Civil Works Data Catalog Help

Assets and other registry items can be recorded in the CW Data Catalog. These registered assets and other items contain information about the original metadata record and are used to form relationships between linked assets. Resources available to register or import in the CW Data Catalog fall into three major categories, Asset, Activity, and Agent. Additionally, other items of information used in the metadata records are referred to as registry items. This glossary defines each of the items available to register in the CW Data Catalog.

A Registry Item is a data entity (a class or object that groups attributes and relations) that is stored and managed in the registry. There are three top-level types of Registry Item classes:

An Application is an asset representing a computer software package or set of packages (or part of another application) that performs functions or delivers capabilities directly for an end-user. Applications can be accessed on the internet or from a web browser, desktop, or mobile device.

A Citation is a registry item used to describe external resources that either reference a registered asset or provide additional context about a registered asset. A Citation is typically used to formally attribute or credit scholarly or authoritative works and sources (e.g., published scientific articles/papers, datasets, reports, LRGWP (laws, regulations, government-wide policies), web pages, etc).

A Community is an asset representing a grouping of agents (people, organizations) and assets having common interests or purpose. Community assets, like any asset (datasets, services, applications and systems), may have an associated landing page and all sorts of other related context, information and resources.

A Concept is a registry item used to name “things” (subjects and objects). Concepts are terms for describing real-world or digital resources or phenomena, conceptual notions, constructs, or ideas. Concepts are used to add context for assets, agents, and activities by categorizing them.

A ConceptScheme is a registry item used for aggregating Concepts of a given “knowledge organization system” (i.e., a controlled vocabulary such as a codelist, glossary, taxonomy, thesaurus, or ontology).

A Dataset is an asset representing a set, series, or collection of data about things or phenomena organized in a way that is amenable to automated computational or statistical analysis. Datasets typically can be distributed in various standard formats (encodings and schema) known as “Distributions” (e.g., reports/tables/charts, spreadsheets, XML documents, RDF graphs, Databases, etc). A dataset can be a portion of another dataset (the superset), related to the superset by a part-of relation, and documented separately such that related assets can refer only to the subset instead of the superset.

A Facility is an asset representing a structure or a collection of structures with a unified function (e.g., a service or convenience).

A Gallery is an asset serving as a container for grouping, organizing, viewing, and sharing other related registered assets.

A Group is an agent representing a grouping of individual agents (Persons, Organizations and other Groups).

An Investment is an activity that funds an asset.

A Layer is an asset defining a visual representation of a geographic dataset in any digital map environment.

A Location is a registry item representing a geographic place with a simple place name attribute, a geometry attribute, or both. Location items are useful for relating registry items geographically.

A Map is an asset that visually represents geographic information in any digital map environment. A Map may have zero or more Layer parts visually arranged in a “z-ordered” stack.

An Organization is an agent representing organizational units and their hierarchies (e.g., Agency, Department, Bureau, Office, etc). An Organization may also represent social institutions such as societies, professional groups, etc.

A Person is an agent representing an individual. Individuals often have multiple names and "persona" but the Person object organizes them as a single agent.

A Portfolio is an activity for managing projects, programs and their related assets (datasets, products, services, etc).

A Program is an activity representing the management of related programs, projects and assets in a coordinated way. A Program can connect an asset to a program office. Programs usually include an element of ongoing work.

A Project is an activity representing an investigation, creation (construction or development), and/or the operations and maintenance of one or more related assets.

A Relational Schema is an asset describing the contents and structure of a group of tables or views of an asset whose dataset type is Relational Database Management System (RDBMS).

A Schema is an asset describing the classes (entities) and properties (attributes) and their associations (relationships) as represented in a structured or unstructured Dataset asset.

A Service is an asset representing a capability offered by an electronic device to another electronic device, communicating with each other via known protocols over the internet, often referred to as Web Service, REST Service or Open API Service.

A System is an asset that is, in the general sense, an assemblage of components - machine, human - that perform activities and are interacting or interdependent. This could be anything, i.e., from small pieces of equipment, to a Family of Systems (FoS) and System of Systems (SoS). Systems are not just computer hardware and computer software but are made up of Materiel (e.g., computers, software, equipment, aircraft, and vessels) and Personnel types.

A Topic is an asset representing a collection of related assets centered around a common theme or unifying thing, situation or event of interest.

A WBS is a registry item representing the hierarchical units of work (i.e., WorkPackages) to be performed as part of a Project activity.

A Website is an asset referenced by a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) that maintains one or more pages on the World Wide Web. Websites are typically composed of HTML-encoded content, applications, documents, and other media.

A WorkPackage is an activity representing a unit of work (e.g., a task) and its dependencies (predecessors).