Partitions, Categories, Groups, and Options

Another design decision was to utilize as much as possible a limited number of options for the values of properties for the different records. For example, a stone artifact's "material" property should include all known stones and minerals; however, typically, a list of 20 options or less will be enough to cover all stone material found in a particular excavation. This closed-ended approach, when properly implemented, may help to promote consistency.

Options were assigned to groups and often, the “Unassigned” and “Unknown” options were added to the group to complete its partition.

This general idea of closed-ended options was further expanded to include required/optional and singular/multiple options.

As an illustration, we may define the following groups in the ceramics module:

• Scope [Artifact, Basket] (required/singular)
• Material: [Unassigned, Unknown, Earthenware, Stoneware, Porcelain] (required/singular)
• Cultures: [Yarmukian, Wadi Rabah, Khirbet Kerak, ...] (optiona/multiple)
• Technology: [Gray Wash, Metallic, Grain-Wash, ...] (optional/multiple)

Due to the potentialy large number of groups required to characterize any specific record, the groups themselves are organized by categories.

Every module has its own structure of Categories/Groups/Options. It is referred to as the "Trio."