Alternative table names

[ksmuczynski]

Here are some proposed table names that may be more user-friendly, human-readable, and generally clearer about the information they store. Please share your thoughts and opinions!

Current name --> Proposed name

Asset --> Attachment, AddOn, SupportingDoc
Contact --> No change
Group --> StationGroup, SampleLocationGroup, LocationGroup (essentially, inherit prefix from Thing table)
Location --> Site, Locale, Setting
Observation --> No change
Publication --> No change
Sample --> No change
Thing --> Station, SampleLocation, Location

[jirhiker]

Asset -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_asset

I think adopting/adapting OGC standards is a good approach for the data model layer. We can tailor the front end to user preferences in order to improve "user friendliness". e.g. the AMP will primarily use the Wells page, whereas the Economic Geology group will mainly use the Mines page. In both cases, the user will be getting data from the Things table, but that fact is (purposefully) hidden by the frontend.

https://docs.ogc.org/is/18-088/18-088.html#_internet_of_thing

... based on the OGC/ISO Observation and Measurement (O&M) model [OGC 10-004r3 and ISO 19156:2011]. The key to the model is that an Observation is modeled as an act that produces a result whose value is an estimate of a property of the observation target or FeatureOfInterest. An Observation instance is classified by its event time (e.g., resultTime and phenomenonTime), FeatureOfInterest, ObservedProperty, and the procedure used (often a Sensor). Moreover, Things are also modeled in the SensorThings API, and its definition follows the ITU-T definition: “an object of the physical world (physical things) or the information world (virtual things) that is capable of being identified and integrated into communication networks” [ITU-T Y.2060].

The geographical Locations of Things are useful in almost every application and as a result are included as well. For the Things whose location changed, the HistoricalLocations entities offer the history of the Thing’s locations. A Thing also can have multiple Datastreams. A Datastream is a collection of Observations grouped by the same ObservedProperty and Sensor. An Observation is an event performed by a Sensor that produces a result whose value is an estimate of an ObservedProperty of the FeatureOfInterest.