Hi Lynn
"An observation characterizes the occurrence of an organism or set of organisms through a data collection event at a location. Observations are not necessarily independent entities and could be linked via characteristics such as time, place, protocol, and co-occurring organisms."
As a next step, we propose to develop more fully the definitions for the following words or phrases. As we we work through these definitions, please keep in mind addressing the issues that have been raised regarding topics such as: negative data, protocol, spatial temporal issues, and data aggregation.
occurrence
Perhaps change "occurrence" to "evidence for the presence or absence"?
The key idea is that the organism or set of organisms was either detected or not. We also need to provide an opportunity for the recorder to note the certainly.
As an aside, recall we need to support minimalist protocols (e.g. "organism/community (not)seen in field", "organism heard in field", "scat seen in field", "tracks seen in field", "museum collection".)
data collection event
= An event, during or after which at least the minimum required data were recorded.
location
Ideally, at least geocoordinates plus an accuracy term. We may wish to support such primitive location indicators as place names, but this is dangerous and I would prefer to require translation of names into geocoordinates and precision.
The geocoordinates should also be allowed to be associated with a set of points that define the edges of an area, or other spatial metadata.
entity
Deletion of this word from the definition might help
could be linked
= can have a pointer or pointers to other observations, thereby creating aggregate observations. Note that commonality of date, time, place, etc. is not sufficient in that the none of the observation authors explicitly made the connection
Best, Bob
====================================================================== Robert K. Peet, Professor & Chair Phone: 919-962-6942 Curriculum in Ecology, CB#3275 Fax: 919-962-6930 University of North Carolina Cell: 919-368-4971 Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3275 USA Email: peet@unc.edu http://www.unc.edu/depts/ecology/ http://www.bio.unc.edu/faculty/peet/ ======================================================================