documents & digital documents

[P. Def]

Dear all,

just a few questions concerning the definition of a 'document' in the IAO..

 

 

(1)

the document entity (IAO_0000310) has been defined as:

"A collection of information content entities intended to be understood together as a whole"

such as, e.g: a journal article, patent application, laboratory notebook, or a book

 

as I understand it, a document is itself an ICE which comprises a particular set of ICEs arranged into a specific format

I believe that, as such, a 'document' in the IAO can therefore be assimilated to a particular Manifestation in the FRBR sense

in fact, the document seems to be directly connected to the medium (or independent continuant) into which it inheres:

it is however unclear to me whether a document may only refer to a paper-based medium (such as e.g. a piece of paper, a book, or a photograph)

or whether it is theoretically applicable to any kind of media, including e.g. vinyls, videotapes, CDs, DVDs, or any other artifact that may incorporate an ICE ?

 

 

(2)

the document_part entity (IAO_0000314) has been defined as:

"An information content entity that is part of a document" such as, e.g.: an abstract, introduction, method or results section

 

a document_part is therefore itself an ICE which refers to an arbitrarily defined but generally accepted section of a document ?

 

so if I understand it correctly, (a) any document_part is necessarily a part_of a document, and (b) any given ICE (e.g. textual entity, symbol, image, etc) could potentially be regarded as either part_of a document or part_of a document_part ?

however, going back to the issue of a single asserted hierarchy in the IAO, would it be possible for an entity to qualify both as e.g. a textual_entity and as a document_part (for instance, the 'preface' of a book) ? or for a document_part to actually be part_of a textual_entity (for instance, the 'introduction' of a particular literary work) ?

 

 

 

(3)

the digital document entity (IAO_0000315) has been defined as:

"A digital entity consisting of an electronic file which can be rendered into human-readable form by one or more computational applications. The digital document does not refer to the information content of the document but to an instance of the file"

 

the digital entity (IAO_0000312) has been defined as:

"an information entity which is a collection of bits that can be interpreted by a computer. Two digital entities are the same if they are bitwise identical"

 

so both the digital document and the digital entity basically seem to refer to what is commonly understood as a 'digital file'

 

(a) but is there actually any difference between these two entities?

if so, when would something be a digital document but not a digital entity, and vice versa ?

 

(b) it appears that both the digital document and the digital entity have however been declared as obsolete, what is the reason for that ?

and have they been replaced by any other entity yet ? if not, is it planned to do so ?

or has the IAO decided not to deal with digital entities for the moment being ?

 

 

 

 

Thanks for your attention and looking forward to your answers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ricardo Rodr’iguez]

Hi,

P. Def wrote:
> Dear all,
> just a few questions concerning the definition of a 'document' in the
> IAO..
>
>
> (1)
> the document entity (IAO_0000310) has been defined as:
> "A collection of information content entities intended to be
> understood together as a whole"
> such as, e.g: a journal article, patent application, laboratory
> notebook, or a book
>
> as I understand it, a document is itself an ICE which comprises a
> particular set of ICEs arranged into a specific format
> I believe that, as such, a 'document' in the IAO can therefore be
> assimilated to a particular Manifestation in the FRBR sense
> in fact, the document seems to be directly connected to the medium (or
> independent continuant) into which it inheres:
> it is however unclear to me whether a document may only refer to a
> paper-based medium (such as e.g. a piece of paper, a book, or a
> photograph)
> or whether it is theoretically applicable to any kind of media,
> including e.g. vinyls, videotapes, CDs, DVDs, or any other artifact
> that may incorporate an ICE ?

Sorry, just trying to follow up the discussion. Please, what does ICE
stand for here? Thanks!

Greetings,

Ricardo

[Larry Hunter]

Dear P. Def,

Since I wrote these definitions, I will try to answer your questions.

On Jan 21, 2010, at 4:57 AM, P. Def wrote:

> just a few questions concerning the definition of a 'document' in the IAO..
>
> (1)

> it is however unclear to me whether a document may only refer to a paper-based medium (such as e.g. a piece of paper, a book, or a photograph)
> or whether it is theoretically applicable to any kind of media, including e.g. vinyls, videotapes, CDs, DVDs, or any other artifact that may incorporate an ICE ?

The definition was intended to be media-neutral, applying to documents in paper or electronic (or any other) format. However, many document subtypes and document parts are defined as subclasses of textual entity or figure, so that, e.g. music, wouldn't be one. I don't have a strong opinion about whether the document definition ought to be refined as to require the inclusion of a textual entity as a part, or it should be allowed to remain generic enough to be a superclass of, say, audio recording as well.

> (2)

> a document_part is therefore itself an ICE which refers to an arbitrarily defined but generally accepted section of a document ?

I'm not sure I would say "generally accepted" so much as "useful to define." The subclasses of document_part include things like introduction, methods section, results section, etc. which are defined in terms of what they are about.

> so if I understand it correctly, (a) any document_part is necessarily a part_of a document, and (b) any given ICE (e.g. textual entity, symbol, image, etc) could potentially be regarded as either part_of a document or part_of a document_part ?
> however, going back to the issue of a single asserted hierarchy in the IAO, would it be possible for an entity to qualify both as e.g. a textual_entity and as a document_part (for instance, the 'preface' of a book) ? or for a document_part to actually be part_of a textual_entity (for instance, the 'introduction' of a particular literary work) ?

I'm afraid I don't understand the distinction you are trying to make here. Not all document_parts are textual_entities (e.g. a figure), and as far as I know, we never define things in terms of part_of textual_entity, since any part of a textual_entity is_a textual_entity itself.

> (3)

> so both the digital document and the digital entity basically seem to refer to what is commonly understood as a 'digital file'
>
> (a) but is there actually any difference between these two entities?
> if so, when would something be a digital document but not a digital entity, and vice versa ?

I didn't write these definitions, so I am not sure. It seems to me that not all digital entities would be digital documents (e.g. an executable is not intended to be understood by humans, and is therefore not a document), but that digital documents would be a subclass of digital entity.

> (b) it appears that both the digital document and the digital entity have however been declared as obsolete, what is the reason for that ?
> and have they been replaced by any other entity yet ? if not, is it planned to do so ?
> or has the IAO decided not to deal with digital entities for the moment being ?

I don't know the answer to this question.

Larry Hunter