"I agree that consistent conventions would be nice across standards."
I second this opinion! It seems some standards are based around XML/XSD, some around RDF, some are strongly influenced by the TDWG core ontology (LSID vocs), which is not even a standard. etc, etc
It would be good to have a recommended approach to generating a standard specification (or is there one already??). Eg - use the "Core TDWG model" to guide you standard development - reuse any existing standards as much as possible, eg DC, FOAF - generate specific Use Cases for the problem domain - use UML (or similar) to model your problem domain - use RDF or OWL to develop classes and properties for the UML model - feedback new ideas/models to the "Core model" - generate recommendations for use of the standard model in particular use cases, eg "Use the Observation TDWG class, with the GUID specified in the dc:identifier field, owner in dc:creator, to transfer specimen data from herbarium A to herbarium B using RDF+XML for the markup ..." - generate example instance documents in the various recommended formats
This works in conjunction with the diagram I recently posted in an email (http://202.27.243.4/tdwg/coremodel.jpg).
Kevin
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