[tdwg-content] Can all DwC be Simple DwC?

[joel sachs]

On Wed, 5 Jan 2011, Gregor Hagedorn wrote:

>> Couldn't this be addressed using subscripts? E.g.
>> MeasurementID_1="tail length"
>> MeasurementID_2="brain volume"
>> MeasurementUnit_1="cm"
>> MeasurementUnit_2="cubic cm"
>> MeasurementValue_1="9"
>> MeasurementValue_2="8"
>
> I have no problems with pragmatism, but why are the characters not RDF
> concepts itself? I believe they should be rdf vocabularies for those
> who want to reason on them.

First, please let me correct myself. Everywhere I wrote "MeasurementID", I 
should have written "measurementType". To your point ...

Recommended best practice for DwC:measurementType is to use a controlled 
vocabulary. The controlled vocabulary can be an ontology. I was using 
literals only for simplicity of illustration. (We should probably start 
collecting controlled vocabularies/ontologies to point to from the 
documentation.)

> One more problem: the states can be polymorphic, as in
>
>> MeasurementID_1="flower color"
>> MeasurementValue_1="red"
>> MeasurementValue_1="orange"
>

Yes, although I don't see it as a problem. I'm not sure why the following 
restriction (from the Simple Darwin Core reference) is necessary: "Every 
field in the Simple Darwin Core may appear either once or not at all in a 
single record." For example, we considered the bioblitz records to be 
simple Darwin Core, even though there were multiple taxonConceptID columns 
(for the same scientificName).

Joel.





> Gregor
>