It may be worth teasing out the boundary of what can/cannot be represented via simple (i.e. flat) Darwin Core. Auxilliary terms (which comprise the classes "MeasurementOrFact" and "ResourceRelationship") are currently left out of Simple Darwin Core. The DwC Terms Quick Reference Guide [1] states: "The terms found under the Auxiliary Terms section can only be meaningfully implemented in an application that supports relational structures".
The Simple Darwin Core reference [2] explains "Every field in the Simple Darwin Core may appear either once or not at all in a single record - otherwise how could you distinguish one 'scientificName' field from another one?"
Couldn't this be addressed using subscripts? E.g. MeasurementID_1="tail length" MeasurementID_2="brain volume" MeasurementUnit_1="cm" MeasurementUnit_2="cubic cm" MeasurementValue_1="9" MeasurementValue_2="8"
(There is precedent for subscripting rdf properties: http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-schema/#ch_containermembershipproperty)
Allowing this would increase the types of data that can be exchanged via spreadsheet. It would also have the virtue of permitting a single DwC standard, which would help to lesssen confusion amongst potential adopters. (The existence of a "Simple Darwin Core" seems to imply that "regular Darwin Core" is not simple.) Are there reasons not to do this?
Thanks - Joel.
1. http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/ 2. http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/simple/index.htm