[tdwg-content] proposed news terms for expressing sample data

[Simon.Cox at csiro.au]

> clear need to distinguish betweendistinguish between processes that generate a specimen as an output (a material entity) and those that instead generate only information or data (what we call an information content entity).

Absolutely. O&M has two distinct "Process" classes - one used in observations to generate results, and one used to transform specimens. I also have resisted all suggestions that these be merged, since, despite them both being 'processes', the type of output is critically different! 

Somehow the wires got crossed in this conversation and it appears the wrong impression has been received. Not sure how that happened. 

Simon Cox | Research Scientist
CSIRO Land and Water
PO Box 56, Highett Vic 3190, Australia
Tel +61 3 9252 6342 | Mob +61 403 302 672
simon.cox at csiro.au | http://csiro.au/people/SimonCox


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Message: 1
Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2014 10:54:06 -0700
From: Ramona Walls <rlwalls2008 at gmail.com>
Subject: [tdwg-content] Darwin Core: proposed news terms for
        expressing      sample data
To: TDWG Content Mailing List <tdwg-content at lists.tdwg.org>
Message-ID:
        <CAJYF1k5k=AMKQgK1a7eZ7nyLZtoD+DDcgdFJYoCxm7o=yZy=bA at mail.gmail.com>
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Simon,

It is an interesting perspective to say that "the only real reason to
collect and curate a specimen is to support observations". Although I don't
disagree, this does depend on a very broad sense definition "observation".
In the BCO, following OBI, we define the process of specimen collection as
contingent on the material collected potentially being used for some
current or future investigation. I don't think it is much of a stretch to
see the overlap between "use in some investigation" and "support
observations", so I don't think we are at odds here.

Nonetheless, as Rob mentioned, there is a clear need (for data tracking
purposes) to distinguish between processes that generate a specimen as an
output (a material entity) and those that instead generate only information
or data (what we call an information content entity). We should probably
start a new email thread if we want to continue this discussion on the TDWG
list, but I am glad we got your input on this and hope we can continue to
coordinate.

Ramona

------------------------------------------------------
Ramona L. Walls, Ph.D.
Scientific Analyst, The iPlant Collaborative, University of Arizona
Research Associate, Bio5 Institute, University of Arizona
Laboratory Research Associate, New York Botanical Garden