Name - Property
The following information is applicable to properties only.
Definition
A single or multi-word designation assigned to a property.
Obligation
Mandatory completion.
Development rules
The name should be concise and indicative of the content of the property.
Capital letters should only be used in the first letter of the first word and proper nouns.
There are circumstances where a property name is required to reflect the categorical nature of the characteristic under study. In these cases, it is recommended that metadata developers represent the:
- method by which a process is completed with the terms mode or method
- current state of an object with the term status
- general characteristic of an object with the terms type or category.
For properties which are not specific to one object class, do not embed the name of the object class within the property name e.g. Episode start date.
Hyphens (-) should only be used when two or more words are turned into a single compound word. Do not leave any spaces before or after the hyphen. For example, ‘on-call’, ‘waist-to-hip ratio’.
Do not include any of the following in a property:
- Quotation marks
- Colons (:)
- Commas
- Full stops
- Parentheses
- Square brackets
- Qualifier terms
Slashes (/) are permitted; do not include any spaces before or after the slash.