Uniquip
Background
This specification was developed in order to define the requirements for equipment database data publishing to enable individual institutions' data to be harvested by or published to equipment portals (e.g. equipment.data.ac.uk). This document details the specification of the input and output data table.
Document format
A uniquip document can be encoded as the following formats:
| Name | Suffix | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Comma Separated Values | .csv | Sample document RFC4180 |
| Microsoft Excel Documents | .xls, .xlsx | Sample document RFC4180 |
Data Submission Fields
The purpose of the “Location” field is to give a rough idea of where the facility is located for the purposes of logistics. Postcodes may be too accurate (the precise location of some facilities may be private), and co-ordinates are unwieldy for humans to use. Wikipedia pages represent an easily verifiable resource which can be automatically converted into 'approximate location' coordinates for machine processing.
| Uniquip column title | Required | Description / Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Type | No | Defined as either "equipment" or "facility" |
| ID | No | An institution assigned unique ID (e.g. Asset ID). If required you may make this one-way encrypted (e.g. MD5 Hash) |
| Name / Description | At least one of these fields must be completed | The name of the facility or equipment/ A description of the facility or equipment |
| Related Facility ID | No | Must be unset if type=Facility. If type=Equipment then this is the ID of a facility listed in this document which the equipment is part of. If an item of equipment is related to multiple facilities, multiple values may be specified separated by a mandatory comma "," and optional whitespace (e.g. F0001, F0002) |
| Technique(:cpv) or (:N8) | No | Free text description of research discipline/field (e.g. Spectroscopy). This might also be a controlled vocabulary. Use of the N8 taxonomy is indicated by adding :N8 or CPV codes by adding :cpv |
| Department | No | Organisational unit, school or research group which owns the facility (if appropriate) |
| Site Location | Yes | Campus or site location of building where the facility or equipment is located |
| Building | No | Name or reference number of the building where the equipment or facility is based |
| Location | No | The URL of a Wikipedia page for the city/town/borough in which the facility is in or near (see note below) |
| Contact Name | No | Contact name required along with at least one form of contact |
| Contact Telephone / Contact URL / Contact Email | At least one of these fields must be completed | A contact telephone number, with an optional text prefix (e.g. tel:) to make data input into spreadsheets easier / The URL of a web page containing contact information / A contact email address |
| Secondary Contact Name | No | Secondary contact name if required. This must include at least one form of contact |
| Secondary Contact Telephone / Secondary Contact URL / Secondary Contact Email | At least one of these fields must be completed | A contact telephone number, with an optional text prefix (e.g. tel:) to make data input into spreadsheets easier / The URL of a web page containing contact information / A contact email address |
| Photo | No | The URL of a publicly accessible photograph of the facility (e.g. png, jpeg, gif) |
| Service Level | No | Details of support available for the use of this facility or equipment |
| Web Address | No | The URL of a web page giving information about the facility or equipment |
Data Publishing Fields
Data published by institutions will be aggregated into a single table which will be available to search and browse through the equipment.data.ac.uk website. It will also be made available for download by organisations. In addition to aggregation, the following columns will be added from your institutional data profile page.
| Column Heading | Description / Notes |
|---|---|
| Institution Name | The name of the institution that owns the facility |
| Institution URL | The homepage of the institution that owns the facility |
| Institution Logo URL | The URL for a publicly accessible logo for the institution |
| Datestamp | The date on which the data were submitted. An indication of how "fresh" the facility record is |
| Approximate Coordinates | The Approximate Latitude and Longitude, if available. Writen with a space between them, eg. "51.060556 -1.313056" |
| Corrections | A URL to request corrections to this record. May be an email address in which case it should start with mailto: |