Again, the use of forms and windows that limit what a person is allowed to enter or change is critical. However, ample opportunity to enter field and lab notes also provides a means of recording critical information in a more flexible format. The Sampling Module contains information about water samples that have been collected. Each sample belongs to a project that has been developed by a particular investigator or group of investigators. Relationships diagram for the FlatDat system.
Fine lines indicate linked data fields within a module.
Bold lines indicate linked data fields between modules. The Water Chemistry Module contains data and metadata describing laboratory analyses of water chemistry. Any number of analyses may be run on each sample. The raw data used to calculate the final values are stored in the Raw DB Files. Since each methodology run in the lab generates different raw data, each methodology has a separate and unique raw data file.