Well, within one's own database I guess that would depend on the kind of record structure you set up.  In RDF it is clearer.  For example in
http://www.biodiversitycollectionsindex.org/collection/rdf/id/35259
you see an RDF document that describes two things: the Vanderbilt Arboretum, and the RDF document itself which describes the arboretum.  They are demarcated within separate XML container elements.  The element
<tc:Collection rdf:about="urn:lsid:biocol.org:col:35259">
contains the metadata about the Arboretum itself, which is a physical, non-information resource.  The element
<rdf:Description rdf:about="http://www.biodiversitycollectionsindex.org/collection/rdf/id/35259">
contains the metadata about the document describing the arboretum which is an information resource deliverable via the web.  Both of these elements include a dc:created property.  The arboretum's dc:created property has a string literal value of "1988" because that's when the arboretum was officially recognized as existing.  The document has a dc:created property with a literal value of "2010-08-01 00:27:28" because that was the date when the metadata document was first created by Biodiversity Collections Index.

In another example:
http://bioimages.vanderbilt.edu/baskauf/51899.rdf
the metadata describes an image, and the file containing the image metadata.  The image description is in the
<rdf:Description rdf:about="http://bioimages.vanderbilt.edu/baskauf/51899">
element with http://bioimages.vanderbilt.edu/baskauf/51899 being the identifier for the image and the image metadata document description is in the
<rdf:Description rdf:about="http://bioimages.vanderbilt.edu/baskauf/51899.rdf">
element.  The image has a property
<dcterms:creator rdf:resource="http://bioimages.vanderbilt.edu/contact/baskauf"/>
which says that the image was created by me (represented by the URI http://bioimages.vanderbilt.edu/contact/baskauf) and the metadata document has a property
<dcterms:creator rdf:resource="http://biocol.org/urn:lsid:biocol.org:col:35115"/>
which says that the metadata document was created by the Bioimages collection (represented by the URI http://biocol.org/urn:lsid:biocol.org:col:35115). 

So in both of these examples, the RDF explicitly states what the description is "about" by means of the rdf:about attribute in the opening tag of the XML element. 

Hope this helps and maybe somebody else can comment about this in other contexts.
Steve

Aaike De Wever wrote:
Dear Steve,

<snip>
  
Again, I think the solution is to be clear about what resource one is talking about 
rather than to try to come up with separate terms for creator, language, 
and created for three different types of resources. 
    
</snip>

As an up-to-now passive watcher of this list and dwc/dc newbie, I am wondering how exactly one can make clear whether it is the specimen, image of metadata one is talking about?

Thanks for clarifying!

With best regards,
Aaike


On 14 Jan 2011, at 15:29, Steve Baskauf wrote:

  
It seems to me that part of the problem here is that there are several 
types of resources that are being mixed.  There is the specimen itself, 
there is the image of the specimen, and there is the metadata record.  
The person digitizing the specimen is the dc:creator of the specimen 
image.  The collector of the specimen or the collector's institution is 
the dc:creator of the specimen.  The person entering the metadata into 
the computer or that person's institution is the dc:creator of the 
metadata record.  Of course a lot of people aren't going to care about 
this level of detail in keeping separate records for those three types 
of resources.  But those same people also probably aren't going to care 
about keeping separate records of who all of the different creators are 
either. 

The same kind of issue exists with other terms, such as dc:language and 
dcterms:created.  If you specify dc:language, is that the language on 
the specimen label, the language of other things on the image (like text 
on added scale bars), or the language of the metadata?  Again, I think 
the solution is to be clear about what resource one is talking about 
rather than to try to come up with separate terms for creator, language, 
and created for three different types of resources. 

Steve

Gregor Hagedorn wrote:
    
Using Creator is ok for the person digitizing the specimen (although
contributor may be more appropriate), but the person who originally
wrote the label is an dc:creator as well.

dcterms are meant to have a wide scope and by information-lossy. My
comment is only: do not define: if there is a dc:creator, then it was
the person who digitized.

Gregor
      



--
Aaike De Wever
BioFresh Science Officer
Freshwater Laboratory, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences
Vautierstraat 29, 1000 Brussels 
Belgium
tel.: +32(0)2 627 43 90
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email: <aaike.dewever@naturalsciences.be>
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BioFresh: <http://www.freshwaterbiodiversity.eu/> and <http://data.freshwaterbiodiversity.eu/>
Belgian Biodiversity Platform: <http://www.biodiversity.be>

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-- 
Steven J. Baskauf, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer
Vanderbilt University Dept. of Biological Sciences

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