What are CASRAI data standards?
Reading a CASRAI data standard is a lot like reading a business form (web or paper). In fact, the easiest way to grasp what we mean by data standards is to compare them to business forms. A business form is a structured collection of information that answers a number of questions about something. CASRAI Documents are the equivalent of business forms and they standardize these structured collections of information.
In a typical business form you would find logical sections dividing the information. Examples would include the ‘Contact Information' and ‘Academic Background' sections (in a CV form) or the ‘Budget' and ‘Project Details' and ‘Co-Applicants' sections (in a grant application form). CASRAI data standards have the exact same concept, also called Sections. Sections in CASRAI documents standardize the logical groupings of information in the same way as business forms.
In a business form you would find spaces provided in each section where you can enter instances of the same information types. An example would be ‘Phone Number' types where you might need to enter cell, home, work and fax numbers. Another example would be ‘Mailing Address' types where you might need to enter work, home, primary affiliation, temporary and courier addresses. A final example would be ‘Research Contributions' where you might provide many different instances of a ‘Journal Article' type or a ‘Theatrical Performance' type in order to enter your contributions. CASRAI has these too and they're called Record Types. Record types in CASRAI documents standardize the information types that recur regularly in documents (as they do in forms).
Business forms will guide you in what you must enter by defining the form fields that make up a complete piece of information. Examples include City, Province, Postal Code fields in a ‘Mailing Address' information type or Description, Year 1 Amount, Year 2 Amount fields in a ‘Budget Line Item' information type. CASRAI data standards, again, have the exact same concept, also called Fields. Fields in CASRAI documents are the core nuts and bolts that build structured information (just as in business forms).
And finally, another key concept in typical business forms is the idea of limiting what you can enter into certain fields to one of a list of pre-approved values (sometimes called codes tables). Examples range from short simple lists like Provinces, Salutations or Degree Types to longer inter-related lists like Institutions, Departments or Research Classification Codes. CASRAI also includes this concept and calls them Lists. Lists in CASRAI data standards bring uniformity to approved term lists so there is zero ambiguity and high information integrity (just as in business forms).
To summarize then, a CASRAI data standard is like a common set of business forms. The standard defines what Documents will be exchanged; what Sections will appear in those documents; what Fields make up what Record Types in each of the sections; and, finally what Lists constrain the allowed values in certain fields.
How are the data standards presented?
Now that we have a handle on what CASRAI data standards are we can discuss how CASRAI presents them for convenient and organized review and comment. Let's review the various elements that comprise a CASRAI data standard (from our comparison above to business forms):
- Documents, which are composed of...
- Sections, which contain...
- Record Types, which are built from...
- Fields, which in some cases are constrained by...
- Lists
So, to present a CASRAI data standard in a manner that facilitates public review and comment we must list and organize all these elements in a concise manner and in such a way that individual elements can be extracted for comment or easy revision. CASRAI achieves this by presenting each data standard in a single, multi-tabbed spreadsheet (downloadable from the CASRAI website). The spreadsheet tabs essentially map to the elements listed above:
- Document Sections
- Record Types
- Lists
In the Document Sections Tab of the spreadsheet (tab 1) you see a sort of ‘Table of Contents' for the data standard. You also see simple spreadsheet filtering tools for showing which Sections do and do not appear in the various business documents (business forms) this data standard supports.
In the Record Types Tab of the spreadsheet (tab 2) you see a kind of data dictionary where each included Record Type is listed along with each Field definition that makes up that type. You also can see how many characters an entry can have (if text) and any special help text if the meaning of a field is not obvious. You will also see an indicator of which CASRAI List constrains a given field.
In the Lists Tab of the spreadsheet (tab 3) you see all the CASRAI Lists that constrain fields in the data standard. You see the list name and the list values (except for very long lists which are available as separate downloads form the CASRAI website.
How do you comment on a data standard?
When you download a CASRAI data standard spreadsheet from the CASRAI website you will also see there a downloadable Comment Form (an MS Word file). Please use that form to gather your questions and requested changes. When done entering your comments just email the Comments Form to info@casrai.org and your comments will be processed in the next review cycle of the Working Group assigned to that data standard.
You can also get any other information you require by sending an email to info@casrai.org and include your questions.