Question difference dwc:identification vs dwc:scientificName, dwchour input form 10/13/2017 13:19:39

[iDigBioBot]

A user submitted this information via the Darwin Core Hour webform: Timestamp: 10/13/2017 13:19:39 Please provide a topic of interest: What is the difference between dwc:identification and dwc:scientificName? I understand there may be more than one identification necessitating the use of identificaion history, so does that mean the dwc:scientificName and the most recent dwc:identification would match? Are you capable of and interested in participating: Yes Who else would you recommend to participate in the presentation: Anyone who is part of developing the dwc standard What resources can you point to: Your name: Your email: Your GitHub username: @debpaul

[baskaufs]

dwc:Identification is a term for a class of things, whereas dwc:scientificName is a property of a thing. Having the class dwc:Identification recognizes that an identification (or determination if you prefer) is a distinct thing from an organism or specimen. That's because an organism or specimen can have more than one identification. So dwc:Identification is useful when one wants to represent a many-to-one relationship between identifications and organisms/specimens. In the Darwin Core Archive world, you would establish this relationship by creating an identification extension (with the term dwc:Identification letting people know what kind of thing that extension represented). You could also model the many-to-one relationship using a relational or graph database.

Hope this helps.

[wardappeltans]

Interesting discussion. Are there any examples of DwC-Archives containing the identification extension and uses DwC:identification in the Core?