1777 Sentry Parkway West
Building 17, Suite 405
Blue Bell, PA 19422
+1 (888) 507-2270
Specifying additional terms for Extensible CodeList
Forums: Define.xml
SPECIFYING ADDITIONAL TERMS FOR EXTENSIBLE CODELIST
In Define 1.0 a CodeList element can only have either one or more CodeListItem child elements or one ExternalCodeList element. It can not have both. You would have to include all CodeListItem elements that are used in your study (both from the NCI codelist and the ones that are extensions).
In version 2.0 it would be either one or more CodeListItem child elements, one or more EnumeratedItem elements or one ExternalCodeList element.
I certainly understand what your CodeList example communicates, and I like the idea, but the schema would not allow it. I will bring this example to the CDISC XML Technologies subteam that deals with implementation guidance for Define-XML 2.0.
The example that you give is good for documentation, but would not allow an application to load the terms without knowing where and how to get "SEND Terminology", version "2013-04-12".
One can argue, that the same is true for other external dictionaries like MedDRA and ISO3166.
Lex Jansen
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are my personal thoughts and may not reflect the opinions of my employer (SAS ) or CDISC.
SPECIFYING ADDITIONAL TERMS FOR EXTENSIBLE CODELIST
First, thank you for taking the time to reply! To re-iterate, you are saying that if I only use values from the "pre-defined" ExternalCodeList, that I'm in the clear to just have the ExternalCodeList element. However, if I need to add "ANT" to the list of species (i.e. add an item to an extensible list), and I also used the pre-defined term "DOG", that I then need to include a CodeListItem element for BOTH "ANT" and "DOG", and NOT include the ExternalCodeList reference at all.
I can do that, but I hope you do take it to the subteam for consideration because it seems redundant and potentially prone to error to re-define what are technically pre-defined terms.
SPECIFYING ADDITIONAL TERMS FOR EXTENSIBLE CODELIST
Yes, I am confirming that you understood me correctly.
I will take this to the Define-XML subteam of the CDISC XML Technologies team for further discussion.
SPECIFYING ADDITIONAL TERMS FOR EXTENSIBLE CODELIST
Thank you again for your assistance. I'll be sure to smile to myself if I see support for this show up in the next version of the define spec.
Prefacing context: I'm working off of version 1.0 of the define.xml spec.
First, I would like some clarification on how to use the CodeList element (seems to be a hot topic on this forum). First, it is my understanding from the spec, that if I use the ExternalCodeList element, that I do NOT need to enumerate in my define.xml file all of the terms defined in the external list. This understanding is based on the description of both the CodeListItem and ExternalCodeList elements which both state that "Either a CodeListItem or ExternalCodeList element is required", which would indicate that if you include an ExternalCodeList element, you do NOT have to include any CodeListItem elements.
Second, I'm curious, for version 1.0 of the spec, what the expectation is for defining terms that are extensions to extensible terminology (there is better definition of this in version 2.0). Based on everything I've read, I assume that they should be added to the appropriate CodeList. Below is an example implementation in which I've attempted to add "Ant" as an extended term to the Species list. Can anyone confirm whether this is the correct approach?
<CodeList OID="CodeList.SPECIES" Name="Species" DataType="text">
<CodeListItem CodedValue="Ant">
<Decode>
<TranslatedText>Ant</TranslatedText>
</Decode>
</CodeListItem>
<ExternalCodeList Dictionary="SEND Terminology" Version="2013-04-12"/>
</CodeList>
Thanks so much!