Application of dwc:MaterialCitation and dwc:HumanObservation to information from document sources

[cboelling]

The definition of dwc:MaterialCitation currently reads: A reference to or citation of one, a part of, or multiple specimens in scholarly publications.

The last of three examples for dwc:MaterialCitation reads: An occurrence mentioned in a field note book. (The first two concern the mentioning of physical specimens from a collection in certain documents).

The definition of dwc:HumanObservation currently reads: An output of a human observation process.

The example field for dwc:HumanObservation reads: Evidence of an Occurrence taken from field notes or literature. A record of an Occurrence without physical evidence nor evidence captured with a machine.

Both terms, within their examples sections, make reference to the contents of a documentary source (specifically, a field notebook) in giving examples for an instance of the respective classes. From these contents alone, this seems redundant. The definitions, on the other hand, do not provide enough information to decide which concept should be applied. At that, dwc:MaterialCitation, by its definition seems to be constrained to mentions of specimens (i.e. they must be vouchered?) and scholarly publications (however those are delineated). On the other hand, regarding dwc:HumanObservation: what isn't the output of a human observation process?

My questions:

What is the original intent of these two terms wrt. to mentions of observations at a time and a place in document source (or contents from which such information can be inferred) and what would be differentia between both classes?

How are these concepts being used in practice published datasets, in view of the actual sources of the occurrence information?

[deepreef]

There was discussion on the dwc:MaterialCitation thread whether the scope of sources should be limited only to "scholarly publications", or to any form of "Reference" (=document source sensu lato) -- which would include field notebooks. Apparently, the definition and the examples are inconsistent with respect to the outcome of that discussion.

My understanding is that the intent of dwc:MaterialCitation was to index the citations of "MaterialSamples" (i.e., physically sampled instances, which from some perspectives is synonymous with "specimens"), and the intent of dwc:HumanObservation was to record Occurrence instances that lack any sort of "MaterialSample" provenance.