Gerrit de BolsterSeptember 24, 2013

Generating Blaisefrom DDI

Holland

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What is DDI?

On the web page of the DDI Alliance the following definition is found:“The Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) is an effort to create an international standard for describing data from the social, behavioural, and economic sciences.”

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:“The DDI is an international project to create a standard for information describing statistical and social science data (i.e., metadata). The DDI specification, written in XML, provides a format for content, exchange, and preservation of information.”

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Where is DDI used?Gerri

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Why should we use DDI?

DDI is an open standard expressed in the global supported standard XML

Since version 3 the concept of a data collection instrument was introduced

Using DDI for defining a data collection instrument opens the way for other organisations (including commercial software vendors) to create solutions

Instrument definitions can be re-used by other organisations

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DDI fits in a “plug and play” architecture

POC

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The Proof Of Concept

Create a DDI definition for an instrument samples available:

MQDS, QDT, Colectica, ddialliance.orgUse an existing generator (BLS-Wizard)

add a converter: DDI definition to generator input file

output: BlaiseIS 4.8 CAWI instrument Create a set of working samples

questionnaire, form, download portal, upload portal

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A lot of references…

Demo

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DDI alone is not enough!

Technical additions in the POC: Templates (including basic Menu file, adapted

ASP’s/XSLT’s) Layout definitions (Mode Library -> CSS) Type & procedure libraries Lookup data

(in the POC a definition in DDI was created) Etc.What should/could be included in DDI?Do we still speak a little bit Blaise language or include other standards (e.g. MathML, CSS)?

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DDI instance: Instrument or Blaise?

DDI is not a programming language The Blaise source language is very richWhat is the added value to create a DDI definition for the Blaise source language instead of using Blaise? DDI aims at supporting a generic meta definition

for datacollection instruments

Create a generic meta definition for datacollection instruments, not another source language!

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Lessons learned

DDI is a very open standard. A standard DDI instrument definition is a prerequisite for a successful use in the Blaise community.

DDI is not human readable. An Instrument Design Tool with a repository is a must!

DDI should be a stable open standard, upward compatible. The schemas of a later version (3.2) should still support a definition in an earlier version (3.1).

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DDI Tooling: what’s next?

A Blaise community working group? A commercial product? No action at all?

I'm open for discussion!

Any questions?Or answers?

Thank you for your attention!

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