Facilitating Secondary Analysis and Archiving of MIDUS through DDI

说明(申请人提供)：本提案响应RFA-AG-13-009(老龄化中社会和行为数据集的二次分析和存档)，其目标之一是“存档和传播数据集，以实现二次分析。”主要目标是将我们之前在将新的文档技术应用于MIDUS(美国中年)方面的工作扩展到MIDUS(美国中年)，这是一项针对大约10,000名美国人的全国性纵向研究，旨在将老龄化作为一个综合的生物心理社会过程进行研究。我们将采用一种称为数据文件倡议(DDI)的技术元数据标准，为所有MIDUS项目构建增强的电子码本。先前的工作将DDI(2.1)应用于MIDUS代码簿，这些代码本已交付给ICPSR，并用于创建可搜索的在线储存库。这样做将极大地促进构成MIDUS研究的大型纵向和多学科数据集的高效和有效的公共使用。DDI基于一种名为可扩展标记语言(XML)的强大语言，这是一种基于Web的数据发布标准，类似于HTML，但功能更强大。XML允许在Web上发布的数据具有高度结构化和互动性。它的主要优点是它是机器可读的，并且是专门为描述数据而设计的格式。最新版本的DDI(3.2)包含近900个新的和修订的标记，旨在为纵向和其他复杂的分层数据结构提供更有效的文档。实现这些目标将产生一个DDI储存库，该储存库在不同的MIDUS项目数据集上执行变量搜索，识别相关变量及其完整的元数据，实现对选定变量的定制数据提取，并提供包含信息、程序和算法的定制码本，用于协调这些变量。这些目标将在两年时间内实现，并遵循完成数据收集的顺序时间表，以完成复习器、M3和MIDJA。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal responds to RFA-AG-13-009 (Secondary Analyses and Archiving of Social and Behavioral Datasets in Aging), one goal of which is "archiving and dissemination of data sets to enable secondary analysis." The primary objective is to extend our prior work in applying new documentation technology to MIDUS (Midlife in the United States), a national longitudinal study of approximately 10,000 Americans designed to study aging as an integrated biopsychosocial process. We will employ a technological metadata standard called the Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) to construct enhanced electronic codebooks for all MIDUS projects. Prior work applied DDI (2.1) to MIDUS codebooks, which were delivered to ICPSR, as well as used to create a searchable online repository. Upgrading all MIDUS codebooks to a more advanced version of DDI (3.2) will facilitate identification and harmonization of similar MIDUS variables, as well as enhance our online repository with a data extract function that will accomplish something unprecedented: the ability to obtain customized cross-project downloads of harmonized MIDUS data that are DDI-compliant. So doing will greatly facilitate efficient and effective public use of the large longitudinal and multi-disciplinary datasets that comprise the MIDUS study. DDI is based on a powerful language called eXtensible Markup Language (XML), a web-based data-publishing standard that is similar to HTML, but more powerful. XML allows data published on the web to be highly structured and interactive. Its main advantage is that it is machine-readable and in a format specifically designed to describe data. The latest version of DDI (3.2) contains nearly 900 new and revised tags and is designed to provide more efficient documentation of longitudinal and other complex hierarchical data structures. The specific aims of this proposal are: (1) to apply the DDI (3.2) metadata standard to all MIDUS-related data, upgrading M1 and M2 DDI (2.1) codebooks, and creating new codebooks from recently funded data collection efforts (including a Refresher cohort (national and Milwaukee-specific samples), a third wave of the original MIDUS sample (M3), and a second wave from the Japanese version of MIDUS called Midlife in Japan (MIDJA)); and (2) to integrate the DDI materials produced by Aim #1 into a searchable online repository from which researchers can create customized MIDUS datasets of internally harmonized variables. Accomplishing these aims will produce a DDI repository that performs variable searches across different MIDUS project datasets, identifies related variables along with their full metadata, enables custom data extracts of selected variables, and provides custom codebooks that contain information, procedures, and algorithms for their harmonization. These goals will be accomplished over a two-year period, following the sequential schedule for completion of data collection for the Refresher, M3 and MIDJA.