September 2012 - tdwg-content

iDigBio Train-the-Trainers Georeferencing Workshop Oct 8 - 12, 2012
by Deb Paul 09 Aug '13

09 Aug '13

** Hi Everyone, The Georeferencing Working Group at iDigBio is pleased to announce our first "Train-the-Trainers" Georeferencing Workshop for Thematic Collections Networks (TCNs) and others in engaged in the digitization of biological collections in the United States. See: https://www.idigbio.org/content/idigbios-first-train-trainers-georeferencin… for details. Three slots are still available in this workshop that is designed to focus on training participants to teach others to georeference. If you are interested, please send an application describing the reason(s) for your interest in the workshop, the current and future projects that will benefit from your attendance, and any previous experience you have with georeferencing to iDigBio's Program Assistant, Cathy Bester, cbester(a)flmnh.ufl.edu What: Train-the-Trainers -- Georeferencing Workshop Where: University of Florida, Gainesville, FL Who: Interested members of current TCNs and others in the biodiversity natural history collections community. When: October 8-12, 2012 Contact: Deborah Paul dpaul(a)fsu.edu for further information. Best, Deb and the iDigBio Georeferencing Working Group Deborah Paul User Services, iDigBio Institute for Digital Information, iDigInfo Florida State University Tallahassee, Florida 32308 850-644-6366

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DwC Image Archive Issues
by Christopher Gwilliams 26 Sep '12

26 Sep '12

Hello All, I have been playing with Darwin Core as a means to standardise sending images from my wildlife cameras and I expect to set up a data store on my computer. However, the Reader java archive struggles with printing some of the values, despite it validating successfully. Although the successful validation seems to imply that the columns do not match in all records (which is not the case). I have attached the archive that I am working with and I was wondering if someone would be willing to take a look and see if I am missing anything glaring? Much of this is based on the template archives on the core website. Thank you! Chris

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Change of DwC terms stateProvince, county, and municipality?
by Markus Englund 06 Sep '12

06 Sep '12

Hi everyone, I have noticed that use of the Darwin Core terms stateProvince, county, and municipality sometimes can be quite confusing. This confusion may arise when a term name does not reflect the content, like when the term stateProvince does not refer to a state or province, or when the term county does not refer to a county. Take my own country Sweden for example, where the Darwin Core term stateProvince refers to the name of a county, the term county refers to the name of a municipality, and the term municipality refers to the name of a parish... As long as everyone stick to the definitions, literal meaning of term names doesn't really matters. Unfortunately, however, people sometimes tend to focus more on the literal meaning of term names than on the actual meaning of defined concepts. To make the Darwin Core terminology less confusing, I think words associated with geographic ranks should be removed from the term names. I suggest the following changes (you may come up with better ones yourself!): “stateProvince” --> “countryFirstOrderSubdivision” “county” --> “countrySecondOrderSubdivision” “municipality” --> “countryThirdOrderSubdivision” After having delved into the Darwin Core geography specifications, I also feel that these three terms would benefit from more consistent and clear-cut definitions. I have included proposed new definitions at the end of this mail. My intention is not to alter the meaning of any of the existing terms, just to make the definitions more precise. Each proposed new definition is also accompanied by a revised comment with examples. To conclude, here are some questions to think about: 1) Would it be desirable to have other names for the terms stateProvince, county, and municipality? If so, what names should be used instead? 2) Are the current definitions of the terms stateProvince, county, and municipality sufficiently good? If not, how should they be defined? Does the definitions proposed here make things clearer? 3) Would more elaborate examples in the comments like the ones presented here improve the Darwin Core standard? Looking forward to hear of any response! Markus Englund Department of Biodiversity Informatics Swedish Museum of Natural History P.O. Box 50007 SE-104 05 Stockholm, Sweden -------------------- SOME RELATED LINKS Wikipedia: Table of administrative divisions by country http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_administrative_country_subdivisions_b… UN Second Administrative Level Boundaries http://www.unsalb.org UN Gazetetteer - a global place name database and search engine http://dma.jrc.it/services/gazetteer GADM database of Global Administrative Areas http://www.gadm.org -------------------- PROPOSED NEW DEFINITIONS AND COMMENTS Term Name: countryFirstOrderSubdivision Definition: The full, unabbreviated name of the primary administrative division below country level in which the Location occurs. The named region should be a subdivision of the region referred to in the country term. Comment: Examples: "Montana" (a federal state in the USA), "Minas Gerais" (a federative unit in Brazil), "Neuquén" (a province in Argentina), "Hesse" (a federal state in Germany), "Stockholms län" (a county in Sweden). Term Name: countrySecondOrderSubdivision Definition: The full, unabbreviated name of the second-order administrative division below country level in which the Location occurs. The named region should be a subdivision of the region referred to in the countryFirstOrderSubdivision term. Comment: Examples: "Missoula" (a county located in the federal state Montana, USA), "Los Lagos" (a department located in the province Neuquén, Argentina), "Darmstadt" (a government district located in the federal state Hesse, Germany), "Sigtuna" (a municipality located in the county Stockholms län, Sweden). Term Name: countryThirdOrderSubdivision Definition: The name of the third-order administrative division below country level in which the Location occurs. The named region should be a subdivision of the region referred to in the countrySecondOrderSubdivision term. Comment: Examples: "Hainburg" (a municipality located in the government district Darmstadt in Hesse, Germany), "Norrsunda" (a parish located in the municipality Sigtuna in Stockholms län, Sweden)

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