Custom fields

[DerekMolnar]

Description
Instances may want to add new questions, split existing ones, or make other modifications to questions that are not currently supported in the DAMAP common build. While it is possible to build the changes specifically in the instance that wants the change, a better, long-term solution is to build a common infrastructure that will allow for easier customizations by instance.

Proposed solution
TBD

Alternative solution

Additional context
• As an institution, define a separate section to request additional information. Ex: Step 14 with specially defined questions about the impact for other researchers.
• As an institution, expand existing sections to request additional information per section. Ex: Extra questions about data protection.
• Extend existing entities as an institution to request additional information per entity. Ex: Extra information about which software is used to generate a data record.
• can be implemented one after the other due to the significant effort

[GeoffreyKarnbach]

Regarding the custom fields issue:

What will be fixed/addressed as part of the issue?

• With our approach we want to cover both the use cases of a custom field representing a new question (so unrelated to a specific entity) and a custom field being mapped to a specific entity (i.e. add new information to a specific dataset about used software).

How or can the issue be broken into smaller parts, if so what is suggested:

• Depending on the approach and priorities, the custom field issue could be split in 2 subissues (related / unrelated to an entity) with a custom field not being related to an entity being a lot easier to implement. To prioritize those two subfeatures, a discussion with the product owners is needed (from a technical perspective, it makes more sense to start with the unrelated and build upon of it the second "related" approach, or both at the same time, depending on the time that may allocated to this issue).

A general technical write up with potential implementation details can be found in the attached word document (produced after a technical discussion between Valentin and me).

CUSTOM FIELDS.docx

[ValentinFutterer]

Since OSTrails will expand the RDA common standard, it is unlikely that custom fields will see much use. Because of this and the high expected development effort, we decided to put this idea on hold for now.