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Documentation
For the last 15 years, CDSP has been documenting and disseminating social science research and electoral results data in accordance with existing international standards (OAIS, DDI). Its documentation activities are fully in harmony with the National Plan for Open Science.
Proficiency in international standards
CDSP’s documentation practices apply the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) standard for the organisation of research data management procedures, from deposit through to storage and dissemination.
In particular, the Centre applies the Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) standard, a documentation standard that applies to the description and archiving of social science survey data. The variables of the quantitative data provided, for example, are described in detail: description of filters, recoding techniques, flat tabulation, instructions for investigators. This standardised documentation makes it possible both to run searches in the questions and variables and to reuse data.
CDSP is expert in the Codebook and Lifecycle versions developed by the DDI (Data Documentation Initiative) Alliance. In addition, CDSP has set up a questions databank that applies the DDI-Lifecycle version for longitudinal and repeated survey data.
Participation in the development of standards for the valorisation of research data
CDSP is actively involved in teaching the DDI standard. Members of the Documentation-Dissemination team have organised several series of webinars or face-to-face courses on this standard, notably for events organised by the DDI Alliance and CODATA or within the context of of projects such as ETHMIG SURVEY DATA.
CDSP is also responsible for the translation into French of controlled vocabularies established by the Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives (CESSDA) and has created a metadata model that includes them.
Metadata editing tools
CDSP’s expertise in documentation also covers tools that produce structured metadata files in XML format. Depending on the nature and typology of the datasets, CDSP uses different software – Nesstar, R, Dataverse and Colectica Designer – to document the datasets in its catalogue.
When assessed using the F-UJI tool developed for the European GO FAIR initiative, CDSP’s datasets achieved a score of 64/100*
