Thanks, Rich.

Very pleased to see this.  With this encouragement, I'll say just a little bit more about why I think this is a critical need.

I see the model I describe as the perfect real-world realisation of most of the key components in the GBIO Framework (http://www.biodiversityinformatics.org/), as follows:

1. Everyone zips up whatever data they have from each resource (databases, field instruments, sequencers, data extracted from literature, checklists, whatever) into a DwC Archive using whatever DwC elements they can for data elements and describing other elements not currently recognised in DwC (the GBIO DATA layer)

2. These archives should be placed in repositories that offer basic services (DOIs, annotation services, etc.) (the GBIO CULTURE layer)

3. Harvesters assess the contents of each archive and determine what views can be supported from the supplied elements (occurrence records for GBIF, name usage records, species interactions, etc.) and catalogue these views in relevant discovery indexes (GBIF, Catalogue of Life, TraitBank, etc.) (the GBIO EVIDENCE layer)

4. Users can at any time annotate elements in the archives to provide mappings for (potentially more recently defined) DwC or other properties, opening up new options for reuse

Donald

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Donald Hobern - GBIF Director - dhobern@gbif.org

Global Biodiversity Information Facility http://www.gbif.org/

GBIF Secretariat, Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø, Denmark

Tel: +45 3532 1471  Mob: +45 2875 1471  Fax: +45 2875 1480

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-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Pyle [mailto:deepreef@bishopmuseum.org]
Sent: Sunday, October 13, 2013 6:49 PM
To: 'Donald Hobern [GBIF]'; 'TDWG Content Mailing List'
Cc: 'Chuck Miller'
Subject: RE: [tdwg-content] A plea around basisOfRecord (Was: Proposed new Darwin Core terms - abundance, abundanceAsPercent)

Hi Donald,

MANY thanks for this!  And you are certainly not alone in your concerns about these issues.  In fact, we have planned a Symposium for “Documenting DarwinCore”

(https://mbgserv18.mobot.org/ocs/index.php/tdwg/2013/schedConf/trackPolicies

#track11), and one of the four sessions (Session 3, to be precise) of the symposium focuses exactly on this issue of basisOfRecord/dcterms:type/etc.

Another session (Session 2) will focus on proposed and perhaps-to-be-proposed new classes (Individual, MaterialSample, Evidence), and will start out with a series graphs illustrating the existing high-level ontology and possible alternative high-level ontologies, as you indicate in your items 3 & 4.

Aloha,

Rich