Survey
This model was last updated on 11/03/2021, this is version 0.1
Draft
Model created
11/03/2021
Description
A survey is specific type of scheme within the food and feed sampling domain.
A survey differs from other schemes within our models by virtue of the types of actions that happen within the scope of it.
Schemes may have activities, interventions, or enforcements within the scope of their context, but surveys only have interventions. In data terms, the actions associated with sampling are all interventions.
A survey has some specific parameters associated with it which may or may not be inherited from the scheme which is it’s parent, and some surveys will not have a parent scheme at all, especially if the basis for sampling is more surveillance based than formal sampling. The parameters of a survey are covered in the key properties section.
Related entities
A survey has one or more interventions associated with it.
A survey entity is a child of a the scheme entity, which means there is often an association between a scheme and a survey, but it is not mandatory.
Entity diagram
Synonyms
What it is not
A survey is characterised by being an intervention based scheme, and while some enforcement actions can happen as a result of interventions made within the scope of the survey, they should be associated with the broader scheme, legislative or otherwise, rather than the survey entity.
Properties, identifiers and reference data
Key properties
There are some key properties of surveys which mostly define their scope and context. These include:
- What is being sampled? This can include specific products or a broader subdomain (e.g. shellfish)
- The time period over which the survey is in effect (this might be different to the period in which samples are taken)
- The geogrpahic area(s) over which you are taking samples
- The hazard(s) being sampled for
- Who owns the survey - this can be a a single or multiple competent authorities and it may be useful to call out which part of the organisation owns the survey in some cases
- The “scope” of the survey, often expressed as formal, informal, or surveillance
Contextual properties
In cases where sampling activity is happening in response to a specific incident, then the survey will likely contain additional information about specific batches of a product that will be samples, and the compositional detail of products based on their specification.