Update to accessURL description

[andreamedinasmith]

NIST has many datasets where the access is always mediated (typically this is because the dataset is a database) and therefore as written accessURL can't be applied to these datasets. We would like to see the description rewritten to incorporate this type of access to a dataset.

The original description: URL providing direct access to the downloadable distribution of a dataset.

Suggested description: URL providing direct access to the downloadable distribution and/or mediated distribution of a dataset.

[gbinal]

Are most of the use cases you have in mind here:

• systems that one interacts with
• offline data that can be requested/ordered

[lilybradley]

access URL is the last remnant of being able to know whether or not something is actually a dataset.

[bsweezy]

If the destination is usually a relational database perhaps this question is more generally "how should we describe the attributes of data assets which are composed of multiple tables, not just a single list of records with attributes?"

[smrgeoinfo]

Humans typically access the data by

1. downloading a static file that contains the data (simple URL suffices)
2. interacting with a web application that lets them subset a dataset or customize the view of the data. Such apps commonly provide capability to download the result, but may restrict the user to various visualization options in the application.

Software tools access data through machine-actionable interfaces that require knowledge of the messaging protocol (typically http on tcp/IP), request syntax, an information model for the content, and and encoding scheme for transmitting the content.

[smrgeoinfo]

The metadata only needs to describe the attributes of the data assets that are accessible. The structure of the backend database system used for data management is encapsulated by the interface provided. If a relational database package is downloadable, then an FGDC, ISO11179 or ISO19110 type entity-attribute description is quite useful for the user to understand what they're getting.

[andreamedinasmith]

@bsweezy +1
This is related to issue #335 Deprecate use of accessURL in favor of downloadURL for file downloads.

[gbinal]

It seems to me that accepting #335 would address this entirely.

[andreamedinasmith]

@gbinal I concur

[gbinal]

This is addressed in 1c93d7f

[gbinal]

Thanks everyone for driving the conversation around this issue and helping to assemble the v1.1 metadata update.

There appears to be strong consensus around this issue, which has been accepted in the v1.1 update and merged into Project Open Data. Project Open Data is a living project though. Please continue any conversations around how the schema can be improved with new issues and pull requests!

It's important for government staff as well as the public to continue to collaborate to make the Open Data Policy ever better. Though the v1.1 update is a substantial update, future iterations do not have to be, so whatever your ideas - big or small - please continue to work with this community to improve how government manages and opens its data.