IdentificationCertaintyEnum

GregorHagedorn - Tue May 16 2006 - Version 1.5
Parent topic: EnumeratedValues
Identifications of an object/specimen/unit as belonging to a class concept may be uncertain. This is especially important in biology, where identification qualifiers like 'cf.' or 'aff.' are often used as part of the scientific name. The following enumerated list provides general categories not restricted to scientific organism names. Note: In biology additional expression is often expressed through the choice of placement of the certainty qualifier. For example, 'Echinonema ferruginea var. campestris' may be qualified as 'cf. Echinonema ferruginea var. campestris', 'Echinonema cf. ferruginea var. campestris', 'Echinonema ferruginea cf. var. campestris'. The first presumably means that the entire name is uncertain, but the infraspecific name may be appropriate, the second indicates that the genus is certain, the species uncertain, and the final that the species in certain and only the infraspecific rank is uncertain. To achieve this level of expressiveness, it is recommended that an additional data element 'IdentificationUncertainTaxonomicRank' of type TaxonomicRankEnum may be combined with an element of IdentificationCertaintyEnum. IdentificationUncertainTaxonomicRank should be optional and omitted to express that an identification is unknown, but the rank not known (e. g. in 'Echinonema ferruginea?'). In ABCD 1.44 a special rank with enumeration beforeName, beforeFirstEpithet, beforeSecondEpithet is used instead.

See UBIF enumeration info for a tabular overview of values.

-- Gregor Hagedorn - 20 Jul 2004