[tdwg-content] Conflict between DarwinCore and DublinCore usageof dcterms:type / basisOfRecord

[Richard Pyle]

I've wrestled with similar issues; namely collections of images that span
from obvious occurrence records to illustrative images of the sort that Bob
shows, to diagrams of particular specimens, to abstract diagrams of no
specimen in particular.

My concern about Bob's CharacterIllustration BoR is that this is
non-mutually exclusive to others.  For example, a StillImage in-situ could
represent both a geographic occurrence and a representation of a particular
morphological character.  How to represent such cases: two separate records?

My gut feeling is that we need to separate records that represent an
occurrence, from records that represent the evidence documenting the
occurrence.  Very often we have undewater video of a fish in its habitat,
then we collect the specimen, then we take a prepared specimen digital
photograph.  I assume the appropriate way to represent this through DwC is
via three separate occurrence records, each appropriately types, and each
cross-referenced to each other.  But perhaps there should be only one
occurrence record, with three cross-linked "Evidence" records of some sort.

Too early in the morning for me to think this through thoroughly -- just
throwing it out there.

Aloha,
Rich

> -----Original Message-----
> From: tdwg-content-bounces at lists.tdwg.org 
> [mailto:tdwg-content-bounces at lists.tdwg.org] On Behalf Of Bob Morris
> Sent: Saturday, October 24, 2009 5:50 AM
> To: tuco at berkeley.edu
> Cc: tdwg-content at lists.tdwg.org; Steve Baskauf; Vishwas Chavan (GBIF)
> Subject: Re: [tdwg-content] Conflict between DarwinCore and 
> DublinCore usageof dcterms:type / basisOfRecord
> 
> It seems to me that there is an underlying issue that makes 
> some of the DwC typing mechanisms difficult to apply to 
> multimedia---at least in the breadth the MRTG means to 
> approach it--is that DwC is heavily slanted towards 
> documenting organisms as opposed to documenting descriptions. 
>  Gregor's (and my) favorite examples are pictures meant to 
> illustrate a character and its states. It's possible, but 
> likely pointless, to document a picture such as 
> http://bit.ly/pottedTomato as only, or even primarily, 
> something about the particular organism photographed.  The 
> photograph was (speculatively) taken to illustrate the 
> concept of compound leaf for use in the Morphster ontobrowser.
> Even if its original purpose \were/ to document, say, an 
> Occurrence, MRTG attempts to provide assistance in 
> determining, without fetching the media,  a resource's  
> fitness-for-use for some use perhaps unknown or of no 
> interest to the originator of the image. To support this, a 
> third-party might be motivated to create  a MRTG or even a 
> DwC record as an annotation of the original resource record. 
> Such a new record must sometimes not be bound by any 
> semantics that tie it to that particular potted tomato plant, 
> or the time and place the picture was taken.
> 
> This particular example might be addressed by adding, e.g.
> CharacterIllustration, to the DwC-specific basis of record vocabulary.
> That might be a good idea, but it does not fully address my 
> worry, which is how scalable is DwC to concerns wider than 
> documenting occurrences. Even if such scalability is to be 
> principally the addition of recordClass terms for specific 
> uses, it would be good if one can examine whether such 
> extensions have unintended consequences.
> 
> Unbridled class extension has a dark side: it's easy to 
> introduce inconsistencies and circularities.
> 
> Bob Morris
> 
> 
> On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 4:20 PM, John R. WIECZOREK 
> <tuco at berkeley.edu> wrote:
> > Gregor,
> >
> > That sounds like a good solution to all of the problems. I would 
> > propose that the basisOfRecord IS the the same thing as 
> your proposed 
> > dwc:subtype, so we should keep basisOfRecord.
> >
> > Net solution:
> >
> > 1) keep dcterms:type
> > 2) use DCType vocabulary to control dcterms:type (so, StillImage, 
> > PhysicalObject, Event, etc.)
> > 3) keep basisOfRecord
> > 4) use our DwC-specific subtypes (PreservedSpecimen, 
> FossilSpecimen, 
> > HumanObservation, etc.) as the controlled vocabulary for 
> basisOfRecord 
> > without a formal type vocabulary (very close to how it is now, just 
> > some of the terms would go to dcterms:type).
> > 5) add a recordClass term
> > 6) use the DwCType vocabulary to control the recordClass 
> term instead 
> > of the dcterms:type term.
> >
> > This solutions fixes the Dublin Core - Darwin Core controlled 
> > vocabulary problem, retains all existing terms, isolates the 
> > controlled vocabulary that is specific to our domain, 
> making it very 
> > easy to expand without changes to the standard.
> >
> > Any objections?
> >
> > John
> >
> > On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 12:33 PM, Gregor Hagedorn 
> > <g.m.hagedorn at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> How about we retain basisOfRecord, but have it refine 
> dcterms:type, 
> >>> drop dcterms:type and add a "recordClass" term in its 
> place that is 
> >>> governed exactly as dcterms:type is currently being used in the 
> >>> recently ratified version of the Core?
> >>
> >> recordClass for Taxon/Occurrence/Event sounds good.
> >>
> >> I am less sure about keeping the "perspective-dependent"
> >> basisOfRecord-term in a place where dcterms:type. The dcterms:type 
> >> vocabulary is, in principle, extensible, and meant to be extended.
> >> Except, of course, some specific xml-implementation of dublin core 
> >> prevent this... To avoid problems with this one might 
> desire to have 
> >> only the strict resource type vocabulary in dcterms:type. 
> Then this 
> >> could by PhysicalObject/Event and a dwc:subtype added to express 
> >> PreservedSpecimen/MachineObservation etc. Essentially, 
> MRTG intends 
> >> to use such a mrtg:subtype as well to differentiate different 
> >> StillImage or Text subtypes:
> >>  http://www.keytonature.eu/wiki/MRTG_Schema_v0.8#Subtype
> >>
> >> This would then mean, DarwinCore might support:
> >>  dwc:recordClass
> >>  dcterms:type
> >>  dwc:subtype
> >>
> >> Gregor
> >>
> >
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Robert A. Morris
> Professor of Computer Science (nominally retired) 
> UMASS-Boston 100 Morrissey Blvd Boston, MA 02125-3390 
> Associate, Harvard University Herberia
> email: ram at cs.umb.edu
> web: http://bdei.cs.umb.edu/
> web: http://etaxonomy.org/FilteredPush
> http://www.cs.umb.edu/~ram
> phone (+1)617 287 6466
> _______________________________________________
> tdwg-content mailing list
> tdwg-content at lists.tdwg.org
> http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-content