Darwin Core Decision History

Title:	Darwin Core Decision History
Date Issued:	2009-02-12
Date Modified:	2015-06-02
Abstract:	This document is a complete history of all decisions rendered for Darwin Core terms.
Contributors:	John Wieczorek (MVZ), Markus Döring (GBIF), Renato De Giovanni (CRIA), Tim Robertson (GBIF), Dave Vieglais (KUNHM)
Legal:	This document is governed by the standard legal, copyright, licensing provisions and disclaimers issued by the Taxonomic Databases Working Group.
Part of TDWG Standard:	http://www.tdwg.org/standards/450/
Creator:	Darwin Core Task Group
Identifier:	http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/2015-03-19/terms/history/decisions/
Latest Version:	http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/history/decisions/
Replaces:	http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/2014-11-08/terms/history/decisions/
Document Status:	Current Standard

1. Introduction

Audience: This document is targeted toward those who wish to understand the reasoning behind changes (or rejections of proposed changes) to the Darwin Core terms.

From time to time changes are proposed to Darwin Core terms through the process described in the Term Change Policy section of the Darwin Core Namespace Policy [NAMESPACEPOLICY]. This document shows the outcome of decisions based on officially proposed changes.

2. Decisions

Decision-2009-12-07_1
Identifier:	http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/history/decisions/#Decision-2009-12-07_1
Description:	The recommended controlled vocabulary for dcterms:type was changed from a vocabulary of Darwin Core Classes (Occurrence, Taxon, Location, Event) to the DCMI type vocabulary (PhysicalObject, Event, StillImage, MovingImage, Sound, Text, Dataset) to be consistent with the standard use of that term.
Date:	2009-12-07
Decision-2009-12-07_2
Identifier:	http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/history/decisions/#Decision-2009-12-07_2
Description:	The recommended controlled vocabulary for basisOfRecord remains the Darwin Core Type Vocabulary, but the Dublin Core classes StillImage, MovingImage, and Sound were removed from that list as these are to be used as vocabulary for the dcterms:type term.
Date:	2009-12-07
Decision-2011-10-16_3
Identifier:	http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/history/decisions/#Decision-2011-10-16_3
Description:	The Dublin Core type vocabulary values StillImage, MovingImage, and Sound have not been added to the list of valid values for Darwin Core type vocabulary pending further insights from the RDF Interest Group about how best to manage basisOfRecord when a record can be "about" more than one subject.
Date:	2011-10-16
Decision-2011-10-16_4
Identifier:	http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/history/decisions/#Decision-2011-10-16_4
Description:	The recommendation to add alias as an attribute of Darwin Core terms was rejected as being an application-specific recommendation without sufficiently demonstrated community need.
Date:	2011-10-16
Decision-2011-10-16_5
Identifier:	http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/history/decisions/#Decision-2011-10-16_5
Description:	The label for all terms have been changed to words in English rather than lower camel case term names. This will facilitate discovery with search engines and is consistent with Dublin Core.
Date:	2011-10-16
Decision-2011-10-16_6
Identifier:	http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/history/decisions/#Decision-2011-10-16_6
Description:	The subclasses for Darwin Core type vocabulary have been removed. These were seen as too constraining when considering biodiversity information in the context of linked data.
Date:	2011-10-16
Decision-2011-10-16_7
Identifier:	http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/history/decisions/#Decision-2011-10-16_7
Description:	The term Darwin Core term dwc:occurrenceDetails has been deprecated in favor of a new record-level term from the Dublin Core - dcterms:references, which is broader in meaning than the deprecated term.
Date:	2011-10-16
Decision-2011-10-16_8
Identifier:	http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/history/decisions/#Decision-2011-10-16_8
Description:	Added term namePublishedInYear.
Date:	2011-10-16
Decision-2011-10-16_9
Identifier:	http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/history/decisions/#Decision-2011-10-16_9
Description:	Added term georeferencedDate.
Date:	2011-10-16
Decision-2011-10-16_10
Identifier:	http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/history/decisions/#Decision-2011-10-16_10
Description:	Added term identificationVerificationStatus.
Date:	2011-10-16
Decision-2013-10-09_11
Identifier:	http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/history/decisions/#Decision-2013-10-09_11
Description:	Added term MaterialSample.
Date:	2013-10-09
Decision-2013-10-09_12
Identifier:	http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/history/decisions/#Decision-2013-10-09_12
Description:	Added Darwin Core type vocabulary term MaterialSample.
Date:	2013-10-09
Decision-2013-10-09_13
Identifier:	http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/history/decisions/#Decision-2013-10-09_13
Description:	Added term materialSampleID.
Date:	2013-10-09
Decision-2014-10-26_14
Identifier:	http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/history/decisions/#Decision-2014-10-26_14
Description:	Added class term Organism with associated properties organismID, organismName, organismScope, organismRemarks, and associatedOrganisms. Associated terms previousIdentifications and associatedOccurrences with the new Organism class. Removed the individualID term.
Date:	2014-10-26
Decision-2014-10-26_15
Identifier:	http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/history/decisions/#Decision-2014-10-26_15
Description:	Deprecated the Darwin Core Type Vocabulary (http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/dwctype) in favor of the corresponding terms in the dwc namespace (http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms). Added terms PreservedSpecimen, LivingSpecimen, FossilSpecimen, MachineObservation, and HumanObservation to the Darwin Core namespace (http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms).
Date:	2014-10-26
Decision-2014-10-30_16
Identifier:	http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/history/decisions/#Decision-2014-10-30_16
Description:	Added comments recommending list value separation with ' \| ' for terms that can be constructed from concatenated lists. Added comment recommending that dynamicProperties be populated with JSON.
Date:	2014-10-30
Decision-2014-11-06_17
Identifier:	http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/history/decisions/#Decision-2014-11-06_17
Description:	Deprecated the Dublin Core rights term in favor of the Dublin Core license term, which is how rights was being promoted since it was first recommended for use in Darwin Core.
Date:	2014-11-06
Decision-2015-03-19_18
Identifier:	http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/history/decisions/#Decision-2015-03-19_18
Description:	Added the following terms related to sampling events: parentEventID, sampleSizeValue, sampleSizeUnit, organismQuantity, organismQuantityType.
Date:	2015-03-19

Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.