data collection, data processing and dissemination (e.g. metadata-portals); c) improve quality of our products and processes. There has been increasing interest in metadata in Europe in the context of building EOSC.  Papers describing innovative solutions covering the parts of or the whole life-cycle from collection to dissemination based on metadata are encouraged. Papers focusing on metadata driven production are welcomed as well.

 

Official Statistics

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National and international statistical organizations share a need for inter-related standards like the Generic Statistical Business Process Model (GSBPM), the Generic Activity Model for Statistical Organizations (GAMSO), the Generic Statistical Information Model (GSIM), the Common Statistical Production Architecture (CSPA), DDI, and SDMX. We welcome papers with a focus on standards in the context of official statistics.

 

Interoperability, Reusing and Sharing Metadata

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DDI is strongly focused on the principles of metadata re-use and interoperability. “Enter once and use many times” is a powerful paradigm that can lead to improved fulfilment of user needs, improved quality and improved efficiency. The FAIR principles emphasize the use of formal, accessible, shared and broadly applicable language for knowledge representation and use of vocabularies and references. Papers that demonstrate achieving interoperability using DDI, or innovative ways to reuse, share and harmonize metadata are welcomed.

 

Data Harmonization

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Data harmonization can maximize the value of large scale population research in health and social sciences for both documentation and processing purposes. DDI has rich constructs such as Concept, Comparison and Group, and ConceptualVariable and RepresentedVariable in DDI 3.2. We encourage papers which describe projects utilizing DDI or exploring DDI as a basis for harmonizing data.

 

Incentives to Document Data

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The advantage of having good documentation on data is rarely challenged, but it is often left as the last thing (or maybe not even that) to do on a research project. This is because the benefits for researchers come largely from publication and not from the data itself. In this context, changing both the culture and the rewards for documentation and sharing of data might be seen as key motivators. We encourage papers exploring this topic with the focus on DDI.

 

Open Data and Linked Open Data

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As the “Open Data” movement – which aims to make data more freely available – gains more and more attention in science and humanities, especially in the area of government data, the value of data that are easy to access and not limited by restrictive licences is acknowledged. By using “Linked Open Data” technologies the ability to create reproducible and transparent research is enabled. For both, high quality metadata that is standardized and machine-actionable, like DDI metadata, is crucial. We encourage papers in the area of Open Data and Linked Open Data with a focus on DDI.

 

Privacy and Access Control

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The sharing of data or metadata is sometimes restricted due to privacy issues or property rights. Especially, but not exclusively, in health research there is the need to protect the privacy of persons to whom the data refer. In social sciences and humanities, data can contain copyrighted material like texts and photos. Access rights can be determined by well standardized metadata. Thus good metadata management enables the protection of research participants’ and researchers’ rights and ensures an organization’s investment in data and metadata. We encourage papers in the area of concepts or implementations of privacy and access control issues with a focus on DDI.

 

Metadata versus Data and Related Ethics

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In the case of surveys, there is usually a clear distinction between data and metadata. However, for example, in the context of qualitative research the boundary between data and metadata is less clear-cut. This issue also arises with big data sources like Facebook and other social media. Ultimately what is perceived to be data and what is perceived to be metadata is defined by research questions. This poses some difficult questions for research ethics when release, use and access to data usually have governance, yet metadata conceivably does not. We encourage papers focusing on this area of tension with the background of DDI.

 

Software / Tools

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The acceptance and adoption of a “standard” depends on the availability of re-usable tools and software to utilize it. Many new tools that leverage DDI are emerging, and they target different parts of the data life cycle. We encourage papers showcasing tools and software which make use of DDI or parts of it.

 

Submissions and Presentation forms

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Proposals are welcome for the following presentation forms.

 

Complete Session: Proposals for complete sessions should list the organizer or moderator and possible participants.  The session organizer will be responsible for securing both session participants and a chair.

This is designed for sessions which could be described as a Discussion,  Plenary or Birds of a Feather.

The submission should provide titles, author names, and a brief description for each of the individual presentations and email the details to the Program Committee (eddi22-prog@googlegroups.com).

Submission: abstract (300 words maximum).

 

Full Paper: The presentation will be approx. 20 minutes long, plus 10 minutes for questions at the end.

Accepted papers will be presented at the conference. They can be published in the journal IASSIST Quarterly.

At least one author of each paper is expected to register for the conference and to present the paper.

Submission: abstract (200 words maximum) - Further requirements: see section Author Guideline & Important dates below.

 

Regular Presentation: The presentation will be approx. 20 minutes long, plus 10 minutes for questions at the end.

Submission: abstract (200 words maximum).

 

Short Presentation: The presentations will be approx. 10 minutes long, plus 5 minutes for questions at the end.

Submission: abstract (200 words maximum)

 

Poster: An A1 poster

Submission: abstract (200 words maximum) 

Posters are to be presented in-person

 

Tutorial or Workshop: Half-day or full-day tutorials (introductions) or workshops (more advanced special topics) with respectively 2 and 4 blocks each lasting 90 minutes in length.

These are scheduled to take place on Tuesday, November 29, 2022

The abstract should describe the topic, the perspective (business or technical), the intended audience and possible prerequisites.

Hands-on exercises could rely on the participants using laptop computers.

Submission: abstract (300 words maximum).

 

How to submit

=============

 

If you are interested in submitting a proposal, You will first have to create an account, at [https://eddi22.sciencesconf.org] or just log-in, if you already have one.

 

In the section "My submission" you can start the submission process.

The deadline for submissions is 4 September 2022, 23:59 CEST.

 

• Please consider indicating your availability as a reviewer as well.
• Please also indicate whether you will be presenting in-person or on-line.

 

Author Guidelines & Important dates

===================================

 

Deadline for Call for Papers / all proposals due: 4 September 2022, 23:59 CEST.

Notification of acceptance for all proposals: 28 September 2022.

 

For Full papers

 

• A draft of the paper of 8-12 pages with appendices must be sent in addition to the Program Committee (eddi22-prog@googlegroups.com) for review by 15 September 2022
• Reviewer comments will be sent to the authors by 17 October  2022.
• Final version of full papers due: 11 November 2022.

 

Full papers must follow the rules of IASSIST Quarterly [https://iassistquarterly.com/index.php/iassist/about/submissions]. Submissions should use the IQ author template [https://drive.google.com/file/d/14yRUII3ma7e7TIQxjohNU786NUzzEhxU/view].

Please pay attention to the details in the template and submit your contribution in Microsoft Word document file format (or RTF or OpenOffice) and PDF format.

 

Accepted papers have to be submitted in Microsoft Word document file format (or RTF or OpenOffice) and PDF format.

 

General Information

===================

 

The Program Committee [https://www.eddi-conferences.eu/committees] strategically develops, creates and organizes the program.

The Organization Committee [https://www.eddi-conferences.eu/committees] coordinates the onsite work

 

For questions or any other correspondence regarding the Call for Papers of EDDI221, please send an email to eddi22-prog@googlegroups.com.

 

Last year's program is available at the EDDI website [https://www.eddi-conferences.eu/eddi-2021/].

 

More information about the EDDI conference series and details on the previous EDDI conferences can be found at https://www.eddi-conferences.eu/.