Correctness of inclusion of HC 'taxa identified by' as dwc:identifiedBy in HC extension

[pzermoglio]

The term taxa identified by has current definition in HC:

The agent(s) who performed taxonomic identifications in the field

In the first round of review discussions we are suggesting to use dwc:identifiedBy, current definition:

A list (concatenated and separated) of names of people, groups, or organizations who assigned the Taxon to the subject.

As this term is not in the Event Core, would have to be included in the HC extension. (This would not be a problem per se, we could borrow it for the extension, as long as its definition is what we actually mean).

This is a term within the Identification class, which assumes there are identifications associated in the record. For our extension, we could think that if there is a taxonomic scope or taxa not found or any of those terms declared, for example, there were identifications made to determine which critter was found or not. So we would have an implicit Identification. (It would become a very grey area if we did not have any identifications -explicit or implicit). We assume therefore as well that we have the "subjects" referred to in the term definition, to which a Taxon was assigned.

Seeking correctness of the above logic for borrowing the dwc term. @tucotuco @baskaufs.

[tucotuco]

I think that reasoning is sound. The only potential issue would be one of consistency if the value in the HC Extension did not match those in the Occurrence Extension after joining through the Event Core - because the HC identifiedBy would be at the Event level.

…

On Thu, Feb 25, 2021 at 10:00 PM Paula Zermoglio ***@***.***> wrote: The term taxa identified by has current definition in HC: The agent(s) who performed taxonomic identifications in the field In the first round of review discussions we are suggesting to use dwc:identifiedBy, current definition: A list (concatenated and separated) of names of people, groups, or organizations who assigned the Taxon to the subject. As this term is not in the Event Core, would have to be included in the HC extension. (This would not be a problem per se, we could borrow it for the extension, as long as its definition is what we actually mean). This is a term within the Identification class, which assumes there are identifications associated in the record. For our extension, we could think that if there is a taxonomic scope or taxa not found or any of those terms declared, for example, there were identifications made to determine which critter was found or not. So we would have an implicit Identification. (It would become a very grey area if we did not have any identifications -explicit or implicit). We assume therefore as well that we have the "subjects" referred to in the term definition, to which a Taxon was assigned. Seeking correctness of the above logic for borrowing the dwc term. @tucotuco <https://github.com/tucotuco> @baskaufs <https://github.com/baskaufs>. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#7>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AADQ724F7WRR7TNMXQR3SXTTA3XB3ANCNFSM4YHQSUYA> .

[pzermoglio]

Note:
This issue also, same rationale, applies to using dwc:identificationReferences for the HC original citation reference of taxonomic authority for identification.

[baskaufs]

Given that DwC terms don't have formal domain declarations, it seems like it would make sense to reuse an existing term rather than to mint a new one. As Paula notes, there is an implied identification (and occurrence for that matter) anyway. If the extension issues can get worked out, it seems fine to me.

[yanisica]

Comments from Peter Brenton:

identificationReferences: "Many people would not know how to reference these and hence likely to get poor and highly variable information"

See more info here on HC - PPSR mapping here

[tucotuco]

Comments from Peter Brenton:

identificationReferences: "Many people would not know how to reference these and hence likely to get poor and highly variable information"

See more info here on HC - PPSR mapping here

I don't understand how this applies to the present term. Oh wait, I see that in the Notes column of the HC_terms_2021-02-28.csv file that this issue is referenced for identificationReferences as well.

[tucotuco]

Normally the Identification is made on an Occurrence, as stated in the original comment. One implication of using the dwc:identifiedBy term in HC is that it would have to be connected to an Event. Thus, it would have to apply to every Occurrence in that Event. If there were different people doing the Identifications within the Event, it wouldn't work very well. If you wanted to be explicit. Depending on how many people are involved and how they are divided up among taxa identified, this could get really messy. Is there anything the dwc:identifiedBy applied to an Event could do that dwc:identifiedBy applied to the Occurrences in Events could not do? If the answer is, "No", I think the term should be deprecated from HC with the suggestion that this concept be applied to Occurrences.

[tucotuco]

A new term identifiedBy has been included in the eco: namespace to avoid semantic collisions with dwc:identifiedBy.