Colectica at IBUC 2023 in Durham, North Carolina
Colectica will participate in the International Blaise Users Conference (IBUC) in Durham, North Carolina, October 24–26, 2023. We look forward to meeting the Blaise community to discuss survey design, metadata reuse, and the connections between data collection and documentation.
Jeremy Iverson will present “Integrating Blaise 5 and DDI Lifecycle 3.3,” a paper coauthored with Dan Smith. The presentation will introduce the Blaise Colectica DDI Connector, developed by Colectica and Statistics Netherlands to bring metadata from compiled Blaise instruments into the Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) Lifecycle standard.
Connecting compiled Blaise instruments with DDI
Colectica Designer has supported importing Blaise 4 and Blaise 5 source code for many years. The new connector takes a different approach: it uses the official Blaise API to read compiled .bmix survey specifications and .bdix data definitions, producing DDI Lifecycle 3.3 metadata.
Reading the compiled instrument provides access to multilingual text incorporated during the Blaise build process, including translations held outside the source code. It also connects the converter directly to Blaise’s metadata structures, reducing the need to maintain a separate grammar as the Blaise language evolves.
The connector gives metadata items unique identifiers and versions. It also compares the content of questions and code lists with items already stored in a repository, allowing exact matches to reuse existing identifiers. This helps teams build question banks that record where the same questions and response options are used across surveys.
The resulting metadata can be written to DDI XML or saved directly to Colectica Repository. Teams can then exchange it with other DDI tools, manage its history, and use it to publish survey documentation. Both graphical and command-line interfaces support interactive work and batch conversion.
Read the presentation abstract (PDF) or the full paper (PDF) for more detail. If you will be in Durham, please come and speak with us about your Blaise instruments and documentation needs.
About Colectica
Launched in 2010, Colectica® is the fastest way to design, document, and publish statistical research using Open Data standards. The Colectica Platform is an ideal solution for statistical agencies, survey research groups, public opinion research, data archivists, and other data centric collection operations that are looking to increase the expressiveness and longevity of the data collected through standards based metadata documentation. The company offers a range of highly specific products and services designed to give power to people through easy integration and access to data.
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