[tdwg-content] Darwin Core Collection-related terms

Fri Jul 24 17:31:57 CEST 2009

I was just curious how the collectionCode and collectionID apply to datasets that are not part of things like university / museum / herbarium collections?

The NCD description (http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/Collection#Code) says "Ontology describing the metadata returned for LSIDs that are used for natural collections records. i.e. curated groups of specimens."

Under that description - I don't think that our data (as well as of many other institutions) would fit since we have more "observation" data and not much curated specimen data.

But if I'm understanding the DWC schema correctly collectionCode and institutionCode are required elements?

It would be nice if terms could be re-used in DWC and NCD, but my only concern is if the NCD definition is more narrow than the users of DWC then it becomes confusing.

Thank you!
Lynn

Lynn Kutner
NatureServe
phone: (703) 797-4804
email:  lynn_kutner at natureserve.org
http://www.natureserve.org/

-----Original Message-----
From: tdwg-content-bounces at lists.tdwg.org [mailto:tdwg-content-bounces at lists.tdwg.org] On Behalf Of renato at cria.org.br
Sent: Friday, July 24, 2009 7:52 AM
To: TDWG Content Mailing List
Subject: Re: [tdwg-content] Darwin Core Collection-related terms

Hi Tim,

Nice summary. My preference is for b. Considering that NCD follows the
same principles of this new DarwinCore version, I see no reason for
duplicating the same term. No matter how much we try to keep boundaries
clear between standards, there will always be some kind of semantic
overlap between them. Having the same terms defined under different
namespaces can be very confusing for users. I think TDWG should try to
make things as reusable as possible.

To be more specific, I would suggest the following changes to NCD:

1) Remove the domain from collectionId and institutionId and rename them
to "Id" so that the URI becomes:

http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/Collection#Id
http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/Institution#Id

2) Remove the domain from #acronymOrCoden (Collection) and rename it to
"Code" so that the URI becomes:

http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/Collection#Code

3) Add a Code property in Institution (without a domain) making it:

http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/Institution#Code

Then DarwinCore or any other standard can easily reuse these terms.

Depending on how this gets solved, yes, I think we should open the
floodgates...

Best Regards,
--
Renato

> Hi John, Renato
>
> Thinking aloud, some possible options I see might be:
>
> a) - omit it from the DwC terms altogether
> b) - reuse the existing URI if the NCD term domain was derestricted
> c) - keep a duplicate term in the DwC NS
> d) - ? keep a duplicate term in the DwC NS and add some kind of "is
> equivalent of" to the NCD acronymOrCoden
> e) - ? keep a duplicate term in the DwC NS and have NCD acronymOrCoden
> do some "refinement" of dwc:collectionCode
>
> My preference is for c) (or if possible e) for clear boundaries of dwc
> and also maintainability reasons.
>
> To me, DwC fits nicely as a set of commonly used terms which are
> unrestricted to domain classes, and extend the terms offered by the
> DublinCore Metadata Terms.  Using these terms we can assemble models/
> schemas etc.  To say DwC now also includes terms from other namespaces
> (which are currently restricted to domains), I think might become more
> difficult to grasp and maintain.    I also wonder if going down the
> route of b) or d) for one term could open the floodgates for a lot of
> other terms (http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/index.htm#genus ->
> http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/TaxonName#genusPart)
>   and effectively move towards being an "index of data and object
> properties in the TDWG ontology".
>
> Just some thoughts,
>
> Tim
>
>
> On Jul 24, 2009, at 3:20 AM, John R. WIECZOREK wrote:
>
>> I have taken the content of the Darwin Core Issues 32 and 33 to post
>> here as they both require discussion before an unambiguous
>> recommendation can be made.
>>
>>> From http://code.google.com/p/darwincore/issues/detail?id=32
>>
>> Reported by ren... at cria.org.br
>> Term Name: collectionID
>>
>> Recommendation: Reuse the term which is already defined in NCD (on the
>> other hand, the NCD term defined in the corresponding RDF file should
>> probably not be restricted to a specific domain).
>>
>> Submitter: Renato De Giovanni
>>
>>
>> Comment 1 by gtuco.btuco
>> This is indeed intended to be the same term. Can you provide the URI
>> to the term in
>> NCD?
>> Status: Accepted
>> Labels: Milestone-Release1.0 Priority-Critical
>>
>> Comment 2 by ren... at cria.org.br
>> Currently the URI is:
>>
>> http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/Collection#collectionId
>>
>> But I think that relationship terms like this one should probably not
>> be bound to a
>> domain since they can be used by objects from many different classes.
>> I'm not sure if
>> it's possible to change NCD and if the NCD creators would agree with
>> this change.
>> Perhaps a better URI for this term would be:
>>
>> http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/collectionId
>>
>> Comment 3 by gtuco.btuco, Today (1 minute ago)
>> Since this issue no longer has a single defensible concrete solution I
>> think it should
>> be moved to the discussion list tdwg-content until one can be
>> proposed. I'll copy the
>> whole issue thread there.
>>
>> -----
>>> From http://code.google.com/p/darwincore/issues/detail?id=33
>>
>> Reported by ren... at cria.org.br
>> Term Name: collectionCode
>>
>> Recommendation: Reuse existing term from NCD, but I would probably
>> also
>> suggest to change the NCD term from
>> http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/Collection#acronymOrCoden to
>> http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/collectionCode (without a domain).
>> It would
>> be nice to know Markus' or Roger's opinion about this, since they
>> participated in the NCD group.
>>
>> Submitter: Renato De Giovanni
>>
>> Comment 1 by gtuco.btuco
>> Also moving this issue to tdwg-content for discussion.

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