dwc/README.md

# Darwin Core

Darwin Core is a standard maintained by the Darwin Core maintenance group. 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 identifiers, labels, and definitions. Darwin Core is primarily based on taxa, their occurrence in nature as documented by observations, specimens, samples, and related information.

## Getting started

[Darwin Core quick reference guide](http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/index.html)

Documents:

* [Recommended terms](dist/recommended_terms.csv): a CSV file with the current set of Darwin Core terms
* [Normative document](vocabulary/term_versions.csv): a CSV file with the full version history of Darwin Core terms
* [Usage guides](guides/): Guides on how to use Darwin Core as text, rdf, xml
* [Distribution files](dist/): Convenient files to start using Darwin Core

Community:

* [How to contribute](.github/CONTRIBUTING.md): a guide on how to contribute to Darwin Core
* [Darwin Core Q&A](https://github.com/tdwg/dwc-qa): an open forum on the use of Darwin Core

## Repo structure

The repository structure is described below. Files/directories indicated with `GENERATED` should not be edited manually.

```
├── README.md                 : Description of this repository
├── LICENSE                   : Repository license
│
├── vocabulary
│   └── term_versions.csv     : The normative document of Darwin Core, where the standard is maintained
│
├── guides
│   ├── simple                : Simple Darwin Core guide
│   ├── rdf                   : RDF guide
│   ├── text                  : Text guide
│   ├── xml                   : XML guide
│   └── index.html            : GENERATED Darwin Core quick reference guide
│
├── dist                      : GENERATED Distribution files generated by build.py
│   └── recommended_terms.csv : GENERATED CSV file with the recommended Darwin Core terms
│
├── src
│   ├── build.py              : Build script to generate distribution files from the normative document
│   └── config                : Configuration files for build.py
│       ├── index.tmpl        : Template for index.html
│       └── terms_config.csv  : Configuration for the recommended terms, incl. order, labels, examples
│
├── .github
│   ├── CONTRIBUTING.md       : Guide on how to contribute to Darwin Core
│   └── ISSUE_TEMPLATE.md     : Template for issues
│
└── .gitignore                : Files and directories to be ignored by git
```

## Contributors

[List of contributors](https://github.com/tdwg/dwc/contributors)

## License

[Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

## Recommended citation

For Darwin Core in general, consider the peer-reviewed article on Darwin Core:

> Wieczorek J, Bloom D, Guralnick R, Blum S, Döring M, et al. (2012) Darwin Core: An Evolving Community-Developed Biodiversity Data Standard. PLoS ONE 7(1): e29715. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0029715

For this repository:

> Darwin Core maintenance group, Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) (2014). Darwin Core. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.592792

The citation above represents all versions of the repository. Specific [versions/releases](https://github.com/tdwg/dwc/releases) from 2011 onwards are also deposited on Zenodo.