Dear Colleagues,

Making survey metadata reusable across the lifecycle – please endorse the shared principles

We are asking our colleagues and organisations who produce and utilise survey data to endorse some new principles which will make it easier to re-use survey metadata across the data lifecycle.

Currently there are obstacles to creating re-suable documentation for data. In particular, the metadata journey from owner to producer back to owner and to archive still uses relatively old-fashioned processes, which rely on manual intervention and some replication of activities.

We need to reduce the inefficiency of the current processes of questionnaire specification, capture of its implementation using Computer Assisted Interviewing (CAI) software, and delivery of data to owners and archives. These processes can be assisted by using interoperable standards, particularly for questionnaire metadata.

At the UK Data Service and the Centre for Longitudinal Studies, (Institute of Education) we agree that the best approach is to use a recognised international metadata standard, such as the Data Documentation Initiative (DDI). This is already used by most international survey data archives. At the Survey Metadata: Barriers and Opportunities meeting held on in June 2014, survey owners, producers, CAI suppliers, and archives from the UK discussed, and agreed to support, a set of principles and a minimal subset of the DDI metadata standard for questionnaire description.

The emphasis is very much on a pragmatic solution, so we’re asking those organisations working in this area to read and endorse the final set of principles hosted on the DDI community site and, optionally, view the questionnaire metadata profile. Further details can be found here, as well as the link to endorse the recommended standard.

Survey Metadata Reusability and Exchange: A Call to Action for Questionnaire Documentation: http://www.ddialliance.org/survey-metadata-reusability-and-exchange

Many thanks!
Louise
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Louise Corti
Functional Director, Collections Development and Producer Relations
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T +44(0) 1206 872145
E [log in to unmask]
W ukdataservice.ac.uk
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UK Data Service
UK Data Archive
University of Essex
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