Proposal for controlled vocabulary for ac:subtype and ac:subtypeLiteral

[baskaufs]

The Notes for ac:subtype and ac:subtypeLiteral suggest values to be used with those properties. This proposal will replace those Notes with Usage guidelines specifying that those terms should use values from a controlled vocabulary that is also introduced with this proposal.

Term changes:

ac:subtype:

• Change Definition to: "A class, represented by an IRI, that provides for more specialization of the media item type than dcterms:type."
• Change Notes to: "See ac:subtypeLiteral for usage with strings."
• Change Usage to: "The subtype term MUST NOT be applied to Collection objects. However, the Description term in the Content Coverage Vocabulary might add further description to a Collection object. IRI values SHOULD be selected from the Controlled Vocabulary for Audubon Core subtype. In text-based systems such as tables, IRI values MUST be in unabbreviated form. When an appropriate subtype is not available in the Audubon Core controlled vocabulary, a term IRI that is not in a TDWG namespace MAY be used. Conforming applications MAY choose to ignore controlled values not issued by Audubon Core."

ac:subtypeLiteral:

• Change Definition to: "A class, represented by a controlled value string, that provides for more specialization of the media item type than dc:type."
• Delete Notes
• Add Usage: "The subtypeLiteral term MUST NOT be applied to Collection objects. However, the Description term in the Content Coverage Vocabulary might add further description to a Collection object. Controlled string values SHOULD be selected from the Controlled Vocabulary for Audubon Core subtype. It is best practice to use ac:subtype instead of ac:subytpeLiteral whenever practical."

Proposed controlled vocabulary

A draft of the proposed controlled vocabulary is here. Metadata for the controlled vocabulary terms is summarized in this CSV table.

This proposal creates a new vocabulary within the Audubon Core standard. According to the IRI patterns used in the http://rs.tdwg.org/ subdomain, the first level IRI path segment must differ from that of the main Audubon Core vocabulary (http://rs.tdwg.org/ac/). The proposed first level IRI path segment for this vocabulary is acsubtype, making the IRI for the vocabulary http://rs.tdwg.org/acsubtype/. The proposed namespace IRI for terms in the vocabulary is http://rs.tdwg.org/acsubtype/values/. The proposed preferred namespace abbreviation matches the first level IRI path segment: acsubtype:.

Although Section 4.1.2 of the Standards Documentation Specification indicates that class of controlled value terms is skos:Concept, since the values of this term indicate type, these terms have been specified to be in the class rdfs:Class. However, as required by the Standards Documentation Specification this controlled vocabulary defines controlled value strings (to be used with ac:subtypeLiteral).

[baskaufs]

Approved in Executive decision 28. Incorporated in rs.tdwg.org release 2020-10-13.