1. Publishing DDI-Related Topics Advantages and Challenges of Creating Publications
Joachim Wackerow
EDDI16 - 8th Annual European DDI User Conference Cologne, December 6/7, 2016
License: CC BY-SA 4.0 (exceptions see last slide)

2. Abstract
This presentation will outline the advantages of creating publications on DDI-related topics for both the DDI community and the authors.
It will also highlight the challenges and barriers in creating written papers.
The pros and cons will be discussed from the perspective of possible authors coming from multiple backgrounds.

3. 1168 Hits - What does this mean?
1168 Results for search term "data documentation initiative" in Google Scholar ( )
1230 Results for search term "data documentation initiative" in Google Scholar ( )
Increase of 5,3% in 4 days
Of them 414 PDF files
Search only in title possible: 16
Drop citations: still Is this true?
Are there double entries?
Same search on Google results in:
360 Powerpoint files
4020 PDF files

4. DDI Community - Advantages of Publications
Using existing knowledge
Reusing findings and concepts
Learning from experiences and case studies
Publications as building blocks for other work
Even a publication on a small topic can be a useful building block
Publications are often most useful if written with a specific audience in mind

5. Building Blocks for Metadata Infrastructure
Metadata (possibly re-usable)
Software
Publications on …
Metadata (documentation and higher level papers)
Software (documentation and higher level papers)
Conceptual approaches
Policies
Guidelines
Use cases

6. Authors - Advantages of Creating DDI Publications?
Publishing helps building a career, is part of regular work
Applies to researchers, PhD students
Is publishing on metadata topics highly rated?
Are there many researcher in the metadata community?
Applies to experts and consultants
Usually free lancers have a larger benefit

7. Authors - Advantages of Creating DDI Publications?
Data expert in archive
Is it an acknowledged part of the work?
Is there time for writing?
Software developer
Is not writing code more important? But: software, especially re-usable, is only as good as the documentation, and related high-level description

8. Two Examples of Successful Practical Publication Platforms
UNECE hosts workshops on the modernisation of official statistics
Most workshops provide not only presentations but related papers
Cross-cultural survey guidelines
Large collections of best practices
Based on the workshop series of Cross-cultural Survey Design and Implementation (CSDI) since 2002
Guidelines are edited, latest edition 2016
Contributions by more than 70 survey research professionals from 35 organizations

9. Modernisation of Official Statistics

10. Guidelines for Best Practice in Cross-Cultural Surveys (CCSG) – 853 pages!

11. Examples of Subjects Case studies Evaluation/comparison of software
DDI subsets, DDI Profiles for specific purposes
DDI Lifecycle approaches for reuse of metadata
Concepts, category schemes, variable groups, comparison
Versioning policies …

12. Secondary Use of Project Reports
Funded projects require deliverables
Result are often …
large papers,
in an requested outline,
not easily accessible.
Purpose is report for funding agency according to the project plan
Extraction of useful parts can be re-written i.e. as
Guidelines, reasoning for decisions, use cases
Perspective would be user community, not funding agency

13. Common Publication Platforms
IASSIST Quarterly: for example 3 special issues on DDI and Semantic Web
Spring/summer 2009
Winter 2014 / spring 2015
Fall 2015
Many other individual articles focus on use of DDI
DDI Working Paper Series: 34 papers since 2008
Best practices: 17 (Dagstuhl expert workshop 2008)
Use cases: 7 (Dagstuhl expert workshop 2009)
Semantic Web: 2
Other topics: only 8

14. Examples of Publication Platforms
DDI Alliance Wiki system
Curation by a working group
DDI Alliance Working Paper Series
Curation by editor
arXiv (repository of electronic preprints)
IASSIST Quarterly, EDDI full paper
Curation by editors, peer review
Peer review journals
CODATA Data Science Journal
Social Science Computer Review
Survey Research Methods (ESRA)
Computer science conferences – full papers with peer review
Dublin Core, Semstats, ESWC, ISWC

15. Support for Publishing?
Should EDDI provide other approaches than full papers?
Can DDI Alliance offer better support? Like:
More active editorial team of DDI Alliance Working Paper Series?
Providing incentives, how?
Workshop primarly focusing on paper outputs?
Idea of DDI Handbook (inspired by CCSG)
Collection of best practices in the format of an open access journal

16. Questions for Discussion
What are the challenges?
Transforming own experience and findings into useful information for community
Metadata is interdisciplinary work, often a mix of domain and computer science
Work on and with metadata specifications are not classical research
Standards are more a composition of acknowledged approaches than research
What are the barriers?
Is publishing part of job description?
Are there incentives?

17. License
This presentation is offered under the Creative Commons license “Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International” (CC BY-SA 4.0).
The license does not apply to the following copyrighted material used in this presentation:
the logo and layout of GESIS
the logo of the Leibniz Association