Want to Join a New DDI Working Group on Metadata Publication and Access?

[Wenzig, Knut]

Hi ,

recently we had a conversation on the DDI Developers list about MIME types for DDI metadata where we also had some great discussion around how DDI metadata is published and accessed:

https://groups.google.com/u/1/g/ddi-developers/c/kMS6k-4oLxY (The discussion continues in other threads.)

That exchange gave me the idea to start a Working Group under the DDI Alliance to dig deeper into this topic. I put together a draft proposal, which you can check out here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mipqK9TCDO5YHa6TulMmV90XTAVG_IilJLQ7xBFYJ2o/edit?usp=sharing 

I’ve already shared it with the Scientific Board, and they’re interested, but they asked to see a list of people who might want to be involved—basically to make sure there’s real group interest and not just one person pushing it.

The idea behind the group is to come up with recommendations for different ways to publish DDI metadata—ideally in ways that let us count globally available records and possibly even harvest them. We’re looking at a few methods so far:

• OAI-PMH – here’s a quick sketch of an approach: Wenzig, K., & Han, X. (2024). State of DDI Cloud. IASSIST Quarterly, 48(4). https://doi.org/10.29173/iq1116
• FAIR Signposting – some early ideas here: Wenzig, K., Daniel, A., Hansen, D., Koberg, T., & Tudose, M. (2025). Publishing Fine-Grained Standardized Metadata – Lessons Learned from Three Research Data Centers. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15464650
• We’re also considering the DDI API and possibly RDF.

If this sounds interesting, I’d really appreciate it if you’d join in. Just let me know, and I’ll add your name to the list of interested folks.

Thanks, and I hope to hear from you!

Best,

Knut Wenzig

(he/him/his ##CallMeByMyFirstName)

--

German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin)

SOEP

Mohrenstr. 58 | 10117 Berlin | Germany

Tel.: +49 30 89789 341 | Email: kwe...@diw.de | https://www.diw.de/cv/en/kwenzig

Board:

Prof. Marcel Fratzscher, Ph.D. (President)

Dr. Denise Rüttinger (Managing Director)

Prof. Dr. Alexander Kritikos (Board Member)

Chairwoman of the Board of Trustees: Dr. Sigrid Nikutta

Registered Office: Berlin

Association Registry: Berlin-Charlottenburg

Association Registry Number: 95 VR 136 NZ