Capital Trials at the Old Bailey

Met with SD yesterday to discuss his questions and concerns about the structure of the XML file. He's been proofing the data for the last couple of weeks. As a result of his reading, he's realized that the current XML structure is lacking in a few areas. So, we're going to make the following changes:

• recorder_report (rec_rep in the XML) currently "has many" cases (case in the XML). rec_rep also "has one" rec_rep_head, which has rec_rep_start_date, rec_rep_end_date, rec_rep_pub_date, and rec_rep_notes elements. According to SD, in some cases the recorder report dates can change for each case within the same recorder report. So rather than rec_rep_head being a direct child of rec_rep, it will be moved to being a child of each case WITHIN the rec_rep. So the hierarchy will be: rec_rep -> HAS MANY case -> HAS ONE rec_rep_head
• respite elements will have a child respite_ref field so that SD can add in any possible references for a respite.
• A new element, "judge_respite", is being added as a trial_file child. Unlike the trial file -> HAS MANY respites relationship, a trial file only HAS ONE judge_respite.
• execution_mode, which is a child of outcome, is going to be expanded to allow for multiple elements. So the relationship will become: trial file -> HAS MANY outcomes -> HAS MANY execution_modes. This is an optional field.

I also approached SD about using an Excel spreadsheet to gather his raw data, rather than a word processor (which is his current method). Since the current method to convert his raw data to XML is quite cumbersome and error-prone (not by any fault of SA, who did an admirable job with GREP), moving SD to a spreadsheet will make the conversion process faster and more streamlined. I think it'll also make his own work simpler since he'll be able to find and manipulate his data much more easily.