DDI Lifecycle 3.3 (2020-01-15)

Documentation of the DDI-Lifecycle specification is provided in three ways:

Field Level Documentation (this documentation): AUDIENCE: Developers, database developers, mappings, base level for content providers (what an object is in relation to parent and child elements)
This documentation is found within the DDI Schemas and displayed in the HTML documentation. It provides a brief description of the purpose and content of the object. Documentation found in the complex Type description will provide more detail than the element documentation. Within a complex type, the additional documentation of sub-elements will focus on its purpose within the context of the complex type.
DDI Model Documentation: AUDIENCE: Developers, database developers. This provides a description of the model but excludes the content elements, which may be found in the Field Level Documentation.
This documentation also categorises the elements into functional topics and visualization of the relationships between neigbouring elements.
Technical Guide: AUDIENCE: Developers, integrated usage and applications for content providers
Organized by related sets of objects, e.g. Question Item, Question Grid, and Question Block, this documentation provides details of the structure and its intended application. Each set contains examples of usage. It contains information on the relationship of DDI to other standards, common XML structures used by DDI, design and consistency rules, description of major structural types (modules and schemes), technical features for identification and reference, basic types for dates and strings, and all major complex elements. The complex element content is organized alphabetically by set and an index is provided for all elements. This documentation also contains a change log of revisions from the previous version, all unique element and attribute names, and elements by extension base (Identifiable, Versionable, Maintainable, Reference, CodeValue, etc.).
User Guide: AUDIENCE: Content providers, those focusing on specific applied uses of DDI
reviews basic structural features focusing on their usage, such as exchange structures, organizing publication package content, managing data over time, common structure like strings, controlled vocabularies, dates, citation and coverage, notes and other material. This general section is followed by a set of user stories (applying DDI). The focus is on how the parts of DDI work together to describe the metadata and data for particular functions such as documenting a longitudinal study or developing a questionnaire.
Examples: AUDIENCE: Developers, and content providers focusing on specific applied uses of DDI
Code snippets of DDI-Lifecycle 3.3 (in XML) are provided for a range of use cases
These are also available in the download documentation bundle from Examples