'$RCSfile: eml-methods.xsd,v $' Copyright: 1997-2002 Regents of the University of California, University of New Mexico, and Arizona State University Sponsors: National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis and Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans, University of California Santa Barbara Long-Term Ecological Research Network Office, University of New Mexico Center for Environmental Studies, Arizona State University Other funding: National Science Foundation (see README for details) The David and Lucile Packard Foundation For Details: http://knb.ecoinformatics.org/ '$Author: jones $' '$Date: 2003-11-06 20:15:21 $' '$Revision: 1.23 $' This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA eml-methods

The eml-methods module describes the methods followed in the creation of the dataset, including description of field, laboratory and processing steps, sampling methods and units, quality control proceudures. The eml-methods module is used to describe the actual procedures that are used in the creation or the subsequent processing of a dataset. Likewise, eml-methods is used to describe proccesses that have been used to define / improve the quality of a data file, or to identify potential problems with the data file. Note that the eml-protocol module is intended to be used to document a prescribed procedure, whereas the eml-method module is used to describe procedures that were actually performed. The distinction is that the use of the term "protocol" is used in the "prescriptive" sense, and the term "method" is used in the "descriptive" sense. This distinction allows managers to build a protocol library of well-known, established protocols (procedures), but also document what procedure was truely performed in relation to the established protocol. The method may have diverged from the protocol purposefully, or perhaps incidentally, but the procedural lineage is still preserved and understandable.

All datasets no Comment describing your root element method information Information about the methods employed in collecting or generating a data set or other resource. The methodStep field allows for repeated sets of elements that document a series of procedures followed to produce a data object. These include text descriptions of the procedures, relevant literature, software, instrumentation, source data and any quality control measures taken. Please see the examples for the sub-fields. data source A source of data used by this methodStep. A source of data used by this methodStep. sampling methods Description of sampling procedures including the geographic, temporal and taxonomic coverage of the study. Description of sampling procedures including the geographic, temporal and taxonomic coverage of the study. See individual elements for more detailed descriptions. Geographic, temporal, taxonomic coverage A description of the geographic area sampled (geographic coverage), the sampling frequency (temporal coverage), and living organisms sampled (taxonomic coverage. The field studyExtent represents both a specific sampling area and the sampling frequency (temporal boundaries, frequency of occurrence). The geographic studyExtent is usually a surrogate (representative area of) for the larger area documented in the "studyAreaDescription". The studyExtent can be entered either in non-structured textual form or using the structure of the coverage element. coverage A description of the geographic area sampled (geographic coverage), the sampling frequency (temporal coverage), and living organisms sampled (taxonomic coverage. The field studyExtent represents both a specific sampling area and the sampling frequency (temporal boundaries, frequency of occurrence). The geographic studyExtent is usually a surrogate (representative area of) for the larger area documented in the "studyAreaDescription". The studyExtent can be entered either in non-structured textual form or using the structure of the coverage element. See eml-coverage for more information. Text description of the coverage A textual description of the specific areas sampled (geographic coverage), the sampling frequency (temporal coverage), and groups of living organisms sampled (taxonomic coverage). The coverage field allows for a textual description of the specific sampling area, the sampling frequency (temporal boundaries, frequency of occurrence), and groups of living organisms sampled (taxonomic coverage). The study was conducted on the North Platte River, starting 6 miles downstream and ending 9 miles downstream of the route 132 bridge in Evanston, ND. Sampling methods and procedures A description of sampling methods and procedures The samplingDescription field allows for a text-based/human readable description of the sampling procedures used in the research project. The content of this element would be similar to a description of sampling procedures found in the methods section of a journal article. Spatial sampling units Spatial sampling units represent the plots sampled. A spatial sampling unit describes the specific geographic areas sampled. In the case of a study in which the measurements from several disbursed point collection devices are aggregated, then the sampling unit would be the area of that aggregation. Spatial sampling units can either be described by filling out the structured coverage element or by reference to the values in a data table (usually a GIS layer) If a researcher places a single light source at a specific point in a research location in order to attract insects to derive an estimate of the insect population, then the sampling unit is the area illuminated by the light source (in actual practice there might be multiple sampling units in this case since different species have different attraction rates). The bounding box of a specific 3-meter square plot. The location of a weather station. The identifier of a spatial sampling entity. The identifier of an entity described in the entity module. This is usually a GIS layer. A value of a referencedEntityId element is a reference to the identifier of the entity module that provides the metadata for a data table (RDBMS, GIS or ascii text) that has the actual spatial sampling unit values. The referencedEntityId field is an indirect pointer to the actual values. The referencedEntityId can be thought of as a foreign key in a relational database. x sampling unit location Structured description of each sampling unit location Structured description of each sampling unit location citation Literature citation relating to the sampling procedures used. The citation field allows to either reference a literature resource or enter structured literature information Quality Control Information on possible errors or on the quality of a data set. The qualityControl field provides a location for the description of actions taken to either control or assess the quality of data resulting from the associated method step. A quality control description should identifiy a quality goal and describe prescriptive steps taken to ensure that the data meet those standards and/or postscriptive steps taken to assess the extent to which they are met. A quality control statement is associated with the methodStep that could have affected the targeted quality goal. Methods description Description of the methods employed in collecting or generating a data set or other resource or in quality control and assurance. The description field allows for repeated text that describes the methodology for a project, experiment, or particular data table or to describe the steps taken to control or assure the quality of the data. Likewise, a literature citation may be provided that describes the methodology that was employed. Or the information my be provided by either referencing a protocol resource or entering the structured protocol information 1.Collect tissues from algae of interest. a.We are currently collecting Egregia menziezii, Mazzaella splendens, M. flaccida, Hedophyllum sessile, Postelsia palmaeformis and Fucus gardneri.We stopped collecting Neorhodomela larix and Odonthalia floccosa because they can be heavily fouled and we feared that would skew the results. b.We collect a 7-10 cm blade or branch from each plant. For Egregia, try to sample small, young plants or take the base of the blade. For Postelsia, take a few of the blades. The other plants are small enough so a whole blade can be taken. citation Literature citation relating to the methods used. The citation field allows to either reference a literature resource or enter structured literature information Protocol Protocol description relating to the methods used. The protocol field is used to either reference a protocol resource or describe methods and identify the proccesses that have been used to define / improve the quality of a data file, also used to identify potential problems with the data file. Instrumentation Instruments used for measurement and recording data. The Instrumentation field allows the description of any instruments used in the data collection or quality control and quality assurance. The description should include vendor, model number, optional equipment, etc. LACHAT analyzer, model XYX. Software Software used in the processing of data. The software element allows reference to any software used to process data. substep This fields allows the nesting of additional method steps within this step. This is useful for heirarchical method descriptions.