Introducing Open Data Format: A platform-independent, non-proprietary, metadata-enriched, multilingual data format for tabular data
Tom Hartl, Xiaoyao Han, Knut Wenzig · IASSIST Quarterly · 2026
This paper introduces the Open Data Format (ODF), a new, non-proprietary, metadata-enriched, and zip-compressed data format for tabular data alongside statistical software packages. It embeds structured, multilingual metadata directly within the data file, using the well-established DDI-Codebook standard (DDI Alliance, 2014), and enables access to both data and documentation within common statistical environments. Dedicated software packages for R, Stata, and Python allow users to seamlessly import, export, and explore both data and metadata, moving documentation significantly closer to the user. The data format is specified as a CSV file for the data and an XML file containing the metadata, both compressed into a zip file with the '.odf.zip' extension.