This service is provided by the Survey Documentation and Analysis (SDA) project. It converts data description files in the format of the Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) to files in the format of SDA's Data Description Language (DDL).

The Data Documentation Initiative "is an effort to establish an international criterion and methodology for the content, presentation, transport, and preservation of 'metadata' about datasets in the social and behavioral sciences." As this international standardization effort gathers momentum we expect more and more datasets to be documented using DDI as the primary metadata format.

Survey Documentation and Analysis (SDA) is a project of the Computer-assisted Survey Methods Program (CSM) at UC Berkeley to provide software to enable Web-based documentation and analysis of survey data. SDA has long had its own data description format -- DDL. However, we also consider it essential to be compatible with the new DDI standard. This service is part of SDA's goal to make inter-operability with DDI as easy as possible for SDA users. Besides this service, which converts DDI to DDL, SDA also provides programs that convert DDL to DDI and produce DDI from SDA datasets. See SDA's DDI Tools page for more information.

This conversion service allows you to upload a DDI file from your computer to the conversion service's computer. You can also choose various conversion options which are explained on the service's help page. The help page also contains a section that discusses some of the issues involved in converting DDI to DDL.

To start, continue to the options page.