[tdwg-content] Conflict between DarwinCore and DublinCore usageof dcterms:type / basisOfRecord

[John R. WIECZOREK]

Comments inline.

On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 7:53 AM, Markus Döring <m.doering at mac.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> late in the discussion, but I would like to shed some light into using
> darwin core for taxonomic data exchange, not "occurrences".
> Would the following example make sense?
>
> dc:type=Dataset
> dwc:basisOfRecord= TaxonName
> dwc:recordClass=Taxon
> dwc:scientificName=Abies alba Mill.

Yes, that would make sense.

> dwc:basisOfRecord and dwc:recordClass seems redundant. What is the need to
> have both?
> PreservedSpecimen implies its an occurrence and TaxonName implies a Taxon
> class. Isnt this yet another class hierarchy that is flattened to share
> different levels of granularity for different clients?

Yes, it is. Is there harm in that? We do it all over the place.
Keeping this one means we don't have to imply anything, we can get it
explicitly. The alternative is a formal type vocabulary for what we
now have as string literals in the recommended vocabulary of
basisOfRecord. In such a type vocabulary (already developed once and
discarded as a standards maintenance issue, or as stepping too far
into TDWG Ontology work) a term (not a string literal)
dwctype:PreservedSpecimen would be a refinement of
dcmitype:PhysicalObject, and a term dcmitype:TaxonName would be a
refinement of dcmitype:Dataset ().

Here are some relevant rdf snippets.

>>>From StillImage, which is a refinement of Image:
<rdfs:isDefinedBy rdf:resource="http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/"/>
<dcam:memberOf rdf:resource="http://purl.org/dc/terms/DCMIType"/>
<rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/Image"/>

For the would-be PreservedSpecimen:
<rdfs:isDefinedBy rdf:resource="http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/dwctype/"/>
<dcam:memberOf rdf:resource="http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/dwctype/"/>
<rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/PhysicalObject"/>

For the would-be TaxonName:
<rdfs:isDefinedBy rdf:resource="http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/dwctype/"/>
<dcam:memberOf rdf:resource="http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/dwctype/"/>
<rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/Dataset"/>

> Markus
>
>
>>> For UC-Steve2 the Alaska museum of the North should have an Occurrence
>>> record for that specimen with:
>>> dcterms:type = "PhysicalObject"
>>> dwc:basisOfRecord = "PreservedSpecimen"
>>> dwc:recordClass = "Occurrence"
>
>
>
>