Author class IAO_0000442

[zhengj2007]

From [email protected] on October 30, 2011 18:48:10

The annotation IAO_0000115 says that an author is: "a role inhering in a person or organization that is realized when the bearer participates in the work which is the basis of the document, in the writing of the document, and signs it with their name."

Comments/questions/suggestions:

This is really a relation, right? Aaw, a = an agent responsible for creating the work, w, the work, the relation "a authors w." Sometimes we do say that someone is an author without saying what it is was authored, but that doesn't seem to be the kind of use that will be made of it here. Not recognizing that this is a relation explains the awkward use of "the document" in the annotation quoted above.

I suggest replacing "author" with something more general, such as the Dublin Core "creator:" "An entity primarily responsible for making the resource." ( http://dublincore.org/documents/dcmi-terms/#terms-creator )

This accounts for more than just authors of text documents, for instance, illustrators, photographers, a programmer or someone else that creates some kind of visualization, a cartographer.

Also---the person signing the document is not necessarily its creator. Think of a PI putting his or her name first (or last) on a publication, even though he or she advised a post-doc on the work but did not actually do much of it. MARC/ISBD uses "statement of responsibility," which is supposed to be read directly from the chief source of information about the work, eg., the title page, in a book. This may be different than the creator, because this is supposed to be read from the work directly. Perhaps there should be a separate set of classes for responsibility and for creator?

Original issue: http://code.google.com/p/information-artifact-ontology/issues/detail?id=127