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Darwin Core Resource Relationship terms as RDF (vaporware)

Date: (Created) 27 April 2013; (Last modified) 15 November 2013

Status: Not part of any standard (Type 3 document); intended to complement the RDF Guide of the Darwin Core Standard (http://www.tdwg.org/standards/450/)

Permanent URL: http://

TDWG Task Group: TDWG RDF/OWL Task Group

Contributors: Steve Baskauf (TDWG RDF/OWL Task Group)

Abstract: This document shows how to express Darwin Core ResourceRelationship properties as RDF (vaporware)

Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License

Note: the approach suggested in this document is no longer recommended due to concerns expressed by task group members about use of the Open Annotations model in this way

The content has been left here for the record and as a starting point for future discussion on how to handle ResourceRelationship class Darwin Core terms.

The following namespace abbreviations are used in this document:

|vocabulary name|namespace abbreviation|full prefix| |:--------------|:---------------------|:----------| |Resource Description Framework|rdf: |http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#| |Darwin Core terms (string literal objects)|dwc: |http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/| |Darwin Core type vocabulary|dwctype: |http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/dwctype/| |Dublin Core type vocabulary|dcmitype: |http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/| |Open Annotation Data Model|oa: |http://www.w3.org/ns/oa#|

1 Introduction

The terms in the dwc:ResourceRelationship class are designed to allow for the creation of dwc:ResourceRelationship instances having assigned identifiers. The following example based on an example in the XML Guide shows how the terms may be used to describe that the specimen with catalog number 14524 is the mother of a specimen with catalog number 14523:

Table 1

|term|dwc:resourceRelationshipID|dwc:resourceID|dwc:relatedResourceID|dwc:relationshipOfResource|dwc:relationshipEstablishedDate|dwc:relationshipAccordingTo| |:---|:-------------------------|:-------------|:--------------------|:-------------------------|:------------------------------|:--------------------------| |value|"http://guid.mvz.org/relations/23423"|"urn:catalog:MVZ:Mammals:14524"|"urn:catalog:MVZ:Mammals:14523"|"mother of" |"2001-09-14" |"James L Patton" |

Because the ID terms cannot be used as object properties, Darwin Core does not provide a means to express this relationship as RDF. The Open Annotation Data Model should be used instead as shown in the following example which relates the same resources as in Table 1.

Example 1:

RDF/XML: ``` mother of 2001-09-14 James L Patton 2001-09-14

```

RDF/Turtle: <http://arctos.database.museum/guid/MVZ:Mamm:14523> a dcmitype:PhysicalObject, dwctype:PreservedSpecimen. <http://arctos.database.museum/guid/MVZ:Mamm:14524> a dcmitype:PhysicalObject, dwctype:PreservedSpecimen. <http://guid.mvz.org/relations/23423> dwc:relationshipAccordingTo "James L Patton"; dwc:relationshipEstablishedDate "2001-09-14"; dwc:relationshipOfResource "mother of"; a dwc:ResourceRelationship, oa:Annotation; oa:annotatedAt "2001-09-14"; oa:annotatedBy <http://guid.mvz.org/agents/James_L_Patton>; oa:hasBody <http://arctos.database.museum/guid/MVZ:Mamm:14524>; oa:hasTarget <http://arctos.database.museum/guid/MVZ:Mamm:14523>; oa:motivatedBy <http://guid.mvz.org/relationshipType/motherOf>.

The following points should be noted about Example 1:

• the oa:hasBody property has as its object the resource whose identifier is the value of dwc:resourceID in Table 1.
• the oa:hasTarget property has as its object the resource whose identifier is the value of dwc:relatedResourceID in Table 1.
• In accordance with Recommendation 7 of the TDWG GUID Applicability Statement, the identifiers for the two related specimens have been provided in their HTTP-proxied form.
• It might have been possible for a consuming application to determine the rdf:type of the specimen instances by dereferencing their HTTP URIs. However, in accordance with the Open Annotation recommendations, the RDF provides information about the nature of the related resources which can allow the application to determine that they are non-information resources (i.e. dcmitype:PhysicalObject) which cannot be rendered in a browser.
• Because there is a well-known object property for linking the relationship to the URI-referenced agent that noted it, oa:annotatedBy is used rather than dwcuri:relationshipAccordingTo. Similarly, oa:motivatedBy is used rather than dwcuri:relationshipOfResource. The value given for oa:motivatedBy should be from a controlled vocabulary which uses SKOS to relate the motivation of the annotation (i.e. the nature of the relationship) to one of the standard high level Motivation instances such as oa:linking.