Documenting Occurrences from Secondary sources - Darwin Core Hour Input Form 12/7/2020 19:29:54

[iDigBioBot]

A user submitted this information via the Darwin Core Hour webform:
Timestamp: 12/7/2020 19:29:54
Please provide a topic of interest: it is my interest to document ocurrences from secondary information. Is there a particular guide? example What to do if the coordinates aren't there?, dates only with year
Are you capable of and interested in participating: No
Who else would you recommend to participate in the presentation: I dont know
What resources can you point to: I dont know
Your name: Julio Bohorquez
Your email: julio.bohorquez@gmail.com
Your GitHub username:

[tucotuco]

Hi Julio,

There is no special guide for capturing secondary data that I am aware of. I think the principles of digitization of information from specimen labels would be pretty much the same. Here are a few thing that might help you in your endeavor to capture Occurrences from secondary sources.

1. Make sure the primary source from which you got the information is documented in the field called "references".
2. Capture as much information as you can from the source.
3. Make sure that data from the source is captured without interpretation in the fields whose names begin with "verbatim" (e.g., verbatimLocality, verbatimDate, verbatimCoordinates, etc.).
4. If the secondary source is providing information about an observed Occurrence, the value of the field basisOfRecord should be "HumanObservation". If it the source is about a specimen, it might be best to check first if information on that specimen is already shared and if so, avoid the duplication. If it isn't published anywhere, use the value "PreservedSpecimen", "LivingSpecimen", or "FossilSpecimen" for the field basisOfRecord, as appropriate.
5. For the example where the source gives only a year for the date, that's fine. You can put it both in year, and in eventDate. The recommended standard format for eventDate accepts year only (e.g., "2020"), or year and month, ("2020-12") as well as actual dates ("2020-12-13") and many other options - see the comments for eventDate.
6. If you interpret verbatim information in an attempt to fill in additional fields, make note of assumptions and decisions in the remarks field that applies to the field containing the interpretation (e.g., eventRemarks, localityRemarks, georeferenceRemarks, etc.).
7. If you georeference the locality information provided by the source, be sure to follow published best practices and cite those practices (for example, Georeferencing Quick Reference Guide 2020.

I hope this gives you a reasonable starting point for your effort.
Cheers,
John