I wanted to pass along this announcement from Deb Ludwig at the University of Kansas Libraries. DDI is a well-established data standard that seems to be gaining broader interest.

Clifford Lynch Director, CNI

Registration is open for the first annual North American Data Documentation Initiative (NADDI) Conference which will be held in Lawrence Kansas at the University of Kansas on April 2 and 3, 2013. Please register by March 12, 2013 at http://www.ipsr.ku.edu/naddi/registration.shtml. A reduced registration rate is available for a limited number of graduate students.

DDI is an international data standard for the observation and measurement of human activity. Although primarily used by quantitative social scientists, an increasing number of scientists in other disciplines are embracing DDI to document and manage their data and metadata. More information about DDI is available at: http://www.ddialliance.org/. This conference promises to be of interest to researchers, librarians, archivists, repository managers, metadata specialists, and data professionals in the social sciences and other disciplines.

The agenda is available at: http://www.ipsr.ku.edu/naddi/program.shtml. Our keynote speaker will be Dr. Jay Greenfield (http://www.ipsr.ku.edu/naddi/JayGreenfield.shtml) of Booz Allen Hamilton where he is the semantic architect for a DDI Lifecycle based metadata system that supports the National Children's Study (NCS). Patterned after the successful European DDI conference (EDDI), the conference will be informative, interesting, and educational. There will be presentations on the use of DDI in research programs and data repositories, developments with DDI and demonstrations of new DDI tools. The NADDI Conference is an opportunity for those using DDI and those interested in learning more about it to come together and learn from each other.

The Oread Hotel is the conference hotel and is located one block from the Kansas Union. To reserve a room with the conference rate, please call 785.843.1200 or 877.263.6347. The hotel will be releasing the block of rooms we have reserved on March 2. It is not possible to make a reservation using the group rate through the hotel's online site. If you are unable to telephone the hotel (e.g. for our international attendees) please send an email to Gail Craun with your reservation request ( gail@oliviacollection.com). Room rates will be:

$115 per night (Sunday through Thursday) $169 per night (King Classic, Friday and Saturdays) $179 per night (King, Friday and Saturdays)

Following the conference, on April 4, 2013, there will be a full day of training on the use of DDI. More information about the training is available at: http://www.ipsr.ku.edu/naddi/training.shtml

Major funding for the conference has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. More information about the foundation is available here: http://www.sloan.org/ .

The conference is hosted and sponsored by the Institute for Policy & Social Research (http://www.ipsr.ku.edu ), KU Libraries (http://lib.ku.edu/), the DDI Alliance (http://www.ddialliance.org/).