[IPT] Darwin Core Star Schema

[Tim Robertson]

Hi Quentin

In the latest IPT, we have introduced a third type of core which is the Sampling Event core to specifically accommodate this case.
It is still a star schema, and therefore has all the known limitations, but I think it does provide a model to accommodate the specific limitation that you describe.

The sampling event core allows you to describe e.g. the time, place and protocol of the sample (i.e. it is *very* similar to the occurrence fields) but by having it as the core, you can attach the extensions of “occurrences observed / collected” in each sampling event and also things like lists of species present or absent.

We are only just venturing into this new territory and are still working with early adopters to get reference datasets.  Would you be keen to work on a pilot of this?

For information:
The DwC-A validator should work, but it’s not been tested in anger with this new format so we might run into some things we need to fix.
The DwC-A assistant is something that in truth has not be well maintained for years having been developed externally by a contractor, and most likely will not work at all for this.  That is not ideal but we haven’t had the resources to maintain it, and it is in very little use.  The IPT is the primary tool for publishing along with the BioCASE and TAPIR tools and there are enough hosted IPT installations now that if someone did not wish to run one, a viable host would be offered.

I hope this helps clarify things, and we are very willing to help work through issues you may encounter in the sampling event core.  
If you wish to simply play around, would you like an account on the demo site?  ipt.gbif.org

Thanks,
Tim



> On 11 Nov 2015, at 09:20, Quentin Groom <quentin.groom at plantentuinmeise.be> wrote:
> 
> I'm rather confused how the Darwin Core Star Schema is meant to work for survey data.
> 
> Darwin Core can have one of two Core files, taxon or occurrence. The most appropriate for a survey would seem to be occurrence. So I imagine that in the star schema you could also have a related event file detailing the date and location of each survey and a non-core taxon file detailing the taxa that are observed.
> 
> However, this does not seem to be possible. The DWC-A validator (http://tools.gbif.org/dwca-validator/ <http://tools.gbif.org/dwca-validator/>), assumes only on core id in the core file so you can't link an occurrence both to a taxon and to an event. This is also true in the Darwin Core Archive Assistant (http://tools.gbif.org/dwca-assistant/ <http://tools.gbif.org/dwca-assistant/>). The solution seems to be to put all the information from the taxon core file into the occurrence file, but keep the separate event file linked with the core occurrence id.
> 
> Is this correct? It seems rather counter intuitive.
> 
> Regards
> Quentin
> 
> 
> Dr. Quentin Groom
> (Botany and Information Technology)
> 
> Botanic Garden Meise
> Domein van Bouchout
> B-1860 Meise
> Belgium
> 
> ORCID: 0000-0002-0596-5376
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