This is a brief status of developments - (rather technical in content)

It is reassuring to see, that the interest in testing is rather large (Approximate download counts for latest version: Linux 50 , Mac 75 and Windows 300). Few comments have been given on the list, but I take that as a positive indication - I hope I am right, otherwise please notify on the list.

The short story is: We are definitely moving forward - the basic way of working in graphic mode with data definition is more or less in place. But we must spend time on implementing related data structures and finding a final data structure. Therefore the first EpiData Entry Client based on the new principles will not come out until some time from now.

The longer story is: During the most recent decade use of standardised data formats in public sectors and research has become an increasingly important issue. The idea of this is that data should be usable in any application and system based on published verifiable standards (XML based). XML is one of the structured information formats for machine readable information published by the W3C organisation - and is very complex - other ones from W3C are css and html. The published standards for XML based data documentation and storage of data as such are unfortunately plenty, a few of these are DDI (see DDI-alliance.org), CDISC ODM (see cdisc.org), SDMX (see sdmx.org). It seems as medicine, national statistics and the social sciences each have developed their own. The only common denominator seems to be in relation to overall descriptions such as "title", "contributor", abstract etc. These terms are well known from citations and are based on a metadata set called Dublin Core Metadata (see http://dublincore.org/specifications/).

For implementation of a XML based file format in the EpiData Software it would seem obvious to NOT develop a new one, but instead use one or more of the mentioned ones. Therefore there have been discussions with data documentation specialists at the Danish Data Archives (see http://samfund.dda.dk/default-en.asp).

Following these discussions and after studying several published standards it has been decided that the EpiData Software XML format will conform to the overall principles of the mentioned standards, but also that we must work with a restricted set of these.

The nature of the EpiData project is to be focused on simplicity and we must stick to this principle. Otherwise we would be lost in months of generalisation, of no interest to the general user and also completely unrealistic within the economical and personal resources available.

The time frame for the next phases are uncertain, but I will give orientation on this list as improvements are made and obstacles removed. Most likely there will be a meeting in the second week of March in Paris for detailed discussions on some of these issues. More information on that later.

regards Jens Lauritsen EpiData Association