On Tue, Aug 24, 2010 at 9:47 AM, John Wieczorek <tuco@berkeley.edu> wrote:
I think it is extremely useful to take the first step by creating vocabularies within disciplines that make sense within that discipline.
Me too, but I said "group," not "discipline." If each domain (discipline) has its own controlled vocabulary, the union of these is indeed was Bob was looking for, I think. But if CAS has one vocabulary for its specimen date and AMNH has another, I don't call that very controlled. A useful first step, though.
This approach allows for buy-in at a natural level of organization and understanding (not to mention activity), allows evolution, and can be resolved at the level of ontologies that synonymize between vocabularies when necessary.
But I wonder if it's better to have each of those 50 groups (organizations) come up with its own vocabulary, then reconcile them, or instead have a meta-group like, oh, TDWG or GBIF, decide on one that makes sense. ///ark Web Applications Developer Center for Applied Biodiversity Informatics California Academy of Sciences