[DDI-ADG] Preparing for Friday's call

[Wendy Thomas]

A few notes I've found on going through the schemas.

1) J is adding a variable reference from the data item in the
physicaldataproduct. I thought I was going blind, but it simply got
missed.

2) It helps to get an understanding of some of the basic types found in
reusable, in particular the label and various identification types. I
frequently found myself thinking that we'd lost something (an ID, a name
attribute etc) when it was wrapped into a "type".

3) walk through the various kinds of physical layout. In many ways these
are similar to the old locMap information with a few extras to cover
identifying inline labels and column/row layouts.

4) nCube groups got lost in the shuffle and will be added back into the
schema. Look at variable groups and see if that structure covers it
(substituting NCube for Variable)

5) I've found that I can read through these and not find holes, but when I
take even a very simple case and try to tag it, that's when I find the
problems and questions. If you haven't sorted out the category/variable
thing yet, just assume that you have a variable with an ID and go from
there.

Also, I'm working on an example of the geography information and will send
it out to all probably tonight.

Mary's suggestion about "how to read a schema" tutorial is something that
was discussed in the last SRG meeting. We were trying to identify where
the hangup were for people. So, if you have suggestions in that area
please let me know.

Wendy

On Mon, 24 Apr 2006, Mary Vardigan wrote:

> First, I want to apologize for setting up the call at a time when
> Europeans can't participate. Will do better next time.
>
> Second, I have been struggling with how to evaluate the parts of the
> schema that our group developed. I have found it useful to look through
> the PDF document that was created from XMLSpy and is found on the
> sourceforge site at:
>
> http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=100852&package_id=
> 108463
>
> and is called:
>
> DDI30_2006-03-24_xmlspy_pdf.zip
> <http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/ddi-alliance/DDI30_2006-03-24_xmlspy
> _pdf.zip?download>
>
> It's 899 pages but has some very helpful diagrams.
>
> Also, helpful is this page:
>
> http://ddi-alliance.sourceforge.net/documentation/3.0/2006-03-24/xsddoc/
>
> Click on the reusable module link to see the geography and time elements
> and on the physicalproduct/ncubes submodules to see the nCube
> structures.
>
> Also helpful is Pascal's page at:
> http://www.opendatafoundation.org/infocenter/index.jsp
>
> Expand the DDI "book" on the left and click on Modules.
>
> J, can you suggest other things we might look at and what we should be
> paying attention to? For me and I imagine for many of us, the schema is
> much harder to decipher than the DTD was, so I tend to get confused
> easily.
>
> Related to this, I was wondering how important you think it is that we
> all "understand" schema. Might there be some way we could provide the
> Expert Committee a brief tutorial in understanding how schemas work and
> how things fit together? Ideally, this would take place before the DDI
> meeting in May (through a Webcast, possibly?), but if that can't happen,
> should we think about providing some of this basic information at the
> meeting? Not everyone will be going to the workshop on Tuesday.
>
> Interested to hear what you all are thinking...
>
> Mary
>
> Mary Vardigan
> Assistant Director, ICPSR
> 734-615-7908 (Voice)
> 734-647-8200 (Fax)
> www.icpsr.umich.edu <http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/>
>
>

Wendy L. Thomas                          Phone: +1 612.624.4389
Data Access Core Director		 Fax:   +1 612.626.8375
Minnesota Population Center              Email: wlt at pop.umn.edu
University of Minnesota
50 Willey Hall
225 19th Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55455