Hello Nick,
I'll defer to those who have considered this more recently, but yes - I think that's an inconsistency in MIDAS Heritage. Dimension, as described in the Dictionary of units is intended for use with physical and spatial units, to indicate what it is that is being measured. This allows MIDAS Heritage to avoid having lots of separate Units for all the different things that are likely to get measuerd in heritage data (weight, area, electrical resistance etc etc). For Date and Period information it's not so clear, and I think the text of the Information Group may need further attention. The example in the Information Group text uses 'duration' for what might go into Dimension; that is, that the number of recorded years refers to the duration of a particular phase or activity. But that is a bit tenuous, and as you say contradicts the text fo the Dictionary.
Any other thoughts on this folks? FISH has in place a mechanism for issuing corrections, so don't feel its carved in stone.
On the what to record issue - bear in mind that the HER Compliance trumps MIDAS Heritage if it makes something more restrictive (i.e. something the HER community have decided is mandatory, but MIDAS Heritage is optional) but NOT the other way round.
Hope this helps,
Ed
English Heritage
|