DDI Tutorials

This is a list of DDI tutorials I’ve written to help people better understand the Data Documentation Initiative standard.

• Beginners Guide to DDI – Coming Soon?
• Questionnaire design with DDI – A five part series on how to create survey structures in DDI Lifecycle
  • Part 1: Will this survey ever end? –  A look at predicting the end of a DDI survey and looking at how to properly structure a DDI Instrument.
  • Part 2: Where am I? – Examining why DDI has issues with non-predictability of movement through an instrument, and how to work around this.
  • Part 3: What am I doing here? – Best practices for what control structures to include in sequences and how to deal with logical structures and questions.
  • Part 4: What can I say? – How to use DDI metadata to assist both reduce user frustration and increase data quality with client and server-side content validation
  • Part 5: Can it be done? – A look back at the past 4 tutorials and looking forward at Ramona – A proof of concept tool for data collection using DDI.
• When DDI isn’t enough – using standard XML schema technology to improve DDI coverage
  • Part 1 – XML Schema Extensions and DDI – A look at XML Schema substitution groups to add whole new elements to DDI.
  • Part 2 – XSI Type and DDI – Using xsi:type to extend existing elements by adding additional elements and attributes.
  • Part 3 –  Picking the right approach to improving the standard – A look at the competing approaches to enhancing DDI and why these are more suitable as extension mechanisms than DDI Notes.