The following question(s) were asked in the Collection Management Systems Webinar and will be answered here.
Robert Cubey: Would you use entity relationships to cover multi sheets and multi-specimens on one sheet? (herbarium specific question sorry)
Response:
Yes. EntityRelationship is extremely flexible and can accommodate both of the scenarios you mention. Let’s explore this with some examples.
First example, one plant, multiple sheets. Let’s say that a single dwc:Organism “Plant1” has parts on multiple sheets, and that the sheets are tracked as separate collection objects (“Sheet1” and “Sheet2”).
Plant1 is an Entity with the following properties:
entityID: Plant1
entityType: dwc:Organism
Sheet1 is a MaterialEntity (and Entity) with the following properties:
entityID: Sheet1
entityType: MaterialEntity
materialEntityType: herbarium sheet
Sheet2 is a MaterialEntity (and Entity) with the following properties:
entityID: Sheet2
entityType: MaterialEntity
materialEntityType: herbarium sheet
The EntityRelationships between these might look like the following:
entityRelationshipID: er_id1
subjectEntityID: Sheet1
entityRelationshipType: part of
objectEntityID: Plant1
entityRelationshipID: er_id2
subjectEntityID: Sheet2
entityRelationshipType: part of
objectEntityID: Plant1
entityRelationshipID: er_id3
subjectEntityID: Plant1
entityRelationshipType: has part
objectEntityID: Sheet1
entityRelationshipID: er_id4
subjectEntityID: Plant1
entityRelationshipType: has part
objectEntityID: Sheet2
Second example, one sheet, multiple plants. Let’s say that a single collection object “Sheet3” has multiple plants on it, and that the plants are tracked as separate collection objects (“Plant2” and “Plant3”).
Sheet3 is a MaterialEntity (and Entity) with the following properties:
entityID: Sheet3
entityType: MaterialEntity
materialEntityType: herbarium sheet
Plant2 is an Entity with the following properties:
entityID: Plant2
entityType: dwc:Organism
Plant3 is an Entity with the following properties:
entityID: Plant3
entityType: dwc:Organism
The EntityRelationships between these might look like the following:
entityRelationshipID: er_id5
subjectEntityID: Sheet3
entityRelationshipType: has mounted
objectEntityID: Plant2
entityRelationshipID: er_id6
subjectEntityID: Sheet3
entityRelationshipType: has mounted
objectEntityID: Plant3
entityRelationshipID: er_id7
subjectEntityID: Plant1
entityRelationshipType: mounted on
objectEntityID: Sheet3
entityRelationshipID: er_id8
subjectEntityID: Plant2
entityRelationshipType: mounted on
objectEntityID: Sheet3