Issue 365: A top-level ontology on which CRM and all its extensions will be depended

ID: 
365
Starting Date: 
2018-01-15
Working Group: 
3
Status: 
Done
Closing Date: 
2023-10-13
Background: 

On the 40th joined meeting of the CIDOC CRM SIG and ISO/TC46/SC4/WG9 and the 33nd FRBR - CIDOC CRM Harmonization meeting, the sig resolving the issue 358 decided to create a top-level ontology of super properties that will secure the complete coverage of searchability of the CRMbase and all family models. One special issue is to defend these properties as being out of the scope relative to scope of CRMbase for purpose of keeping compatibility with ISO.

This top-level ontology will be formulated and elaborated by CEO, MD, and Carlo.

Cologne, January 2018

Current Proposal: 

 In the 41st joined meeting of the CIDOC CRM SIG and ISO/TC46/SC4/WG9 and the 34th FRBR - CIDOC CRM Harmonization meeting, the sig discussed about the method to develop the CRM Super. The gid concluded that:

  • We need to find the top level relations in CRMbase that will form CRMsuper. CRM super will be the root relations that somebody need to be able to query in order to return any fact within the graph.
  • It is not a top level ontology as such but a declaration that must exist in CRMbase  
  • The minimal set of top level relations in any extension of CRM will be the set of top level relations of CRMbase + any additional relations it declares that are either out of scope of CRMbase OR extend the scope of existing top level relations (by widening their meaning).
  • HW is assigned to GB and CEO  to pick out the heads in CRMbase.
  • Extensions are also compatible if they define constructs by logical rules using CRM base constructs.

Lyon, may 2018

In the 48th CIDOC CRM and 41st FRBR CRM sig meeting (virtual),under the scope of issue 469, CEO presented his HW (to establish the hierarchical relations among properties defined in the CRM-extensions and their superproperties in CRMbase). He has done that for all models, the output of this work can be found in this spreadsheet. It can be useful to determine a top-level ontology for all CRM classes and properties (for all CRM-family models). It shows which properties of CRMbase have subproperties in other models. 
The sig decided to 
(a) keep such tables updated at the CRM site.
(b) Merge issues 469 and 365 into one (close issue 469, move the discussion to issue 365)
(c) assign HW  to Emilio San Filippo, Mark Fichtner, CEO, Oyvind – Emilio San Filippo will make a doodle and share it with other sig members involved in the HW. Eleni will share the email addresses of the other sig members involved.

October 2020

Outcome: 

In the 57th CIDOC CRM & 50th FRBR/LRMoo SIG Meeting, the SIG resolved to close the issue. In a sense, the decision to create gitlab repositories for CRMbase and extensions provides automated solutions for keeping updated the class/property hierarchy tables expressing dependencies across modes solves the issue.. 
And in the meantime, the SIG has not expressed an interest in creating CRMsuper, so it makes no sense to keep the issue open –especially since the people originally involved in the HW have stopped working on it. 

Issue closed

Marseille, October 2023