View source for Data Documentation Initiative

{{Infobox technology standard
| title             = DDI Metadata Standard
| long_name         = Data Documentation Initiative Metadata Standard
| native_name       = <!-- Name in local language. If more than one, separate using {{plain list}} -->
| native_name_lang  = <!-- ISO 639-2 code e.g. "fr" for French. If more than one, use {{lang}} inside native_name items instead -->
| image             = Data_Documentation_Initiative_Logo.png
| caption           = DDI
| status            = Production Use
| year_started      = {{Start date|1995}}
| first_published   = {{Start date|1996}}
| version           = [http://www.ddialliance.org/Specification/DDI-Lifecycle/3.3/ DDI 3.3]
| version_date      = {{Start date and age|2020|04|15}}
| preview           = 
| preview_date      = 
| organization      = DDI Alliance
| committee         = Scientific Board and Technical Committee
| editors           = 
| authors           = 
| base_standards    =
| related_standards = [[XML]]
| abbreviation      = DDI
| domain            = [[Questionnaire]]s [[metadata|Metadata Standard]] [[Statistical survey]]
| license           = [[Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International]]
| website           = {{URL|ddialliance.org}}
}}
The '''Data Documentation Initiative''' (also known as '''DDI''') is an [[international standard]] for describing [[Survey data collection|surveys]], [[questionnaire]]s, statistical data files, and social sciences [[Survey methodology|study-level information]]. This information is described as [[metadata]] by the standard.

Begun in 1995,<ref>[http://www.ddialliance.org/what/history.html DDI History]</ref> the effort brings together data professionals from around the world to develop the standard. The DDI specification, most often expressed in [[XML]], provides a format for content, exchange, and preservation of questionnaire and data file information. DDI supports the description, storage, and distribution of social science data, creating an international specification that is machine-actionable and web-friendly.<ref>[http://www.ddialliance.org/ About DDI]</ref>

Version 2 (also called "Codebook") of the DDI standard has been implemented in the [[Dataverse]] data repository and the data archives of the [[Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research]]. The latest version 3.3 (also called "Lifecycle") of the DDI standard was released in 2020.<ref>[https://ddialliance.org/Specification/DDI-Lifecycle/3.3/ DDI Specification]{{Dead link|date=January 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

==Member Institutions==

{| class="wikitable sortable" style="font-size: smaller"
|-
! style="width: 60em; text-align: left" | Institution<ref name="ddiMembers">[https://www.ddialliance.org/ddi-membership DDI-Members]</ref>
! style="width: 10em; text-align: left" | Abbr.
! style="width: 10em; text-align: left"|Country
|-
|[[Aristotle Metadata Registry|Aristotle Cloud Services Australia]]
|ACSA
|[[Australia]]
|-
|[[Australian Bureau of Statistics]]
|ABS
|[[Australia]]
|-	
|[[Centro De Investigaciones Sociológicas]] 
|[[Centro De Investigaciones Sociológicas|CIS]]
|[[Spain]]
|-
|[[Colectica]]
|[[Colectica]]
|US 
|-
|[[Cornell University]]
|[[CISER]]
|US 
|-
|[[Danish Data Archive]]
|[[Danish Data Archive|DDA]]
|[[Denmark]]
|-
|[[Data Archiving and Networked Services]]
|[[DANS]]
|[[Netherlands]]
|-
|[[Finnish Social Science Data Archive]]
|
|[[Finland]] 
|-
|[[Socio-Economic Panel|German Socio-Economic Panel Study]] 
|[[Socio-Economic Panel|SOEP]]
|[[Germany]]
|-
|[[GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences]]
|[[GESIS]]
|[[Germany]]
|-
|Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University
|[[IQSS]]
|US 
|-
|[[Institute for the Study of Labor]] 
|[[Institute for the Study of Labor|IZA]]
|[[Germany]]
|-
|[[Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research]] 
|[[ICPSR]]
|US
|-
|[[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] 
|[[MIT]]
|US
|-
|[[Norwegian Social Science Data Services]]
|[[NSD]]
|[[Norway]] 
|-
|[[Open Data Foundation]]
|
|
|-
|[[Princeton University]]
|
|US
|-
|[[Research Data Centre of the German Federal Employment Agency|Research Data Centre of the German Federal Employment Agency, Institute for Employment Research]]
|[[Research Data Centre of the German Federal Employment Agency|IAB]]
|[[Germany]]
|-
|[[Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]]
|
|US
|-
|[[Stanford University]]
|
|US
|-
|[[Survey Research Operations|Survey Research Operations, University of Michigan]]
|
|US
|-
|[[Swedish National Data Service]]
|[[Swedish National Data Service|SND]]
|[[Sweden]]
|-
|[[Swiss Foundation for Research in Social Sciences]]
|[[FORS]]
|[[Switzerland|Swiss]]
|-
|[[U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics|U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (Associate Member)]]
|
|US
|-
|[[UK Data Archive]]
|UKHLS/BHPS
|[[UK]]
|-
|[[University of Alberta]]
|
|[[Canada]]
|-
|[[University of California]]
|[[UCDATA]]
|US
|-
|[[University of Guelph]]
|
|Canada
|-
|[[Minnesota Population Center|University of Minnesota, Minnesota Population Center]]
|[[Minnesota Population Center|MPC]]
|US
|-
|[[University of Toronto Scholars Portal]]
|
|[[Canada]]
|-
|University of Washington, Center for Studies in Demography & Ecology 
|[[CSDE]]
|US
|-
|University of Wisconsin-Madison Institute on Aging
|[http://midus.colectica.org MIDUS]
|US
|-
|[[World Bank|World Bank, Development Data Group]]
|[[DECDG]]
|US
|}

==See also==
* [[Colectica]]
* [[Metadata standards]]

==References==
<references />

==External links==
* DDI Project
** [http://www.ddialliance.org/ Official website]
** [http://tools.ddialliance.org DDI Tools]

===Related software/tools===
* [https://www.colectica.com Colectica]
* [https://sda.berkeley.edu/ddi/tools CSM's XCONVERT]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20080703214122/http://www.surveynetwork.org/toolkit IHSN Microdata Management Toolkit]
* [https://nesstar.com/download/ Nesstar Publisher] (development was discontinued and Nesstar reached end-of-life status in 2022)
* [https://sda.berkeley.edu/ddi/tools/ SDA to XML]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20041225100341/http://www.gesis.org/en/software/ddi/tools/spssoms2ddi/ SPSSOMS2DDI]
* [https://dataverse.org/ The Dataverse Project]
* Scholars Portal's [https://github.com/scholarsportal/dataverse-data-explorer-v2 Dataverse Data Explorer v.2]
* [https://www.richdataservices.com/ Rich Data Services].

[[Category:Metadata standards]]
[[Category:Statistical data coding]]


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