Create and manage OPEN DATA and metadata with SledgeHammer 1.0

Metadata Technology North America is pleased to announce the availability of SledgeHammer 1.0 (http://www.openmetadata.org/sledgehammer), an innovative tool enabling the production and reuse of open data. It is the first major application being release as a component of our OpenDataForge toolkit aiming at facilitating the management of open data and the adoption of global metadata standards and related best practices.

SledgeHammer focuses on the packaging of data into open and reusable formats for publication, processing, analytical, or preservation purposes. The tool builds upon our extensive expertise in statistical and scientific data management and leverages industry standard information technology and global metadata specifications such as the Data Documentation Initiative (DDI).

The tool is available as a cross-platform desktop based application under both freeware and low cost commercial licenses.

Key features includes:
* Reading data and extracting metadata from: SQL, Stata, SPSS, SAS, SDA, DDI+ASCII, and Stat/Transfer+ASCII;

• Transforming data into ASCII text format (fixed, csv, delimited), with various optimizations;
• Producing standard metadata from input files. Supported specifications include DDI-Codebook (1.0-2.1 and 2.5), DDI LifeCycle (3.1-3.2), and Triple-SSS (1.1, 2.0)
• Computing descriptive statistics at the variable and category levels for inclusion in DDI or for other purposes;
• Generating scripts for reading ASCII data into R, SAS, SPSS, Stata, SDA, and various flavors of SQL (MS-SQL, MySql, Oracle, Vertica, HSQLDB), and selected cloud platforms. The database scripts support the creation of database schemas along with bulk loading of the ASCII data.

SledgeHammer is an essential tool for data managers, researchers, and users interested in working with open data and global metadata standards. For download, overview videos, or more information, visit http://www.openmetadata.org/sledgehammer. Received on Thu Jun 19 2014 - 16:26:42 CEST