Population  

Include information about the population of the table. 

• Examples:

• This table contains current student information...

• This table contains the latest record on all active and inactive employees.

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Elements

Include information about the various elements of information available. 

• Examples:

• This table contains current student information including demographics, academics, personal data, test scores...

• This table contains the latest record on all active and inactive employees and includes information such as, department, position, salary, personal data.

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Granularity

Include information that explains what makes each record unique. 

• Examples:

• The granularity (uniqueness) of this table is (PIDM, TERM_CODE), which means that one record displays per registered student, per term code.

• The granularity of this table is (EMPLID, EMPL_RCD, JOB_EFFDT, EFFSEQ), which means that one record displays for each employee, employment record, effective date and sequence number associated with the employment record.

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Data Manipulations/Exceptions  

Include any data manipulation or data exception information that needs to be explained.  This would include information that would not already be understood, that isn't able to be explained properly in the column source information, and/or that needs additional emphasis.

• Examples:

• This field contains the birth date, which is the birth month, birth day, and a default birth year of 1904.  The birth year is set to a default year, since the employee birth year is highly confidential.

• This field contains a code that identifies the source system from which the record originated. GEMS records with a system source equal to "PET" were loaded beginning in fiscal year 2006; therefore, prior to fiscal year 2006, "PET" records do not exist in this table.

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Refresh Frequency  

Include information on how frequent the data is refreshed or updated.

• Examples:

• The data in this table is refreshed each night.

• Current data in this table is refreshed each night.  Historic data is refreshed at the end of each term.

• GPAs are updated as of the completion of the term, which is two days after grades have been posted for the term.  Any changes after that time will not be reflected in the historical data.

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View Sources

If data is combined from multiple sources, include the names of the source tables and any pertinent information. 

• Examples:

• This view displays current registered student data from REG_STDN_CURRENT and historical registered student data from REG_STDN_HIST.
• This view combines student information from the Data Warehouse Registered Student View (REG_STDN) with Data Warehouse ID Keys View (ID_KEYS) including ID card information.

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Confidential Data  

If the data is considered confidential, include a statement that explains that information. 

• Example:
  • Important: This table contains a confidentiality flag. If the flag is equal to "Y", the student does not want directory information to be disclosed. Non-directory information is confidential and should never be disclosed to non-university officials without prior written consent of the student. For more information, visit the Office of the Registrar Privacy page, https://www.registrar.usf.edu/privacy/.

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Column Comments

Unacceptable Characters  

Comments can not contain unacceptable characters: ampersands (&) or apostrophes ('), often referred to as tick marks or single quotation marks.  These characters will cause processing failures.  Thoroughly examine comments (by sight and by query check) prior to publishing them in DWHOUSE. 

• Example query:        
  • select table_name, column_name, comments
             from all_col_comments
             where owner = 'MARTIAN'
             and comments like '%''%'
             or comments like '%&%'

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Description  

Include descriptive information about the data in the field. 

• Examples:

• This field holds the nationality code of the student at the time of application.

• This field identifies the Classification of Institutional Programs (CIP) code, which is associated with the second major.  It is used to compare programs across the State.

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Data Manipulation/Exception  

Include any data manipulation or data exception information that needs to be explained.  This would include information that would not already be understood, that isn't able to be explained properly in the column source information, and/or that needs additional emphasis.

• Examples:

• This field holds the current country of the home mailing address, which may be different than it was at the time of the job effective date (JOB_EFFDT). If the home address is suppressed, the USF work address is used.

• This field is a number data type, but the field in the source system from which this data is extracted is a character data type (VARCHAR2).  In the process of extracting the data from the source system, if the data is found to be unacceptable to be converted from character to number-- meaning it is not an actual number, or it is a number that contains unacceptable characters--  the data is nullified (set to a null value).

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Confidential Data

If the data is considered confidential, include a statement that explains that information. 

• Examples:

• This field identifies whether or not a persons record is confidential.  A confidential value = "Y".  In this comment, the apostrophe in the word "persons" was intentionally omitted, since an apostrophe is an acceptable character.

• The field holds the employee ID, which is automatically assigned by the GEMS system.  The EMPLID is used in lieu of or in conjunction with the Social Security Number, which is a confidential data element.

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