Talk:Audubon Core Non normative document

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Here address fundamental issues in the architecture of MRTG. Comments on specific items should go on the normative schema, even if you want to address them here also. --BobMorris 17:01, 1 May 2009 (CEST)

I think that my greatest concern about this schema is that in its current form it will subvert the "Motivation and Rationale" use number 3: "Use of metadata records as potential taxon occurrence evidence ...". In order to meet that goal, the MRTG Schema must overlap as much as possible with schemas that are being used to document taxon occurrences by other forms of evidence (namely specimens [DwC] and observations). There are many places in the schema where elements diverge from this requirement, most notably in the area of locality as I mentioned in my comments on the normative document. If the schema proceeds on this course, we will be codifying a system that requires contributers who are serious about using images to document taxon occurrences to use two schemas that have parallel but differently named elements (namely DwC and MRTG). As a potential contributor in this category, I am looking to MRTG to provide metadata elements to cover aspects specific to images that are not present in specimen-based schemas (such as intellectual property elements and elements dealing specifically with media, such as xSamplingFrequency). I really don't need or want MRTG to pick and choose from non-biodiversity-related schemas to define elements that are already handled adequately by other biodiversity-related schemas (such as Darwin Core). In the non-normative document, the statement is made (p.8) that "it seems advisable to follow the standards for recording geographic locations that is set and supported by the producers of media management software ... Data in the XMP/IPTC standards will be embedded in images and are supported in media databases." I do not think that this is an adequate reason for adopting the IPTC locality elements for the core of the MRTG schema. There is no reason why whatever software that is being used to embed the metadata in the images cannot do a mapping from DwC elements to synonymous IPTC fields as the file writing is done. Any critical IPTC fields that are not present in DwC can be added to the MRTG schema as necessary and populated by contributors who choose to do so. The real question is: what clientèle are we serving? As a GBIF-TDWG group, MRTG needs to prioritize the needs of the biodiversity community, and having a schema that will mesh with other databases whose purpose is to document taxon occurrences is a pretty big need. There may be cases where DwC elements are at odds with other schemas in use by other parties that have a vested interest in biodiversity but which are not organism-occurrence based, but I don't think IPTC is one of them. --Steve Baskauf 21:52, 1 May 2009 (CEST)

The current version of the proposed schema allows all DwC location properties, and no longer refers to XMP/IPTC location properties. Assuming camera manufacturers begin to put location data into XMP supported in the camera, this is likely to lead to a requirement to map camera data into DwC data. --BobMorris 21:00, 26 June 2011 (CEST)