[jats-list] Multi-level sequences

["Chiara Del Vescovo chiara.delvescovo@xxxxxxx" <jats-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,
We're working on defining how to capture objects such as chronologies,
recipes, processes, etc. in JATS/BITS. The requirements we identified are:

  *
We must be able to capture more than 2 levels (for example, period -> year ->
month)
  *
Elements must be related to one another into a narrative flow
  *
The sequence may span across multiple pages
  *
Elements may contain images, usually at the leaf level
  *
Elements may not have siblings (for example, there is only one significant
month in a year)
  *
Elements may not have children (for example, a period is added to the timeline
for navigation purposes, but no significant event is reported for that
period)
  *
Ideally, we want an escape mechanism to skip a level (for example, the initial
period may have no name but report an event that predates the chronology,
e.g.: the end of 2WW before the beginning of the cold war)

I proposed to use nested <sec> elements, but there are other options such as:

  *
<list> / <list-item> (main issue: defined as "sequence of two or more items",
which conflicts with the requirement of elements not having siblings)
  *
<table> (main issue: a chronology table could be sparse and accessibility
could be difficult to guarantee)
  *
<boxed-text> (main issue: boxed-texts are outside of the narrative flow of the
text, so it's difficult to relate a boxed-text to another)

I have two questions:

  1.
Is there any other option that you see, or have even implemented, and that I
didn't acknowledge?
  2.
Do you have any comments or recommendations on my suggestion, or on any of the
options I listed? How would you implement this scenario?

Thank you for any help!
Cheers,
Chiara
Chiara Del Vescovo

Senior Content Data Model Architect | Operations

Oxford University Press

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