Colectica invited to participate in the Data Documentation Initiative<E2><80><99>s planning workshop.

Wadern, Germany - October 26, 2012

Colectica is helping plan the next generation of the Data Documentation Initiative’s metadata standard and has committed to implementing the forthcoming version.

Colectica, a leading data management consultancy, was invited to attend the Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) Standard’s Working Meeting, titled “DDI Lifecycle: Moving Forward”, focusing on the next version of the DDI metadata standard at Schloss Dagstuhl in Wadern, Germany. The company leveraged both the experience gained from participating in the development of the DDI 3 standard and the creation of its Colectica platform as it contributed to a set of roadmaps produced at the workshop. Colectica hopes this roadmap propels the standard’s further development and allow for greater interoperability of business processes and software applications that can process the DDI Lifecycle Standard.

Integration with other standards was a key component of the future roadmap. “Integration with existing and developing standards such as GSBPM and GSIM are integral to wider adoption of the DDI” said Dan Smith, a Partner at Colectica. He continued “Having Colectica support these additional standards will allow for fuller descriptions of Official Statistics for consumers of their data.” GSIM stands for the Generic Statistical Information Model and has the goal of operationalizing the statistical production processes based on standard metadata in the Official Statistics area.

The roadmap for the DDI includes a new UML data model and English model descriptions as the canonical version. The model will be expressed in XML Schema, RDF/OWL, and implemented in Colectica’s software development kit. Colectica hopes the new data model will make it easier to interact with other standards and software systems from other vendors.

Colectica version 4, which was released in October, supports the current version of the Data Documentation Initiative’s Lifecycle metadata standard. Colectica consists of several software tools. Colectica Designer enables documenting of survey methodologies, survey instruments, questions, variables, and datasets. Colectica Repository manages changes to the documentation and allows multiple people and groups to work together. Colectica Portal allows for publication of this documentation on the web. All of these products use Open Standards to allow for interoperability with other tools. Colectica products, training on Open Standards, and customized software solutions are available through https://www.colectica.com .

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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