Consistent use of 'facet' and 'filter'; script exercise missing; overlap in introduction and other resources

[leannethelibrarian]

Hi folks 👋

I'm submitting a few suggestions for this lesson, as part of the checkout process:

Filtering & sorting episode:

• Filtering section, step 1 - refers to a filter as a facet ("A respondent_roof_type facet"). I think learners would find this confusing as filters & facets are treated as separate things within the OpenRefine UI, even though they appear in the same panel. (Please ignore if I am wrong and filters are officially just a type of facet - but there's nothing in the lesson to suggest this)
• Sort section, exercise - the field name is spelled incorrectly within the solution ("gps:Altitude" should be "gps_Altitude")

Examining numbers episode:

• Numbers section, paragraph 2 - again, refers to a filter as a facet ("be sure to remove any text filter facets").
• Numbers section, exercixe - column name is listed as "no_members" when it is actually "no_membrs"

Scripts episode:

• Overview - it says "exercises 10 min" but there are no exercises indicated for this lesson.
• Saving you work as a script section - bullet "1" appears twice (before and after the screenshot)

Other resources episode:

• There is conceptually some similarity between this episode and the material in the Introduction episode (Getting help for OpenRefine section). I think the Other resources episode would benefit from including the information about the user community that can provide support and answer questions. This could be accomplished either by adding more info to the Other resources episode or by linking back to the Introduction episode. But it seems incomplete to refer to other learning resources without also mentioning the community resources.

Hope some of these are helpful. Thanks!

[bencomp]

Hi @leannethelibrarian, thanks for your suggestions! I think all of them are helpful – though some may need more thought or discussion than others.

The typos can be fixed without discussion :)
Would you like to create a pull request for the typos?

Regarding your other suggestions:

• I agree that we need to be consistent in referring to elements of the user interface, like filters and facets. Let me look at other OpenRefine lessons and resources to see how they refer to filters/facets.
• The script extraction instructions may actually be an exercise (or the script application instructions). Either way, you are right that it is confusing. I wonder what others think about this, @datacarpentry/openrefine-socialsci-maintainers ?
• I agree that there is unnecessary overlap between Other resources and the Getting help section in the introduction. Maybe this requires a separate issue, so that we can have a pointed discussion about what should go in the last episode. Add more rows to data set; discuss reconciliation, GREL, extensions/packages #29 includes a suggestion for additional content on GREL. Would you like to open this new issue?

Thanks again for your ideas!

[bencomp]

See #102 for more ideas on the introduction. I think the "getting help" section should be removed.

[ostephens]

The Facets and Filters terminology is confusing in OpenRefine. My view is that filtering is something you do to the data, and you can do that in two ways:

• Selecting values in a facet
• Applying a text filter

Both of the these actions are filtering the data set.

In Library Carpentry we say:

A ‘Facet’ groups all the values that appear in a column, and then allows you to filter the data by these values and edit values across many records at the same time.

and

As well as using Facets to filter the data displayed in OpenRefine you can also apply ‘Text Filters’ which looks for a particular piece of text appearing in a column based on a unique text string, like a ‘find’ feature. Text filters are applied by clicking the drop down menu at the top of the column you want to apply the filter to and choosing ‘Text filter’.

I don't know if this is helpful, but in my own teaching I definitely find it useful to differentiate the action (filtering the data set) from the method used to do the filtering (selecting values in facets, using a text filter)

[bencomp]

Thanks for the suggestion, @ostephens! That sounds like a good way to explain what they are and what they do. I'll take this as a suggested solution in a specific issue.

When I teach I usually also mention that people can recognise facets from online shops, even if they never heard the term 'facet' before.

[bencomp]

A more explicit suggestion to move the Getting Help section from the Introduction is now its own issue: #122. Since that is a big adjustment to the lesson, the Curriculum Advisory Committee will have to get involved.
I think that covers all points made in this issue, so I will close it.

Again, thanks for your suggestions.