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<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN class=531301400-26072005>My
concern with this approach is that it creates a level of ambiguity. I
don't like that one would have to repeat a geography if it is both the highest
level, and has data.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN
class=531301400-26072005></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN class=531301400-26072005>I
think the intent of the original approach is that any geography would be defined
in one and only one place. The coverage can be identified by determining
the highest level (any geography without a parent - or an alternative would be
another attribute to indicate a geography is the highest level). Secondly,
whether a geography containing data is identified by an attribute or a tag name
is arbitrary - they both accomplish the same thing in the
end.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN
class=531301400-26072005></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN
class=531301400-26072005>Anyway, that is my 2 cents. Anyone else want to
weigh in?</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN
class=531301400-26072005></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN
class=531301400-26072005>J</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader lang=en-us dir=ltr align=left><FONT
face=Tahoma size=2>-----Original Message-----<BR><B>From:</B> Katherine
McNeill-Harman [mailto:mcneillh@MIT.EDU] <BR><B>Sent:</B> Monday, July 25,
2005 5:13 PM<BR><B>To:</B> J Gager; DDI-ADG<BR><B>Cc:</B>
gey@berkley.edu<BR><B>Subject:</B> Re: [DDI-ADG] Latest Geography Structure -
Take 2<BR><BR></FONT></DIV>To continue the geography thread:<BR><BR>Continuing
our discussion last week, I'd suggest two edits to the spreadsheet, a revised
version is attached; throwing out several ideas for discussion, so look
forward to others' reactions/additional ideas:<BR><BR>1) I do believe we
should enable some sort of structured description of geographic coverage (that
is the overall coverage of the study) to enable machine actionability on
that. (e.g. I'm imagining some great search interface in the future that
has fields for both geographic coverage and geographic level, each of which
act on structured metadata)<BR><BR>It seems we have two options for doing
this:<BR><BR>a) Right now we just have a place in geographic coverage for a
textual description, which provides little/no ability for machine
actionability within that section. However, presumably all overall
coverage areas would also be listed as a geographic level, whether or not
there's data available at that level (hence, the sub-element of Geography to
indicate whether or not that level "HasSummaryData." Each of those can
contain structured GeographyValues.<BR><BR>b) I would propose the alternative,
as I think it's a bit more direct.<BR>I recall us deciding that we would have
separate elements for the overall coverage vs. geographic levels (i.e. those
levels at which there's data in the study). I believe that we said that
in the case when the geographic coverage/overall area is also a level at which
there's data available (e.g. the overall coverage is of a country, but you can
also get info. at the country level, not simply at lower levels like state or
province), that we would repeat the description of that area in both the
geographic coverage and the geographic level elements.<BR><BR>However, as
compared to what's in "a," I would propose only repeating the overall coverage
area in Geography if indeed it is a level at which data is available
(therefore eliminating the for "HasSummaryData," because all levels in there
would have data). Instead, I propose to enable more structured
description of the Geographic Coverage within that section itself. So
I've put in there a place to indicate GeographyValues, structured information
about the coverage of the study (e.g. if it's a country, the author could
insert a standard country code that could be machine-actionable). I know
some people said in the phone conversation that if we were to do this it
should be called something other than GeographyValues. I put that in,
but others may have ideas for a better name. [Note, now that something like
GeographyValues sits w/in GeographicCoverage, I'm not sure what would be the
relationship between the BoundingBox and the Bounding Polygon that's optional
w/in GeographyValues].<BR><BR>2) Plus, I wonder about the hierarchical
relationships among the elements in the spreadsheet. Right now
everything is under "Geographic Coverage," when in fact this term is referring
to a specific aspect of geography that to me isn't logically the "parent" (is
that the right use of the term?) over the other things. I would propose
one of two alternatives (listed on sheet 1 and 2 in the attached), and don't
know which make more sense structurally.<BR>a) if we want everything nested
under one geographic element (option 1), then I'd create an additional overall
element that's simply a container for all the others; I've actually named it
Geography, b/this seemed like a logical overall name, and renamed the previous
"Geography" "GeographicLevel," as this seemed a little more descriptive.<BR>b)
If there is no need for a top-level element, then I'd flatten it and put
GeographicCoverage and GeographicLevel at the same level in the
elements.<BR><BR>Not having worked much with version 2.0, some of these ideas
may be wacky, but I'll at least put them out there and see what others
say. Look forward to email discussion on this.<BR><BR>Kate<BR><BR>At
12:31 PM 7/19/2005 -0400, J Gager wrote:<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=cite cite="" type="cite"><FONT face=arial size=2>Sorry for
the previous message - I accidently hit send...</FONT><BR> <BR><FONT
face=arial size=2>Here is the latest work up of the Geography structure, I
have worked in Wendy's comments and part of our discussion today. We
have decided it is time to wrap this up so that we can move on to the our
other tasks - Time and Aggregate Data. The plan is that the geography
will continue to be reviewed and reworked between meetings via this email
list. We should really focus on the definitions, as they are
admittedly lacking. Also, it would be helpful to have a few use cases
described. If there are any major issues, we can discuss them at the
end of our weekly meetings.</FONT><BR> <BR><FONT face=arial
size=2>Thanks,</FONT><BR> <BR><FONT face=arial
size=2>J</FONT><BR><BR>_______________________________________________<BR>DDI-ADG
mailing list<BR>DDI-ADG@icpsr.umich.edu<BR><A
href="http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/mailman/listinfo/ddi-adg"
eudora="autourl">http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/mailman/listinfo/ddi-adg</A></BLOCKQUOTE><X-SIGSEP>
<P></X-SIGSEP>___________________________________________<BR>Katherine
McNeill-Harman<BR>Data Services Librarian<BR>Dewey Library for Management and
Social Sciences<BR>Massachusetts Institute of Technology<BR>77 Massachusetts
Avenue, E53-100<BR>Cambridge, MA 02139<BR>mcneillh@mit.edu<BR>617-253-0787
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