Paul, That's exciting that you are trying to generate RDF using real data!
I think we initially considered including something in the guide like what you have suggested, but the problem is that what constitutes "an Occurrence record" varies depending on the model one has in mind when serializing the record as RDF. Historically, "occurrences" were considered to be a superclass that included specimens, and any property remotely related to a specimen could be included as part of an occurrence record. A provider exposing an occurrence record might give it properties such as dwc:eventDate, dwc:preparations, and dwc:locality. However, a different provider might consider dwc:eventDate to be the property of a dwc:Event instance, dwc:preparations to be the property of a dwc:PreservedSpecimen, and dwc:locality to be the property of a dcterms:Location instance and link those instances to a separate Occurrence instance via object properties.
Which of these is correct? At this point there is no consensus as to whether one of these approaches is better than the other. We avoided putting extensive examples within the guide document itself, since the guide will become part of the standard and will probably not be changed frequently, whereas best practices for deciding the types of resources with which properties should be associated is likely to develop over time and with the experience of usage. For that reason, we have included examples in the ancillary documents that are associated with the guide, but which do not form part of the standard. The "examples using 'pure' Darwin Core" [1] and "Examples using Darwin-SW object properties" [2] illustrate the extremes that I've described above.
Steve
[1] https://code.google.com/p/tdwg-rdf/wiki/DwcRdfOccurrences [2] https://code.google.com/p/tdwg-rdf/wiki/DwcRdfExamplesDarwinSW
Paul J. Morris wrote:
As I've been working through implementing RDF generation in a few applications and seeking to conform to the guide, I've found myself spending a good bit of time hunting through the document looking for guidance on particular situations, this leads me to a suggestion for the guide: Include, at the end of the guide, a single comprehensive example of an Occurrence record, annotated to point to relevant sections in the guide. This could serve both to quickly answer questions and as a visual index to the rest of the guide.
-Paul