Description
The Darwin Core is a body of standards. It includes a glossary of terms (in other contexts these might be called properties, elements, fields, columns, attributes, or concepts) intended to facilitate the sharing of information about biological diversity by providing reference definitions, examples, and commentaries. The Darwin Core is primarily based on taxa, their occurrence in nature as documented by observations, specimens, and samples, and related information. Included in the standard are documents describing how these terms are managed, how the set of terms can be extended for new purposes, and how the terms can be used. The Simple Darwin Core is a specification for one particular way to use the terms - to share data about taxa and their occurrences in a simply structured way - and is probably what is meant if someone suggests to "format your data according to the Darwin Core".
Each term has a definition and commentaries that are meant to promote the consistent use of the terms across applications and disciplines. Evolving commentaries that discuss, refine, expand, or translate the definitions and examples are referred to through links in the Comments attribute of each term. This approach to documentation allows the standard to adapt to new purposes without disrupting existing applications. There is meant to be a clear separation between the terms defined in the standard and the applications that make use of them. For example, though the data types and constraints are not provided in the term definitions, recommendations are made about how to restrict the values where appropriate.
In practice, Darwin Core decouples the definition and semantics of individual terms from application of these terms in different technologies such as XML, RDF or simple CSV text files. Darwin Core provides separate guidelines on how to encode the terms as XML or text files.
Read more about this topic: Darwin Core
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“He hath achieved a maid
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One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Do not require a description of the countries towards which you sail. The description does not describe them to you, and to- morrow you arrive there, and know them by inhabiting them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Everything to which we concede existence is a posit from the standpoint of a description of the theory-building process, and simultaneously real from the standpoint of the theory that is being built. Nor let us look down on the standpoint of the theory as make-believe; for we can never do better than occupy the standpoint of some theory or other, the best we can muster at the time.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)