Dear all,

I have finally been able to implement all of the Darwin Core proposed changes that were approved by the TDWG Executive Committee on 16 Oct 2011. Changes include corrections to minor errors that have been brought to my attention since the previous release as well as changes resulting from issues submitted to the Darwin Core Issue Tracker and resolved through open commentary and review.

This revision of the Darwin Core Standard is the first one to have added terms (namePublishedInYear, dcterms:references, georeferencedDate, and identificationVerificationStatus). It is also the first revision in which a term has been deprecated (occurrenceDetails), albeit in favor of a broader existing term from the Dublin Core (dcterms:references).

Not all proposed changes were accepted. Specifically, issues 115-117 calling for the inclusion of the Dublin Core terms StillImage, MovingImage, and Sound in the Darwin Core Type vocabulary have been deferred for further research. Also, issue 122 calling for an alias attribute for Darwin Core terms was rejected.

The reasoning behind the decisions is included in the comments for each issue in the Issue Tracker (http://code.google.com/p/darwincore/issues/list). You can search for a specific issue by entering its number in the text box next to the "Search" button, then click on the button. The brief summary of each of the decisions is recorded on the Darwin Core Decision History page at

http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/history/decisions/index.htm

Anyone interested in the specific changes to the actual documents of the standard may browse the list of committed changes on the Darwin Core Google Code site at

http://code.google.com/p/darwincore/source/list

Specifically, revisions numbered 1469-1472, 1477, 1481, and 1484 show the recent changes related to the standard. Other revisions on the list are related to the Darwin Core Reader software, not to the standard.

Files associated with the standard have all been updated. These include the archive file (darwincore_2011-10-16.zip), which contains the full standard and web page documentation. Utility files for this revision have also been created and added as featured downloads visible on the Darwin Core Project home page at

http://code.google.com/p/darwincore/

Files that are no longer up to date with the standard have been deprecated, but may still be found on the downloads tab if you search for deprecated downloads.

Please let me know if you have any comments or questions,

Cheers,

John

On Mon, Oct 3, 2011 at 3:57 PM, John Wieczorek tuco@berkeley.edu wrote:

Dear all,

This is an update to let you know that I have just submitted a summary with a request to the TDWG Executive Committee for authorization to make changes to the Darwin Core terms. The specific changes requested are those that have achieved an unopposed consensus on this list during the public review period that began 4 July 2011 (and ended when I sent the message to the Executive today). For reference, the specific changes for which authorization was sought are those having the status "Vote" on the Darwin Core Issue Tracker and listed below:

Issue 84: new term namePublishedInYear Issue 96: new term dcterms:references, deprecate dwc:occurrenceDetails Issue 104: new term georeferencedDate Issue 105: new term identificationVerificationStatus Issue 109: remove subclassing from dwctype:Occurrence Issue 110: remove subclassing from dwctype:PreservedSpecimen Issue 111: remove subclassing from dwctype:FossilSpecimen Issue 112: remove subclassing from dwctype:LivingSpecimen Issue 113: remove subclassing from dwctype:HumanObservation Issue 114: remove subclassing from dwctype:MachineObservation Issue 115: new term dcmitype:StillImage to Darwin Core Type Vocabulary (value for basisOfRecord) Issue 116: new term dcmitype:MovingImage to Darwin Core Type Vocabulary (value for basisOfRecord) Issue 117: new term dcmitype:Sound to Darwin Core Type Vocabulary (value for basisOfRecord)

In addition, there have been requests to add two attributes to all Darwin Core terms to facilitate applications:

Issue 121: add English term label attribute Issue 122: add term alias attribute

For details on these and all other open issues for the Darwin Core, see http://code.google.com/p/darwincore/issues/list.

Cheers,

John