Glossary

represents the global approach used to archive research materials and give structure to study materials thanks to ArchEthno (and the software tools enabling to do so).

Main element of ArchEthno, the concept represents a category created by the searcher user to organise, sort, archive and give structure to its study materials. For example, if 1992 is associated to a concept named Birth year, it is clear what represent the value 1992.

The definition of a concept enables the user to precise the meaning of the concept.

Une instance is a concrete fulfillment of a concept. 1992 is the instance for the concept Birth year.

Is called dictionary all the concepts made by the user for its work and that enables the input of instances. The dictionary is a table with one line per concept: each line is made of a concept and its attributes. The first line of a dictionary is reserved and contains some metadata about the dictionary: title, author(s), date and time of modification.

Inside ArchEthno, all concept have a hierarchical relationship, it means they are all linked to a parent concept. The notion of children is implicit in ArchEthno.

It enables to protect some information while proving they exist. It is defined as an attribute of the concept or as an attribute of the instance. It can open in certain cases to viewing rights to authorized people.

is one of the attribute of the concept representing the format of the instances attached to it. For example, in the previous example, the Birth year would be of type integer number. There are several types defined in ArchEthno presented in type glossary.

When the information is necessary, the "instance required" information is an attribute of the concept inside the dictionary.

It is one of the attribute of the concept: it is a positive integer number indicating the maximum number of instance one concept can have, or the -1 number if no restriction on the number of instances is necessary.

An obsolete concept is a concept that should not be used anymore but is still present ofr backward compatibility.

Represent a concept that does not have a parent concept and is at the top of the hierarchy. It is possible to have several top concepts inside the same dictionary.

It is a freely chosen name that appears inside the first line of the dictionary that enables to identify it. It is not necessarily the same as the name of the dictionary file on the disk.

To guarantee the ability to read an Arch file, a hash of the dictionary is performed and enabled to identify precisely a dictionary and its content. This dictionary hash is especially used to verify that an Arch file was created with exactly the same dictionary than the one used to read it later on to be able to correctly read the data.

this file contains all the input instances with their hierarchy. It is stored as a textual file with the extension .arch.

Application enabling to create and modify the ArchEthno dictionaries.

Application enabling to create and modify instances of concepts.

Application enabling to view .arch data files on a dedicated website.

represents a complete date with the day, month and year.

enables the input of a link to another existing instance, enabling cross-links inside the hierarchy.

enables the input of link to a resource outside of ArchEthno, similar to a hypertext link to a photo, video, textual document, internet link, DOI link, …​

represents an integer number, for example '5'.

represents a real number, for example '5.2'.

enables the input of short identifiers such as name, titre or acronym.

enables the input of text of any length (can contain text made of several lines).

represents a concept on which no value will be attached. It can be used for grouping purposes (for example all researches go into 'Researches' instance that does not need a value)

status associated to a dictionary under construction where the history of modifications is not saved. Any creation of instance must only be used as a test and will not be saved. ArchEditor display a warning message about the non durability of the input.

status associated to a dictionary where the elaboration has progressed and having a global structure that will not be completely rewritten. The history of modifications and deletions is here saved and enables to see previous states of the concepts. ArchEtditor display an information message about the non-definitive status of the dictionary.

status associated to a dictionary that will only evolve in small touches. No message displayed inside ArchEditor.

status associated to a dictionary that should be used for any input. ArchEditor displays an error message about the usage of a deprecated dictionary.