The idea of proper metadata management can be applied to the special case of complex studies, namely

• comparative surveys (mostly cross-national projects),
• time series
• or a combination of the two: the repeated cross-national study.

The following documentation shows how to define a data model capable of storing information about variations among questions and variables in an early stage of the study. The work on metadata of complex studies is an effort in particular to elaborate on some difficulties related to the discrepancy between a rather theoretical approach of the problem and constraints due to the social organization of the RC-NS programs. Related concepts developed during the project time were provided to the DDI working group in charge of developing a data model for the comparative datasets with respect to DDI version 3.

The package on "Data model for handling the repeated cross-national study" (RC-NS) is made available for further scientific use and project developments according to common information and citation rules.

• The following files are included in the package RCNS_datamodel_06-07-2005.zip

  1-RCNS_Text_050706p.doc (06-07-2005)
  A textual presentation of the concept

  2-RCNS_Diagram.pdf (17-03-2005)
  A set of diagrams illustrating the concept

  3-RCNS_Movie.ppt (17-06-2005)
  A Powerpoint movie showing step by step the construction of the diagrams. Initially, this was a presentation at the IASSIST conference May 2005

   4_RC-NS_Proposal.doc (19-10-2005)
   The proposal as submitted to the DDI-Alliance in September 2005 in the format requested by the DDI Committee

  5_RC-NS.xls (19-10-2005)
  An Excel sheet listing the data fields needed for implementing the references – also a requirement of the DDI Committee.