Updated 16.8.2000

Selection and use of DDI information elements in the FSD

Arja Kuula and Arja Tuuliniemi

In the Finnish Social Science Data archive the first data documentations were done in 1999. From the very beginning documentation was carried out by using the DDI beta-version. This autumn we have started to use DDI 1.0 version.

Tag library for version 1.0 is very comprehensive and for the most part we find DDI 1.0 quite clear and practical. Among all the possible tags to be used we have chosen approximately one fourth. From the first part - ie. Documentation - we have chosen only Title, Producer and Production Date. In our view, the second part - Study Description - is most important. Quite a lot of elements are chosen from such areas as Citation, Study Scope, Methodology and Data Access.

The documentation in the catalogue of the FSD's web-pages contains Case Quantity and Variable Quantity from the third part of DDI 1.0 - ie. Data Files description. But if one looks at our data by using the Nesstar, the situation is a bit different. The elements which are used in Nesstar from the section 3 - Data Files Description - are filtered through the XML Generator (NSD) from the data itself.

In the documentation we use our own description template. For filling it we have Finnish documentation directions with links to more detailed directions, special vocabularies, lists of abbreviations, organisations etc. which are possible choices in the field to be filled in. For dates the ISO standard (YYYY-MM-DD) is used with the date attribute, but in the visible fields of our own data catalogue we use the form dd.mm.yyyy.

In the list of information elements which the FSD has chosen comments are given only if FSD has made it's own interpretation of the element or if there is some confusion over the content of the element.