What is DDI?
Read about how DDI is a free suite of standards/products originating from data and research professionals.
Why Use DDI?
Not sure if DDI is right for your organization? Learn the benefits of using DDI: flexibility and usability; discovery and access; efficiency; preservation. DDI structures your metadata to make it easier for your data to comply with the FAIR principles of scientific data management and stewardship (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable).
Who Uses DDI?
Read on to learn about the types of DDI users and community members, including librarians, managers, repositories, researchers, and developers.
How to Use DDI?
Learn about how to move forward using DDI, including seeing common use cases and tasks that DDI can support, as well as how to access training materials.
Getting Started with DDI
You have identified DDI as a good standard for the task you want to accomplish, so that’s great. Now you need to move forward in using the standard. We provide some common use cases and tasks that DDI can support. Each task has a description, a set of related resources, and recommended tools to accomplish the task. If some of this language is unfamiliar to you, please see the DDI Glossary for definitions. It is assumed here that you've had some experience with XML; if not, consult our FAQ.
Training Materials
We provide a growing collection of training materials for DDI and related topics. Content is geared primarily towards introducing folks to DDI.
Request Training
Use an online form to request DDI training or to submit questions about DDI.
Resources
View additional training resources, including information about how DDI relates to other standards, DDI profiles allowing agents or agencies to specify exactly how they use the DDI XML format, DDI markup examples, and DDI tools
Glossary
Glossary containing terms specific to DDI and metadata.