Font Size:
The TDWG Ontologies
Building: Grand Hotel Mediterraneo
Room: Africa (formerly America del Sud)
Date: 2013-10-31 09:05 AM – 09:20 AM
Last modified: 2013-10-05
Abstract
Beginning in 2006, the TDWG Infrastructure Project envisioned an umbrella architecture for TDWG standards. A key component of this architecture was a set of linked individual lower-level ontologies that were collectively known as "the TDWG Ontology". It was originally planned that these ontologies would be developed into bona fide TDWG standards but that process was never completed and development of the TDWG ontologies stalled. Over time, the status of the TDWG ontologies became unclear. In this presentation, we review the findings contained in the TDWG Ontology section of the VoMaG report. We review the overall condition of the TDWG ontologies, describe the parts that may still be of potential use and discuss the VoMaG recommendations for ending the uncertainty of their status. Investigation of the TDWG ontologies and the only existing mechanism for maintaining a ratified standard (the Darwin Core Namespace Policy) reveals a number of problems with the TDWG standards development process. To address this, we highlight some of the general VoMaG recommendations related to the process of developing, documenting, and maintaining TDWG standards that are technical specifications for vocabularies.