What is the CRMsci?

The Scientific Observation Model (CRMsci) is a formal ontology intended to be used as a global schema for integrating metadata about scientific observation, measurements and processed data in descriptive and empirical sciences such as biodiversity, geology, geography, archaeology, cultural heritage conservation and others in research IT environments and research data libraries. Its primary purpose is facilitating the management, integration, mediation, interchange and access to research data by description of semantic relationships, in particular causal ones. It is not primarily a model to process the data themselves in order to produce new research results, even though its representations offer themselves to be used for some kind of processing.

CRMsci uses and extends the CIDOC CRM (ISO21127) as a general ontology of human activity, things and events happening in spacetime. It uses the same encoding-neutral formalism of knowledge representation (“data model” in the sense of computer science) as the CIDOC CRM, which can be implemented in RDFS, OWL, on RDBMS and in other forms of encoding. Since the model reuses, wherever appropriate, parts of CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model, we provide in this document also a comprehensive list of all constructs used from ISO21127, together with their definitions following the version 6.2 maintained by CIDOC.

What is the idea?

The CRMsci has been developed bottom up from specific metadata examples from biodiversity, geology, archeology, cultural heritage conservation and clinical studies, such as water sampling in aquifer systems, earthquake shock recordings, landslides, excavation processes, species occurrence and detection of new species, tissue sampling in cancer research, 3D digitization, based on communication with the domain experts and the implementation and validation in concrete applications. It takes into account relevant standards, such as INSPIRE, OBOE, national archeological standards for excavation, Digital Provenance models and others. For each application, another set of extensions is needed in order to describe those data at an adequate level of specificity, such as semantics of excavation layers or specimen capture in biology. However, the model presented here describes, together with the CIDOC CRM, a discipline neutral level of genericity, which can be used to implement effective management functions and powerful queries for related data. It aims at providing superclasses and superproperties for any application-specific extension, such that any entity referred to by a compatible extension can be reached with a more general query based on this model.

CRMsci is a proposal for approval by CIDOC CRM SIG

CIDOC CRM v7.1.2 module for the implementation of properties of properties in RDFs.

The CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (CRM) provides definitions and a formal structure for describing the implicit and explicit concepts and relationships used in cultural heritage documentation.\n\nThe CIDOC CRM is intended to promote a shared understanding of cultural heritage information by providing a common and extensible semantic framework that any cultural heritage information can be mapped to. It is intended to be a common language for domain experts and implementers to formulate requirements for information systems and to serve as a guide for good practice of conceptual modelling. In this way, it can provide the “semantic glue” needed to mediate between different sources of cultural heritage information, such as that published by museums, libraries and archives.\n\nThe CIDOC CRM is the culmination of over 10 years work by the CIDOC Documentation Standards Working Group and CIDOC CRM SIG which are working groups of CIDOC. Since 9/12/2006 it is official standard ISO 21127:2006.

Version: 7.1.2

CRM Digital is an ontology and RDF Schema to encode metadata about the steps and methods of production (“provenance”) of digitization products and synthetic digital representations such as 2D, 3D or even animated Models created by various technologies. Its distinct features compared to competitive models is the complete inclusion of the initial physical measurement processes and their parameters. It has been developed as compatible extension of CIDOC CRM, which allows for querying the most relevant facts and returning complete descriptions encoded in this model by generic ISO21127 terms without need to refer to its specific properties. In contrast, competitive models cannot be queried by a more general standard and are restricted to the computational provenance only. Data encoded in the major competitive models can be transformed without loss of meaning into a CRM-Digital-form.

The CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (CRM) provides definitions and a formal structure for describing the implicit and explicit concepts and relationships used in cultural heritage documentation.\n\nThe CIDOC CRM is intended to promote a shared understanding of cultural heritage information by providing a common and extensible semantic framework that any cultural heritage information can be mapped to. It is intended to be a common language for domain experts and implementers to formulate requirements for information systems and to serve as a guide for good practice of conceptual modelling. In this way, it can provide the “semantic glue” needed to mediate between different sources of cultural heritage information, such as that published by museums, libraries and archives.\n\nThe CIDOC CRM is the culmination of over 10 years work by the CIDOC Documentation Standards Working Group and CIDOC CRM SIG which are working groups of CIDOC. Since 9/12/2006 it is official standard ISO 21127:2006.

Version: 7.1.1

The CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (CRM) provides definitions and a formal structure for describing the implicit and explicit concepts and relationships used in cultural heritage documentation.

The CIDOC CRM is intended to promote a shared understanding of cultural heritage information by providing a common and extensible semantic framework that any cultural heritage information can be mapped to. It is intended to be a common language for domain experts and implementers to formulate requirements for information systems and to serve as a guide for good practice of conceptual modelling. In this way, it can provide the “semantic glue” needed to mediate between different sources of cultural heritage information, such as that published by museums, libraries and archives.

The CIDOC CRM is the culmination of over 10 years work by the CIDOC Documentation Standards Working Group and CIDOC CRM SIG which are working groups of CIDOC. Since 9/12/2006 it is official standard ISO 21127:2006.

Version: 6.2.1

Implementation of the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model, version 5.0.1, in OWL 2.

Version: 5.0.1