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Hi All,<br>
<br>
I believe we agree that we need a core vocabulary/ontology and that
this is limited in scope and under the remit of the TAG for the time
being. <br>
<br>
So my first question is: <b>How do we develop a core
vocabulary/ontology in a distributed, collaborative way?</b><br>
<br>
Renato pointed out the way CIDOC is modeled which is similar (but more
complex) to the way DublinCore is presented. Should we just start with
a wiki page and build it from their or is there a more sophisticated
tool we should use?<br>
<br>
Future use cases might include linking existing schemas to the core
ontology and developing domain specific ontologies.<br>
<br>
My second question is: <b>Can we separate the definition of terms from
the ontologies? <br>
</b><br>
An example might make this clearer. We may be able to define TaxonName,
GenusName and SpecificEpithet as terms and get general agreement on
their meaning. This is separate from defining an ontology that
stipulates TaxonName can only have a SpecificEpithet if it has a
GenusName. One community may choose to use an ontology (or schema) to
enforce this behaviour another might not but it doesn't change the
meaning of the terms. DublinCore is like this. It defines a set of
terms (as RDF properties in one form) that can be bolted together any
way a user chooses but then the PRISM standard enforces their use in a
certain way. Could decoupling of core terms from ontologies be a way
forward?<br>
<br>
I am willing to stick my neck out and put the first list of
objects/terms together but we then need to discuss use cases and modify
any initial list. I believe this will then feed into protocols and
serializations etc..<br>
<br>
Once again I am grateful for your thoughts,<br>
<br>
Roger<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
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Roger Hyam
Technical Architect
Taxonomic Databases Working Group
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<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.tdwg.org">http://www.tdwg.org</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:roger@tdwg.org">roger@tdwg.org</a>
+44 1578 722782
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