Further accrualPeriodicity values

[gbinal]

Moving from GSA/enterprise-data-inventory#92 - cc @dinali @regina-avila

We have a dataset that is updated on a decennial basis, it fails validation because that's not an option. Can you add it?

I question the use of the DCCDAccrualPeriodicity for the accepted values of this element as it was only a working draft and doesn't appear to have been revisited since it's introduction in 2004. In some instances the only value that could fit my data is "completely irregular" which sounds odd and can be inaccurate. I'm glad to see that populating that field is no longer required.

What other values besides decennial are needed by agencies?

[smrgeoinfo]

wouldn't it make sense to just report the expected time interval between updates, with a default unit of days?
Annual --> 365
Bimonthly--> 60
Semiweekly -- 3.5
Daily --> 1
Biweekly -- 14 (did I mix up semi and bi?)
Semiannual --> 180
Biennial -- 730
Triennial -- 1100
Three times a week --> 2.3
Three times a month -->10
Continuously updated --> 1, 0.04, .0007, 0.00001 (day, hour, min, sec?)
Monthly --> 30
Quarterly --> 41
Semimonthly -- 60
Three times a year -->120
Weekly -->7
Completely irregular -- this might need some kind of special value (-1?), or just 'irregular'

[dsmorgan77]

I've got one that's updated every five years.

[torrin47]

@smrazgs I appreciate the desire to move away from textual interval descriptions, otherwise the list could grow exhaustively long (our folks are asking for quadrennial). Using days to specify the interval, however, might imply an inappropriate level of precision. The guidance for the "modified" field already addresses this:

If there is a need to reflect that the dataset is continually updated, ISO 8601 formatting can account for this by giving the duration. For instance, P1D for daily, P2W for every two weeks, and PT5M for every five minutes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601#Durations

Why not utilize this standard here as well? It's at least as concise and efficient, if not quite as readable as the text descriptions.

[smrgeoinfo]

I like the idea of using the standard, but the duration part of 8601 seems to be less widely used (at least FWIW I was unaware of that part). It certainly provides a way to specify the necessary information.

[gbinal]

A few thoughts:

• We're currently adhering to a standing ("Must be a value from DCCDAccrualPeriodicity") and I definitely think it is important that we stick to one. But,
• There are a handful of reasonable and discrete requests for alternatives beyond those listed in Dublin Corps.

Does anyone know of alternate standards for this field?

[berwin222]

At Department of Defense, we need Quadrennial added to the list of values.

[gbinal]

Thanks, Bill. We'll hopefully wrap this issue up soon.

@waldoj, @JoshData, @dsmorgan77, @benbalter, @philipashlock, @mhogeweg -

Any thoughts on my question about alternate standards? If there's not another good answer, it would seem that possibly the move is to say that the field must be a value from DCCDAccrualPeriodicity or one of these other handful of options that we list.

[waldoj]

I do not know of alternate standards, and I've been looking for them, since I need them for another project. For my other project, I've tentatively come to the conclusion that it's necessary to go outside of the standard, basically by doing what you're describing here, allowing select additional values.

[mhogeweg]

DCCDAccrualPeriodicity appears to be a proposed term that has been a working draft in the 'proposed' state for 10 years... the challenge with using a fixed domain for values that vary greatly.

ISO 8601 has a nice definition of time interval that is simple to parse, human readable, and allows all flexibility needed. You could limit variation by further specifying that time intervals be specified using the duration method: P3Y1M4DT1H59M26.5S.

[dsmorgan77]

👍 to the idea of using the ISO 8601 time interval to represent this. Using the time interval offers the most flexibility and allows for any agency that needs a particular permutation to just go ahead and express it. DoD wants quadrennial? That's P4Y. I want every 10 minutes? That's P10M. Speaking of that last example - the ISO 8601 time interval also offers more precision than DCCDAccrualPeriodicity. In the current form, anything that's updated more frequently than daily is shown as "continuously updated."

[ajturner]

👍 ISO8601