metrics:Metric

https://publicschema.org/metrics/Metric

candidate

A named, derivable indicator with a stable URI, a prose definition, a value type, a unit, declared dimensions, declared observation-level attributes, declared external alignments, and a single primary computation. A Metric is the catalogue definition; values reported against it are MetricObservation records. The per-record analog is ScoringRule (schema/misc.yaml), which captures the rule applied to a single subject; MetricCalculation aggregates the same shape across many subjects.

JSON-LD JSON Schema CSV Definition (Excel) Template (Excel)

Properties

Property Type Definition
Description string A free-text summary describing the event, situation, or record.
Value type string (value-type)
The kind of numeric or categorical value a metric carries (count, proportion, ratio, currency amount, index, duration, nominal, ordinal, qualitative).
Unit string
The unit of measure for a metric. May be a UCUM unit code, an ISO 4217 currency code for currency amounts, the SDMX UNIT_MEASURE code 'PT' for percentages, or the literal 'unitless' for proportions expressed in 0..1.
Multiplier integer
SDMX-style scale exponent. 0 for units, 3 for thousands, 6 for millions, 9 for billions. Default 0.
Decimals integer The number of decimal places to use when reporting the metric.
Dimensions concept:metrics/MetricDimension
The ordered list of MetricDimension references that disaggregate this metric. Ordering drives the DSD round-trip and the column order on SDMX-CSV emission.
Attributes concept:metrics/MetricAttribute
The list of MetricAttribute references that may decorate observations, series, or the dataset for this metric.
Calculation concept:metrics/MetricCalculation
The single primary computation that turns PublicSchema record-level data into a value for this metric. Variant computations are carried by libraries.
Topic string (metric-topic)
The substantive topic family of the metric (coverage, adequacy, expenditure, leakage, targeting, inclusion error, exclusion error, regularity, processing time, satisfaction). Drives browsing and faceting on the website.
Concept URI uri
The skos:Concept URI this metric, dimension, or attribute realises. Multiple metrics may share a single concept_uri when they measure the same underlying notion through different operationalisations.
Metric family uri
Optional URI tagging this metric with a metric-family group. Metrics sharing a family value also share dimensions and observation-level attributes; the family value drives DSD generation. Modelled as a tag rather than a separate MetricFamily class until there are at least three real families. Named metric_family to avoid collision with the family slot in schema/civil_status.yaml.
Aligns with uri
External URIs to which this metric, dimension, or attribute aligns: SDMX agency DSDs, UN SDG indicators, ASPIRE families, ESSPROS reference metadata, SOCX DSDs, DHIS2 indicator UIDs, IATI indicator codes, HXL hashtags. Alignment is one-way semantic; PublicSchema does not synchronise with these registries.
Core catalogue boolean
True if the metric belongs to the core tier (shipped with every PublicSchema deployment), false if it belongs to the extended tier (opt-in, country or program-specific). Per design-principles.md principle 9.
Version string
The version identifier of an artefact such as an instrument, software agent, scoring rule, or privacy notice (for example, a release date such as 2022-10-11 or a semantic version like 6.2).
Replaces uri URI of the metric record that this metric supersedes.
Replaced by uri URI of the metric record that supersedes this metric.

Evidence

Not yet found in mapped delivery systems.

Metric is aligned to standards bodies (SDMX 3.0 information model, FHIR R5 Measure, W3C RDF Data Cube vocabulary) rather than to a mapped delivery system. Per design-principles.md section 3, the system_count denominator follows the standards-aligned convention: the supertype is anchored in widely-deployed standards, and convergence evidence accrues to derivable metric instances rather than to the catalogue class itself.