# Darwin Core Darwin Core is a standard maintained by the [Darwin Core Maintenance Interest Group](https://www.tdwg.org/standards/dwc/#maintenance%20group). 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](https://dwc.tdwg.org/terms/) Documents: - [List of terms document](https://dwc.tdwg.org/list/): Comprehensive metadata for current and obsolete terms in human readable form - [Complete term history table](vocabulary/term_versions.csv): A CSV file with the full version history of Darwin Core terms - [Distribution documents](dist/): Simple CSV files to start using Darwin Core - [Website documents](docs/): Markdown files that form the source for the [Darwin Core website](https://dwc.tdwg.org/) 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. ``` ├── .github │ ├── ISSUE_TEMPLATE : Directory of issue templates generated by GitHub │ ├── CONTRIBUTING.md : Guide on how to contribute, create issues, etc. │ ├── build │ ├── doe-cv-build : Directory of build scripts for the degreeOfEstablishment controlled vocabulary │ ├── dwc_terms_guides_rdf : Directory containing editable template for generating RDF guide │ ├── dwc_terms_guides_text : Directory containing editable template for generating text guide │ ├── dwc_terms_guides_xml : Directory containing editable template for generating XML guide │ ├── dwc_terms_namespace : Directory containing editable template for generating namespace policy │ ├── dwc_terms_simple : Directory containing editable template for generating Simple DwC guide │ ├── em-cv-build : Directory of build scripts for the establishmentMeans controlled vocabulary │ ├── pw-cv-build : Directory of build scripts for the pathway controlled vocabulary │ ├── xml : Directory for build script and configs for XML extension definitions │ ├── ext : Directory of GENERATED XML extension definitions │ ├── README.md : Workflow for generating a new version of the vocabulary │ ├── build_other_doc_header.py : Script to build non-list of terms documents from their editable templates │ ├── build-termlist.ipynb : Obsolete Juyter notebook to construct the term list (morphed to .py version) │ ├── build-temlist.py : Script to build Markdown pages that provide term metadata for complex vocabularies │ ├── build.py : Build script to generate distribution files from the normative document │ ├── generate_term_versions.py : Script to build the terms_versions.csv file │ ├── qrg-list.csv : List of the term IRIs in the order that they are to appear in the Quick Reference Guide │ ├── requirements.txt : List of libraries required by the build scripts │ ├── termlist-footer.md : Footer to append to the generated term list document │ ├── termlist-header.md : Header to prepend to the generated term list document │ ├── terms.tmpl : A Jinja2 template to format the Quick Reference Guide │ ├── update_previous_doc.py : Script to move current doc to a version and update version links in it │ └── workflow_diagram.png : Figure used in README.md to show how to create a new version of the standard ├── dist : GENERATED Distribution files generated by build.py │   ├── all_dwc_vertical.csv : GENERATED CSV file with all Darwin Core terms as a column │   ├── simple_dwc_horizontal.csv : GENERATED CSV file with Simple Darwin Core terms as a row │   └── simple_dwc_vertical.csv : GENERATED CSV file with Simple Darwin Core terms as a column │ ├── docs (GENERATED except for index.md) │ ├── doe : Degree of Establishment Controlled Vocabulary List of Terms │ ├── em : Establishment Means Controlled Vocabulary List of Terms │ ├── list : Darwin Core List of Terms documents │ ├── namespace : Darwin Core namespace policy │ ├── pw : Pathway Controlled Vocabulary List of Terms │ ├── rdf : Darwin Core RDF Guide │ ├── simple : Simple Darwin Core Guide │ ├── terms : GENERATED Quick Reference Guide │ ├── text : Darwin Core Text Guide (Darwin Core Archive specification) │ ├── xml : Darwin Core XML Guide │ ├── _data : Website navigation and footer │ ├── _config.yml : Jekyll site configuration │ ├── CNAME : Canonical Name record for dwc.tdwg.org │ └── index.md : Website home page (manually maintained) │ ├── vocabulary │ └── term_versions.csv : Darwin Core term versions, contains the complete history of the terms │ ├── .gitignore : Files and directories to be ignored by git ├── LICENSE : Repository license └── README.md : Description of this repository ``` ## 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 Interest 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.