[tcs-lc] Taxonomic Product or Taxonomic Data

[Greg Whitbread]

Roger,

We have been doing this stuff for a long time now, with the move from 1)
to 2) starting about ten years ago ( actually in the early eighties with
systems developed by Pankhurst, Dallwitz, Watson, et al. (with even
earlier origins) but without the grounding of robust concept level
schema), and what we have found is that 2 is not really possible without
a well documented concept framework providing attachment for these facts
- 1) in fact.

Without the need to move toward requirement 2) there are many ways of
implementing 1). Our push toward concept solutions evolved with the
recognition that they provide just that possibility and in all
probability may support numbers 3),4),etc.  It is perhaps ironic that
concept level schema first developed from our attempts to satisfy
nomenclatural requirements. Early "Taxonomic" efforts further confusing
the relationships between names and taxa.  Considerable effort is now
required to educate said taxonomists to recognize concepts as their
stock-in-trade and to apply them to their outputs: specimen,
annotations, taxonomic treatments, revisions etc.  A schema is barely
the beginning.  

We should bear in mind that taxonomists and the end-users of taxonomic
product will not be using, or considering, TCS/LC in pursuit of that
science.  They will be using systems that employ the schema within a
data-store, present it in some standard form or use it as a vehicle for
interoperability.  

greg

> Are we passing the product of taxonomic research or raw taxonomic data?
> 
> Either:
> 
> 1) We imagine taxonomists doing their work and then publishing the 
> results using the TCS/LC schema. Basically publishing taxon concepts, 
> when to use them, what to call them and how they relate, what can and 
> can't be said about data tagged with different names and concepts etc. 
> We probably have about this level of coverage in the schema at the moment.
> 
> 2) We imagine taxonomists publishing everything they do using the 
> schema. Every specimen examined and what it was identified as. All the 
> 'agents' they know about and the different teams they have worked in and 
> how their names have been abbreviated and where they have collected etc 
> etc. The nitty gritty of stuff that would be very useful for some one 
> producing a monographic revision to have to hand but that an ecologist 
> or biomedical prospector wouldn't care about at all.
> 
> I think that some of the discussions that we are having at the moment 
> would be resolved if we had a definite policy on which of these two 
> approaches we were following.
> 
> I'd be grateful for peoples thoughts on this. I consider 2 to include 1 
> so there is no option of saying we want to do both!
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Roger
> 
> 
> 
-- 
Greg Whitbread <ghw at anbg.gov.au>
ANBG/CPBR/ANH