From: "Lynn Kutner" Lynn_Kutner@natureserve.org
"An observation characterizes the evidence for the presence or absence of an organism or set of organisms through a data collection event at a location. Observations are not necessarily independent and could be linked via characteristics such as time, place, protocol, and co-occurring organisms."
I am happy with something close to this.
- location
I (Lynn) suggest: (a) Location information be required, preferably geocoordinates and mapping precision, but if not available then a text description and the finest level of geolocation using the Darwin Core attributes.
(b) Location data include the representation of observations as point, line, or polygon data (with the necessary spatial metadata).
I agree, however, I would like to include a measure of uncertainty. Darwin Core has such an element, CoordinateUncertaintyInMeters, that would work. "The upper limit of the distance (in meters) from the given latitude and longitude describing a circle within which the whole of the described locality must lie. Use NULL where the uncertainty is unknown, cannot be estimated, or is not applicable."
- 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
Some revision along these lines would be helpful.
From: tdwg@achapman.org
The word 'protocol' what does this mean in this context?
In your Locality definition a). I don't think you mean Mapping Precision here - it is only one aspect of accuracy/uncertainy. Also - not all coordinates will be attached to a map (e.g. GPS). I prefer any of the the terms 'Uncertainty', 'Accuracy' or 'Maximum Error' (or all three/four with Precision). They are all slightly different in meaning.
See my note above about the Darwin Core element CoordinateUncertaintyInMeters.
My other suggestion revolves around the mention of Darwin Core here - is it necessary - some may be using ABCD, etc. and should we necessarily have the definition tied to a protocol
We don't need to be tied to a standard, but the closer we come to being consistent with the rest of the community, the more likely our standard is to be widely accepted. In short, I like following the Darwin Core where it works for us, but I see no need to explicitly refer to the Darwin Core. Neither the Darwin Core or ABCD will work for us when it come to taxonomic identification and there we will need to use the TDWG TCS schema.
From: Hannu Saarenmaa hsaarenmaa@gbif.org
"set of organisms" doesn't sound very natural to me. What about "group of organisms"? However, doesn't the second sentence covers this anyway?
"Set of", or "group of", or "assemblage of" all work for me.
Bob
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