AusPlots Rangelands will be integrated into the TERN Ecological Plot-based Data Platform. To allow for this integration, parts of the AusPlots Rangelands data must be transformed into Linked Data before the major development of the ETL starts.

Controlled list codes, methods, and the observable properties in AusPlots Rangelands will be created as controlled vocabularies, encoded primarily using SKOS classes and properties, and hosted at the persistent URI http://linked.data.gov.au/def/ausplots-cv.

The AusPlots Rangelands controlled vocabularies will be created as each relevant data table is mapped to the Plot Ontology. The mappings for each table can be found at Table Mappings. Each table will be categorised as a theme. Each row of a table will be captured as an observation collection. The values in the tables will be captured as an observation and mapped to an observable property and a method. The values themselves will either be a qualitative or a quantitative value. A qualitative value will be transformed to a controlled vocabulary. A quantitative value will be described using a class from the Datatype Ontology and some properties to describe the units of measure of the value. Location information will be captured by the location class and its properties.

Once the mapping table documents are completed, they will then be used as the specification to the ETL program. Changes to the way the data is captured must always be changed in the mapping table documents before applying the changes to the ETL.

References

• AusPlots Website

• AusPlots Overview

• AusPlots Rangelands Overview

• AusPlots Rangelands Survey Protocols Manual

• AusPlots Rangelands Dataset