[LTER-im] Fwd: New informational check released for EDI

Mon Jul 23 15:11:21 PDT 2018

Hi,
I’m just weighing in here… I would argue that more descriptive attributeName’s should be a best practice. The attribute “temp” is a very poor attribute name. I would suggest airtemp or airtemp_mean to be better. Particularly as the attributeName is the required field and will be what appears in the header line – this more descriptive name will reside with the output data and provide a better clue as to the data’s meaning. Perhaps as we explore common vocabularies and we can offer a preferred attributeName for many of these common measurements.

Don

From: im <im-bounces at lists.lternet.edu> On Behalf Of Margaret O'Brien
Sent: Friday, July 13, 2018 9:39 AM
To: Dan Bahauddin <danbaha at umn.edu>
Cc: IM committee <im at lternet.edu>
Subject: Re: [LTER-im] Fwd: New informational check released for EDI

thanks Dan - and you are perfectly correct (and doing way better on your phone than I would be!)

The uses of attributeName and attributeLabel that you and Gastil described have been best-practice in the LTER network since ~2005 (the first edition of EML-BP), and were described that way in the EML docs from the very beginning. However, until we had a checker there was now way to inform folks of whether or not they were adhering to BP. The checker project was started by the LTER IMC, and adopted by EDI along with other PASTA software. The current place for checker info, background, resources, etc is https://github.com/EDIorg/ECC.  (Side note: the IMC Wired working is still working out how to mark deprecated area of the IMC website.)

If you aren't interested in details about EML, stop here.
Otherwise:
the reason that attributeName is the one to be associated with the file itself is that attributeName is a required element, and attributeLabel is optional. So applications can rely on attributeName being there, but not on attributeLabel. It is not likely that the contents of an attributeLabel can be easily evaluated, because it involves semantic interpretation. We are not anticipating having the resources for that.

best,
Margaret

Margaret O'Brien
ORCID: 0000-0002-1693-8322
Information Management
Marine Science Institute, UCSB
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
805-893-2071 (voice)
http://environmentaldatainitiative.org
http://sbc.marinebon.org
http://sbc.lternet.edu

On Fri, Jul 13, 2018 at 9:04 AM Dan Bahauddin <danbaha at umn.edu<mailto:danbaha at umn.edu>> wrote:
Hi Eda,

Sorry.  I'm just emailing from my phone while my car is repaired.  I probably should have waited for someone with knowledge and an actual computer to answer.

Still, I've got nothing else to do, so...

Yes, label is just for human to get an idea of what is in the data field.  It may not be the perfect word for it, but I think it is meant to conceptually be between the computer-readable "name" and a full definition.  I don't see how it could ever have a conguency check of it's own.

On Fri, Jul 13, 2018, 10:38 AM Eda C. Melendez-Colom <edacorreo at yahoo.com<mailto:edacorreo at yahoo.com>> wrote:
...I meant, is the label in the metadata just to facilitate human reading, like Gastil said?

...its name "label" is kind of misleading, isn't it?

EDA
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On Fri, Jul 13, 2018 at 11:34 AM, Eda C. Melendez-Colom
<edacorreo at yahoo.com<mailto:edacorreo at yahoo.com>> wrote:
Hi Dan,

Great. Than you.

Now, will it be considered best practices that the name of the variable coincide with the column label and not with the label in the metadata?

What is the function of the metadata's attributelabel then?

Again, thanks.

EDA
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On Fri, Jul 13, 2018 at 11:20 AM, Dan Bahauddin
<danbaha at umn.edu<mailto:danbaha at umn.edu>> wrote:
Hi Eda,

This is just an informational check.  It will not cause a warning or an error, and will not prevent package uploads.

--

Dan Bahauddin

Information Manager

Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve

2660 Fawn Lake Dr. NE

East Bethel, MN 55005

Office:  612-301-2603

Fax:  612-301-2626

On Fri, Jul 13, 2018 at 10:05 AM, Eda C. Melendez-Colom <edacorreo at yahoo.com<mailto:edacorreo at yahoo.com>> wrote:
Hi Gastil,

Does that mean that if my column lables don't match the attributeName, PASTA will not accept my EML package?

EDA
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On Thu, Jul 12, 2018 at 9:05 PM, Gastil Gastil-Buhl
<gastil.gastil-buhl at ucsb.edu<mailto:gastil.gastil-buhl at ucsb.edu>> wrote:
Hi Eda,

I am glad you asked the list so everyone can read the answer, especially our new site IMs.

The attributeName should match the column headers in the dataTable, and be useful as a variable name.
The attributeLabel is for humans to read and does not need to be useful as a variable name.

For example,

attributeName: temp
attributeLabel: Air Temperature

reference:
https:// environmentaldatainitiative. files.wordpress.com/2017/11/ emlbestpractices-v3.pdf<https://environmentaldatainitiative.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/emlbestpractices-v3.pdf>
page 31
quoted below, where I have substituted [] for <> because the angle brackets confuse email.

[attributeName] is typically the name of a field in a data table. This is often short and/or
cryptic. It is recommended that attributeNames be suitable for use as a variable, e.g.,
composed of ASCII characters, and that the [attributeName]s match the column headers
of a CSV or other text table.
[attributeLabel] (optional): is used to provide a less ambiguous or less cryptic
alternative identification than what is provided in [attributeName]. [attributeLabel] is
likely to be used as a column or row header in an HTML display

So it seems you have been using them the other way around. I hope it is efficient to re-code your EML generation so you do not have a lot of re-entry to do. Lucky for the new site IMs they will see your question and be saved that extra work.

Glad to hear from you,
Gastil

On Thu, Jul 12, 2018 at 5:45 PM, Eda C. Melendez-Colom <edacorreo at yahoo.com<mailto:edacorreo at yahoo.com>> wrote:
Hi Margaret,

Just one question: should the header row entries in the data table coincide with the attributes' names or the attributes' labels in the metadata?

I always make sure that the lables in the data columns coincide with the labels specified in the metadata but the Name of the Variable in the metadata  is usually more descriptive and longer.

EDA
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On Thu, Jul 12, 2018 at 12:25 PM, Margaret O'Brien
<margaret.obrien at ucsb.edu<mailto:margaret.obrien at ucsb.edu>> wrote:

Margaret O'Brien
ORCID: 0000-0002-1693-8322
Information Management
Marine Science Institute, UCSB
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
805-893-2071 (voice)
http:// environmentaldatainitiative. org<http://environmentaldatainitiative.org>
http://sbc.marinebon.org
http://sbc.lternet.edu

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: EDI <info@ environmentaldatainitiative. org<mailto:info at environmentaldatainitiative.org>>
Date: Thu, Jul 12, 2018 at 9:24 AM
Subject: New informational check released for EDI data portal
To: <margaret.obrien at ucsb.edu<mailto:margaret.obrien at ucsb.edu>>

The EDI data portal has added a new informational check to the suite of data congruence checks it runs on every data package submitted.
The EDI data portal has added a new informational check to the suite of data congruence checks it runs on every data package submitted.

View this email in your browser<https://mailchi.mp/c8c48583b767/new-informational-check-released-for-edi-data-portal?e=99cddc3b2b>

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Hello all -
The EDI data portal has added a new informational check to the suite of data congruence checks it runs on every data package submitted. This check is information only and the community felt it was valuable, so we are releasing it outside the regular twice-yearly schedule. A brief description of the new check is below; for more information contact info@ environmentaldatainitiative. org<mailto:info at environmentaldatainitiative.org>.

About the check:
Compare dataTable header row to attribute names

Some programs (e.g., R, matlab) are able read in the first row (header row) of a data table and convert the names found there to variables in code. EML metadata contains additional information about the attribute (table column) that is often not in the table header. EML Best Practices state that the header row of a table should match the attributeNames in metadata - this check displays header row names of the data table and the attribute names provided in the EML metadata to facilitate a visual comparison of the two sets of names.

This check displays the header row alongside attribute names for the user to compare their content visually. The check does not attempt to ascertain if the header and attributeNames match because table headers may be composed of multiple lines, and the matching line cannot be identified.

Checks returning warn or errors are released twice a year. A quorum of users approved releasing checks that are strictly informative as soon as they become available because informational checks do not affect report results, but may be of use to data managers.

To be released: 2018 July 11

  *   headerRowAttributeNames:
     *   Justification: Good practice.
        *   Type: congruence
        *   Action: Header row is displayed alongside attribute names Compare the content of the data header row to the content of EML attributeName
        *   Expectation: No expectation, information only
        *   Returns: info

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