The DDI Alliance is pleased to announce a preliminary Quarter 1 Development Draft of the first components of DDI Lifecycle-MD, the new DDI specification that is model-driven (MD), sometimes called DDI4. The comment period for the Q1 Draft is now open. Information on the review process is available from the DDI4 - Comment and Review page. That page contains a link to comment instructions and to the release package itself -- see the box labeled Current Review in the middle of the page.
DDI is transitioning to a model-driven specification to support new content and domains, to provide needed flexibility in rendering and packaging, and to ensure a sustainable development process for DDI going forward. The model will enable use-case driven "functional views" of the full model so that prospective DDI users can receive only the subset of DDI classes they need for a specific task or function (e.g., create a simple codebook). The transition also includes moving to a fully automated production framework to create the specification, bindings, and documentation. More information about the DDI work products and how they all fit together is available.
This release represents the first of several quarterly releases, each of which will build on previous releases. The Q1 Draft includes the class descriptions and diagrams for several of the basic parts of the model. We are currently working out minor issues with results of the XML and RDF/OWL implementations. These will be released separately when available.
We are eager to obtain feedback from the DDI community in order to improve what we have and to validate our approach. The comment period is open until May 22, 2015, and we hope to hear from you.
