2009/10/25 John R. WIECZOREK tuco@berkeley.edu:
Can you explain the difference between your new term dwc:subtype and the term dwc:basisOfRecord most recently proposed in this thread?
I see no difference bewteen your dwc:subtype and the proposed dwc:basisOfRecord except the name. The term basisOfRecord has been used for this purpose in Darwin Core since 13 Jun 2003. I think precedence should prevail.
Please see my slight preference for the word "subtype" over "basisOfRecord" as a secondary question.
The essence is that I propose to use DublinCore (precendence since 1995 and extremely widely adapted) where it applies.
basisOfRecord is a mixture of DublinCore type terms, and subtypes of DublinCore terms. In the latter case DwC omits the applicable DublinCore resource type vocabulary.
Thus any DC-aware consumer of the data has to do both a mapping of dwc:StillImage to http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/StillImage and imply that the resource quoted throuh PreservedSpecimen, FossilSpecimen, LivingSpecimen is a http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/PhysicalObject, that a HumanObservation or MachineObservation must be http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/Event, and NomenclaturalChecklist a http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/Text.
Gregor
Gregor wrote:
Thus, while I think recordType is a DarwinCore categorization of intent, not resource, and is fine, I still feel that the basisOfRecord vocabulary is a subtyping of resource types.
I therefore believe that it would make life simpler for many consumers of DwC if DwC would adopt DublinCore type for its own purposes. Instead of having basisOfRecord = PreservedSpecimen FossilSpecimen LivingSpecimen HumanObservation MachineObservation StillImage MovingImage Sound NomenclaturalChecklist
DarwinCore would first use the DublinCore vocabulary: dcterms:type= StillImage MovingImage Sound Event PhysicalObject /ADDED, forgotten in previous mail Text
and then use dwc:subtype= PreservedSpecimen FossilSpecimen LivingSpecimen HumanObservation MachineObservation NomenclaturalChecklist
for those subtypes of dcterms:type that DarwinCore cares about to specify further. This would allow consumers to directly map DwC records into their DublinCore metadata, rather than analysing the implied hierarchy and mapping in the flattened basisOfRecord.