Name, Label, and Description¶
DDI modules designed to contain published objects (DDIInstance, StudyUnit, Group, ResourcePackage, LocalHoldingPackage, and PhysicalInstance) all contain full citation information which provides detailed information on the name of the object, as well as means of labeling and describing it. DDI has identified a number of objects, primarily non-publication structure modules, schemes, and versionable objects within schemes as items that have the potential to be managed in an ISO/IEC 11179 type repository. In line with ISO/IEC 11179-5, DDI has provided this set of objects with a sequence of a name, label, and description. Label and Description are standard structures.
Name¶
Name is used as a type specification for a specific object name, i.e. VariableName type=”r:NameType”. A complete listing of objects of NameType will be found in Appendix: X.
A name is what an object is called within a registry. All elements of type NameType may be repeated to supply different names for different contexts, such as different sections within a registry system. Do not repeat the use of the NameType object to capture multilingual content. This is handled by the base type, InternationalString [see pt2:2.5.1]. Each String within the NameType represents the same content in a different language. Each language string can be identified by its language designation (with optional country specification, i.e. en-UK), with information on whether the content was translated, can be translated (i.e. is not machine code), the source langauges for the translation, and the translation date. The two attributes specific to NameType identify the preferred name if multiple name sets are available and capture the context within which the specified name is used. If the element of type NameType is repeated, it is the attribute context which is used to disambiguate between the options. The attribute isPreferred allows the content creator to designate the preferred or default name for the object.
Label¶
A Label is intended to provide content for use in a display (a table layout, printed content, web site, etc.). In all locations where Label is used it may be repeated to reflect different types of label (i.e. a short label, or a full label, etc.). The Label uses an extension base of StructuredStringType which managed both multilingual content and allows for the use of a set of xhtml structure tags.
Differences in the intended use of each Label are expressed by the element TypeOfLabel and a set of attributes that apply to all language versions of the Label. The TypeOfLabel uses the extension base CodeValueType which supports the use of an external controlled vocabulary (see pt2:2.5.1). The attribute locationVariant is an xs:string to allow for either a common geographic specification such as a country code or a descriptive term (i.e. urban, northwest region, etc.). For Labels with a limited period of use the pair of attributes validForStartDate and validForEndDate allow clear specification for when a Label is valid. Finally the attribute maxLength is useful for identifying labels that must meet a specific length limitation, for example in publishing content within a specific format or software system.
Description¶
Description is of type StructuredStringType with no additional extensions. It generally appears with a cardinality of 0..1. If it is important to differentiate be original and added content it is possible to do this by using the content structure features of the StructuredString (see pt2:2.5.1). Note that if the object containing the Name, Label, Description sequence may be used in a comparison process, providing content for Description is critical as comparison is based upon the comparison of the Description of the object, not its Name or Label.