[Tdwg-obs] On observation definition / moving forward
Hi Lynn
"An observation characterizes the occurrence of an organism or set of organisms through a data collection event at a location. Observations are not necessarily independent entities and could be linked via characteristics such as time, place, protocol, and co-occurring organisms."
As a next step, we propose to develop more fully the definitions for the following words or phrases. As we we work through these definitions, please keep in mind addressing the issues that have been raised regarding topics such as: negative data, protocol, spatial temporal issues, and data aggregation.
occurrence
Perhaps change "occurrence" to "evidence for the presence or absence"?
The key idea is that the organism or set of organisms was either detected or not. We also need to provide an opportunity for the recorder to note the certainly.
As an aside, recall we need to support minimalist protocols (e.g. "organism/community (not)seen in field", "organism heard in field", "scat seen in field", "tracks seen in field", "museum collection".)
data collection event
= An event, during or after which at least the minimum required data were recorded.
location
Ideally, at least geocoordinates plus an accuracy term. We may wish to support such primitive location indicators as place names, but this is dangerous and I would prefer to require translation of names into geocoordinates and precision.
The geocoordinates should also be allowed to be associated with a set of points that define the edges of an area, or other spatial metadata.
entity
Deletion of this word from the definition might help
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
Best, Bob
====================================================================== Robert K. Peet, Professor & Chair Phone: 919-962-6942 Curriculum in Ecology, CB#3275 Fax: 919-962-6930 University of North Carolina Cell: 919-368-4971 Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3275 USA Email: peet@unc.edu http://www.unc.edu/depts/ecology/ http://www.bio.unc.edu/faculty/peet/ ======================================================================
I agree with most of what you say Robert
I like removing occurrence altogether from the definition and your words are good.
I diagree with your comments on localition, however. Ideally - yes, encourage georeferences, but we cannot exclude observations (especially historic ones) that do not presently have a georeference.
I am at present preparing a document on 'Best Practices for Georeferencing' as part of the BioGeomancer project. (http://www.biogeomancer.org). BioGeomancer is preparing tools to assist in georeferencing legacy data, etc. and the Best Practices document will include information on how to collect locality data in the field. It will also have a lot of information on how to calculate Uncertainty and error in location records. We can encourage all new collections and observations to have georeference information, but for legacy data this will not always be possible.
agree on entities - I don't think we lose anything by removing it.
Cheers
Arthur
Arthur D. Chapman Australian Biodiversity Information Services Toowoomba, Australia
From "Robert K. Peet" peet@unc.edu on 31 Jan 2006:
Hi Lynn
"An observation characterizes the occurrence of an organism or set of organisms through a data collection event at a location. Observations are not necessarily independent entities and could be linked via characteristics such as time, place, protocol, and co-occurring organisms."
As a next step, we propose to develop more fully the definitions for
the
following words or phrases. As we we work through these definitions, please keep in mind addressing the issues that have been raised regarding topics such as: negative data, protocol, spatial temporal issues, and data aggregation.
occurrencePerhaps change "occurrence" to "evidence for the presence or absence"?
The key idea is that the organism or set of organisms was either detected or not. We also need to provide an opportunity for the recorder to note
the certainly.
As an aside, recall we need to support minimalist protocols (e.g. "organism/community (not)seen in field", "organism heard in field", "scat seen in field", "tracks seen in field", "museum collection".)
data collection event= An event, during or after which at least the minimum required data were recorded.
locationIdeally, at least geocoordinates plus an accuracy term. We may wish to support such primitive location indicators as place names, but this is dangerous and I would prefer to require translation of names into geocoordinates and precision.
The geocoordinates should also be allowed to be associated with a set of
points that define the edges of an area, or other spatial metadata.
entityDeletion of this word from the definition might help
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
Best, Bob
====================================================================== Robert K. Peet, Professor & Chair Phone: 919-962-6942 Curriculum in Ecology, CB#3275 Fax: 919-962-6930 University of North Carolina Cell: 919-368-4971 Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3275 USA Email: peet@unc.edu http://www.unc.edu/depts/ecology/ http://www.bio.unc.edu/faculty/peet/ ======================================================================
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