[Tdwg-tag] Meaning of 'concept'

[Gregor Hagedorn]

Class and property is ok, although these are frequently overloaded as well, 
they are well established in software design.

See also second email.

Gregor

> I second the choice of class and properties.  With this terminology Darwin
> Core is (currently) a class of a specimen record and each of what we once
> called concepts therein is a property. Of course, we will likely have to use
> alternate terminology to talk to most of the rest of the world (provider
> representatives), who will not understand what we mean by "class" and
> "property", but would more likely understand "table" and "field". Still,
> it's better for us to be internally consistent.
> 
> On 5/2/06, Robert Gales <rgales at ku.edu> wrote:
> >
> > I agree, concept is far too overloaded a term to use for general
> > conversations regarding ontologies.  Not only is the term overloaded
> > across domains, even within a single domain, such as taxonomy, it is
> > difficult at best to get consensus on the definition of concept.
> >
> > I tend to prefer the terms class and properties.  Whatever terms we
> > decide on, we should probably have very brief definitions of them.  That
> > probably goes for any terminology we decide on within the group, not
> > only so we understand one another, but outside readers understand any of
> > the documentation that we produce.
> >
> > - Rob
> >
> > Roger Hyam wrote:
> > > Hi All,
> > >
> > > Gregor and I are having a discussion over what 'concept' means.
> > >
> > > Gregor said: Roger, I suggest, you replace unqualified "concept" with
> > > something that qualifies what kind of concept you mean. If I read
> > > concept I think of a taxon concept or descriptive concept (flower,
> > > color, blue, frequently) but not of the kind of concepts you mean (I
> > > would say "data elements" for these, but I leave it to you. This was the
> > > source of the major misunderstanding about Management system and data.
> > > Note that both taxon and descriptive concepts have and need ontology
> > > information, even if not expressed in RDF - so just saying "ontology
> > > concepts" would not be very clear I believe.
> > >
> > > I know TAPIR and BioCASE use concepts to mean element or attribute and
> > > believe DwC do as well. I thought I was on clear ground here in using it
> > > in the context of ontologies.
> > >
> > > What word other than 'concept' can I use to describe a thing in an
> > > ontology i.e. a class, property, attribute whatever.
> > >
> > > Any suggestions,
> > >
> > > Roger
> > >
> > > --
> > > -------------------------------------
> > > Roger Hyam
> > > Technical Architect
> > > Taxonomic Databases Working Group
> > > -------------------------------------
> > > http://www.tdwg.org
> > > roger at tdwg.org <mailto:roger at tdwg.org>
> > > +44 1578 722782
> > > -------------------------------------
> > >
> > >
> > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >
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> 

----------------------------------------------------------
Gregor Hagedorn (G.Hagedorn at bba.de)
Institute for Plant Virology, Microbiology, and Biosafety
Federal Research Center for Agriculture and Forestry (BBA)
Königin-Luise-Str. 19           Tel: +49-30-8304-2220
14195 Berlin, Germany           Fax: +49-30-8304-2203