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<td valign="top">occurrenceID<br>
</td>
<td valign="top">recordedBy<br>
</td>
<td valign="top">other Occurrence terms<br>
</td>
<td valign="top">preparations<br>
</td>
<td valign="top">other specimen-related terms<br>
</td>
<td valign="top">basisOfRecord<br>
</td>
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<tr>
<td valign="top"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://herbarium.org/12345">http://herbarium.org/12345</a><br>
</td>
<td valign="top">Joe Curator<br>
</td>
<td valign="top">...<br>
</td>
<td valign="top">pressed and dried<br>
</td>
<td valign="top">...<br>
</td>
<td valign="top">???<br>
</td>
</tr>
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</table>
<br>
OK, above is an example of a database record that I would consider
typical. The manager has flattened the general model we have been
discussing to merge the Occurrence resource with the token resource
since in his/her database no occurrence has any token other than a
single specimen. So what is the value for basisOfRecord: Occurrence or
PreservedSpecimen? What I'm getting at here is that there seems to be
ambiguity as to whether we intend for basisOfRecord to represent the
type of the record (which in this case I would say is Occurrence) or
the type of the token on which the record is based (which in this case
is PreservedSpecimen). In that lengthy discussion that happened last
October, there was discussion of having the proposed recordClass
represent the type of the overall record (Occurrence, Event, Location,
etc.) and basisOfRecord representing the type of the token or evidence
on which an Occurrence record is based (PreservedSpecimen). I'm not
sure what is intended now. <br>
<br>
I see this lack of clarity as being a consequence of the general
blurring of the distinction between the Occurrence and the "token". I
feel like there is a general consensus that we need to tighten up our
definitions regarding Occurrences and their evidence even if some
people will prefer to continue using the "flattened" approach to
Occurrences and their tokens illustrated above (which they are entitled
to do). I don't have a problem with the various types that you've
listed below. The problem is that I don't think the definition of
basisOfRecord makes clear how it (basisOfRecord) should apply - the
definition just says "the specific nature of the data record" and that
the controlled vocabulary of the Darwin Core Type Vocabulary should be
used. Since the Type Vocabulary includes all of the classes (Event,
Location, Occurrence, etc.) in addition to the types of "tokens", I
believe that some users might think that making a statement like<br>
basisOfRecord="Event" <br>
is correct. If we intend for basisOfRecord to ONLY apply to
Occurrences, and for basisOfRecord to ONLY have as valid values the
types that apply to tokens (i.e. PreservedSpecimen, LivingSpecimen,
HumanObservation), then we should say so explicitly in the definition.
If we do not say this, then we end up with the kind of ambiguity that I
illustrated above. basisOfRecord ends up getting "overloaded" to
represent general classes of records and also to represent the types of
tokens.<br>
<br>
In addition, I'm not entirely convinced that basisOfRecord actually has
any use at all. It seems to be intended for situations such as I've
illustrated above where a database table has rows that could contain
occurrences documented with different types of tokens. Ostensibly,
basisOfRecord is needed to tell us the type of the token. But
realistically, any such table that includes multiple token types isn't
going to work very well. For example, if the table includes
Occurrences that are documented by specimens, images, and no
token/memories (i.e. HumanObservations), then it's going to have a
bunch of columns that are empty for any particular record. The
specimens rows won't have anything in the image term columns, the
images won't have anything in the specimen term columns, and the human
observations won't have anything in either the specimen or image term
columns. I think most database managers would just include the terms
that apply to all Occurrences in the Occurrence table and then use
identifiers to link separate tables for the metadata terms that are
specific to the various types of tokens. basisOfRecord also has no use
for Occurrences that have several tokens. Which of the several tokens
are we saying is the "basis" of the record?<br>
<br>
So again, my basic question is not so much about the various types and
subtypes to which we can refer, but specifically how the basisOfRecord
term is to be used.<br>
<br>
Steve<br>
<br>
Blum, Stan wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:C8ED2AA6.BC9D%25sblum@calacademy.org" type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Steve,
I'm wasn't involved in those final discussions of dwc:basisOfRecord and the
type vocabulary, but I don't see a difficulty. The Dublin Core type
vocabulary includes the following:
Collection
Dataset
Event
Image
InteractiveResource
MovingImage
PhysicalObject
Service
Software
Sound
StillImage
Text
The Darwin Core types extend that with the three additional types, and with
Occurrence being further subtyped with those different kinds of Occurrences.
Location
Taxon
Occurrence
PreservedSpecimen
FossilSpecimen
LivingSpecimen
HumanObservation
MachineObservation
NomenclaturalChecklist
Data publishers/providers should categorize their Occurrence data as one of
those subtypes (or perhaps another subtype that wasn't included in that
list). It's up to the consumer to decide which kind of Occurrence subtypes
are appropriate for a particular use.
Could you give examples of the inconsistent use of values in basisOfRecord ?
Also note, John W. is traveling at the moment. Markus might be able to
provide additional thoughts.
-Stan
On 10/25/10 10:34 PM, "Steve Baskauf" <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:steve.baskauf@vanderbilt.edu"><steve.baskauf@vanderbilt.edu></a> wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">OK, I know that this sounds like a stupid question, but I really want
somebody who was involved in the development and maintenance of the
current DwC standard to tell me how the term dwc:basisOfRecord is
supposed to be used (not what it IS - I've seen the definition at
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/index.htm#basisOfRecord">http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/index.htm#basisOfRecord</a>)? I would like for
the answer of this question to be separated from the issue of what the
Darwin Core type vocabulary
(<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/type-vocabulary/index.htm">http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/type-vocabulary/index.htm</a>) is for.
I re-read the lengthy thread starting with
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://lists.tdwg.org/pipermail/tdwg-content/2009-October/000301.html">http://lists.tdwg.org/pipermail/tdwg-content/2009-October/000301.html</a>
which talked a lot about basisOfRecord and its relationship to other
ways of typing things. I don't want to re-plough that ground again, but
I couldn't find the post that stated what the final decision was. I
remember that there was a decision to NOT create the recordClass term
which was the subject of much discussion.
I guess my confusion at this point is with the inclusion of both
"Occurrence" and "PreservedSpecimen" in the same list. Let's say that I
have a flat database where I include metadata about the Occurrence (such
as dwc:recordedBy) and the specimen (such as dwc:preparations) in the
same line. What is the basisOfRecord for that line? I would guess that
the "basis of the record" was the specimen. But the line in the record
also represents an Occurrence. It seems like there is a lack of clarity
as to whether basisOfRecord is supposed to indicate the type of the
record (which would be an Occurrence record) or whether it's supposed to
indicate the kind of evidence on which the record is based (which would
be PreservedSpecimen). There have been various times where I've seen a
database record that includes basisOfRecord and it seems to be
inconsistently applied.
I can see how the Darwin Core type vocabulary could be useful - it
pretty much lays out useful values that one could give for rdfs:type.
But basisOfRecord as a term is confusing me.
Steve
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
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</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Steven J. Baskauf, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer
Vanderbilt University Dept. of Biological Sciences
postal mail address:
VU Station B 351634
Nashville, TN 37235-1634, U.S.A.
delivery address:
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phone: (615) 343-4582, fax: (615) 343-6707
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