Dear Elspeth and colleagues,

There is one moment regarding MIDS level 2 that concerns me.

Considering the current mapping,

(1: MIDS Level 0) mids:PhysicalSpecimenID, besides others, corresponds to dwc:catalogNumber and dwc:occurrenceID

while

(2: MIDS Level 2) mids:CollectingNumber corresponds to dwc:fieldNumber and dwc:recordNumber.

I believe this is somewhat confusing because dwc:occurrenceID is not about physical specimen identification, but rather about the identification of a specific record within a particular dataset. In its general logic, dwc:occurrenceID is closest to dwc:recordNumber and therefore these two terms should be mapped together.

Mapping dwc:occurrenceID to mids:PhysicalSpecimenID results in issues, like in the attached screenshot, when the dataset cannot reach MIDS level 2 because there is data in dwc:catalogNumber and dwc:occurrenceID, which are mapped together, but there is no data about dwc:fieldNumber (not all specimens have their field numbers assigned) or dwc:recordNumber (not all records require additional ID besides occurrenceID to be assigned). Most of the GBIF datasets I am managing have no dwc:fieldNumber (number assigned to specimen in the field) or dwc:recordNumber (an identifier given to the dwc:Occurrence at the time it was recorded, which serves as a link between field notes and a dwc:Occurrence record).

Probably, the easiest way to resolve this issue is to migrate dwc:catalogNumber from mids:PhysicalSpecimenID to mids:CollectingNumber. However, such a solution is a compromise. The best, but probably complicated, solution is to introduce an additional term for MIDS for representing identifiers for records, not for physical specimens. Then, to map dwc:occurrenceID and dwc:recordNumber to this new MIDS term (named e.g., mids:RecordID) and place it at MIDS level 3.

In this way, we can resolve logical inconsistencies and place all record-related IDs at level 3 to match IRI purposes, while keeping all specimen-related data in levels 0-2.

Best regards, Andriy

пт, 12 груд. 2025 р. о 10:01 Elspeth Haston <EHaston@rbge.org.uk> пише:

Hi everyone

Our last MIDS meeting of the year will be next Thursday, 18^th December.

Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89460818743?pwd=gySuYnBWcbbtTJbl9vXSpyDqaDE0jk.1

Meeting ID: 894 6081 8743

Passcode: 914802

We will then start the meetings again in January. The first meeting in the new year will be on Monday 5^th January, although we realise that not everyone will be back at work yet – we’ll open the meeting in case anyone wants to start the year with some great discussion about digitisation 😊

Zoom Meeting

https://fieldmuseum.zoom.us/j/97909263637?pwd=xgR58mFzehQKq9RbJ7rb0C3b8L0QHu.1

Meeting ID: 979 0926 3637

Passcode: 443004

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Then we will be meeting every Thursday on this link:

Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89460818743?pwd=gySuYnBWcbbtTJbl9vXSpyDqaDE0jk.1

Meeting ID: 894 6081 8743

Passcode: 914802

And every second Monday on this link

Zoom Meeting

https://fieldmuseum.zoom.us/j/97909263637?pwd=xgR58mFzehQKq9RbJ7rb0C3b8L0QHu.1

Meeting ID: 979 0926 3637

Passcode: 443004

Dr Elspeth Haston
Deputy Herbarium Curator
Tel 00 44 (0)131 248 2800

20a Inverleith Row, Edinburgh, EH3 5LR Scotland
rbge.org.uk

@emhaston | Google Scholar | https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9144-2848
Search our Herbarium collections online at http://data.rbge.org.uk/herb

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