Meta Dater Metadata Management and Production System for Surveys in Empirical Socio-economic Research A Project funded by EU under the 5 th Framework Programme Key Action: Improving the Socio-economic Knowledge Base - Data Infrastructure Presentation: Meinhard Moschner, Oliver Watteler (ZA) Ekkehard Mochmann (co-ordinator) Uwe Jensen (manager) GESIS – ZA (University of Cologne) From Metadata Conversion to MetaDater Management

The „old“ world: legacy data System used for codebook production > OSIRIS and self-developed routines on IBM Mainframe 30 years of experience & development of documentation of comparative studies Serveral hundred codebooks finished Range from cross-section study to comparative and longditudinal studies One way into the „new“ world > XML Example *

„Old world“ to „new world“

Analysis and definition of needs concerning metadata Attempt to fit our information bits into the DDI structure Realization of two projects: –Project 1 > development of routines for automatic codebook conversion to DDI (in 2001) –Project 2 > manual transfer of existing codebooks into DDI (since August 2002) Problems and outcome The „new“ world – XML & DDI

Data and Metadata

General Objectives Standards to describe large scale comparative surveys over space and time Tools to create & manage respective metadata

Main Products Data Model for Comparative Surveys Applications based on the model –MD-PRO MetaDater Provider –MD-COLL MetaDater Collector

Describes the whole survey life cycle within the logic of metadata Including generic management and administration tasks Compatibility with the DDI standard Focus on the description of data from time series and (repeated) comparative surveys The metadata model will be distributed independently of the two applications Data Model for metadata from comparative surveys

Target Group 1 - Data provider: –data archives, large research institutes, data service centres Tools to provide high quality metadata: –e.g. facilities for processing, quality management, harmonisation & preservation of comparative and time-series surveys –Modular import- and export-routines for metadata in various formats –Access open for existing or new front-ends such as NESSTAR or MADIERA MD-PRO MetaDater Provider application

MD-COLL MetaDater Collector application Target Group 2 - primary Data Collectors: –primary investigators, small and middle-sized research services Tools to set up metadata at its source: –Enter, edit & manage survey information from the start of the survey project –Including the survey design phase and the fieldwork phase –Data Processing support –Basic publishing and export routines to MD-PRO

Meta Dater Field Questionnaires MADIERA

MetaDater will provide Data Infrastructure instruments øto improve the processing, managing & distribution of metadata by more efficient and economic procedures øto contribute to best practice in preservation & resource sharing of data and metadata øto supply end-users with reliable, standardised, durable & high quality information in view of the needs in comparative research Benefits of MetaDater

ZA Central Archive for Empirical Social Research (co-ordinator)Germany DDA Danish Data Archive Denmark EKKE National Centre for Social Research Greece NIWI Netherlands Institute for Scientific Information Services Netherlands SIDOS Swiss Information and Data Archive Service for the Social Sciences Switzerland UGOT Swedish Data Archive at Göteborg UniversitySweden NSD Norwegian Social Science Data Services Norway UKDA UK Data Archive Great Britain EU 5th Framework Programme Key Action: Improving the Socio-Economic Knowledge Base Project period: January December Meta Dater Metadata Management and Production System for Surveys in Empirical Socio-economic Research