Ensure role definitions use consistent language

[mbrush]

All role definitions should be phrased consistently, and describe roles as being of the same ontological type.

At present, some define the class as a role (e.g. educational role = "A role in which a person participates in the transfer of knowledge and skills, through teaching, development of educational materials or curriculum, through program development or other means.")

Others define the role as an activity or task that is performed (e.g. investigator role = "Conducting a research and investigation process, specifically performing the experiments, or data/evidence collection")

And other define the role in terms of the person who bears the role (e.g. 'instrumentation role = "A person that is responsible for usage of instrumentation, such as equipment or devices, or instruments like a survey or questionnaire.")

We should pick a consistent way of crafting plain language role definitions.

[mbrush]

I would propose explicitly defining them as roles, using language such as: "A role that is realized through . . . (and then describe the type of activity that realizes the role and/or the type of agent that bears the role). Alt, there may be cases where this template is awkward - and phrasing like "A role that indicates . . . " or "A role that describes . . ." is better. But I think that being consistent and explicit about these being 'roles' in the definition is important.

A few exampes below for rephrasing current definitions with this in mind:

1. Rephrasing the educational role definition as "A role that is realized through the transfer of knowledge and skills, through teaching, development of educational materials or curriculum, through program development or other means."
2. Rephrasing the investigator role definition as "A role that is realized through conducting a research and investigation process, specifically performing the experiments, or data/evidence collection"
3. Rephrasing the instrumentation role definition as something like "A role that is realized through the maintenance or application of instrumentation, such as equipment or devices, or instruments like a survey or questionnaire, in the performance of research-related activities"
   • Side Note - the current 'instrumentation role definition is unclear - is this meant to describe the role of maintaining or applying instruments of some kind toward the performance of research related activities? I tweaked the proposed definition above to reflect this view - but it may not be accurate.

[kristiholmes]

hi @nicolevasilevsky, I just saw this and thought it would be useful to touch base on, since we are writing some definitions. What are your thoughts on Matt's points? (thanks @mbrush!)

[nicolevasilevsky]

yes, I like the idea of having a consistent structure for definitions. I can work on this.