horsburgh
commented
9 years ago My iUTAH time series examples use a MethodType of "Instrument deployment" for the Method that is associated with an Action that is of type "Observation". Based on our recent conversations, the MethodType and ActionType should be the same, so I will fix these in my examples. They should both be "Instrument deployment", which can produce a Result.
My full Method description is a description of the specific sensor that was used. The text description I wrote doesn't really describe the details of the deployment (e.g., mounted on a sensor cross arm that is mounted to the tower at a height of 2 m) or the specific method used by the sensor, but it could if I wanted it to. Without the Equipment extension, the full description of the sensor, its deployment, and the "method" that the sensor uses needs to be in a single Method description. That's up to the data manager to write.
In terms of which Methods to include in the file - the YODA file should include any Methods that are used in the file (i.e., to define the Method for Actions that are included in the file).
Which methods belong in the simplified timeseries YODA template? Right now I'm automatically generating actions as "Observations" at each sampling feature (so no "Instrument Deployments" or anything else). So all methods would have to be "Observation" methods. Does it make sense to do it this way, even though we know this template will be used primarily for sensor data from in-situ instruments?
Also, WRT methods, how do we deal with the method used by a sensor/piece of equipment vs. the action method? The result producing action for a sensor would be an "Instrument Deployment" type but the sensor itself should be operating using an "Observation" type method or maybe some other new method type. To me an "Instrument Deployment" method in the actions table should be something like "mounted to rebar in thalweg of stream" while any details of how that sensor is actually taking measurements (ie, water depth via capacitance) belongs in the instrument output variables table. So, for someone with the equipment extension it can be sorted out. But without the equipment extension, what is best?