The Data Transfer Runner for AusPlots retrieved the tables from the AusPlots Rangelands database by renaming the table names for AEKOS' needs. A new script has been created in the Data Transfer Runner for AusPlots to retrieve the tables with its original table names.

Refer to the Getting/Updating the Source Data section in https://ternaus.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/TDSAG/pages/694091873 on how to manually update the database for Ausplots Rangelands.

The table mappings were based on the 20190205_154101 version of the AusPlots Rangelands database, retrieved from the R_AEKOSMETADATA in H2.

Using Standard Vocabularies for Interoperability

AusPlots Rangelands Integration intends to use standard authoritative vocabularies from sources such as the IBRA Codes and the terms from the ASLS (Yellow Book) as classification values.

CSIRO has a team led by Linda Gregory and Simon Cox in encoding the vocabularies in the Yellow Book into machine-readable RDF, using SKOS classes and properties. The vocabularies are published in the CSIRO Linked Data Registry at http://registry.it.csiro.au/def/soil/au/asls.

Using these standard vocabularies will not be a problem, as many of the look-up tables in AusPlots Rangelands were based on them, so the definitions and codes would match. The problem arises when AusPlots Rangelands' look-up tables contain codes and definitions that were not from the standards. This makes things a little more complex as the ETL code must have logic in place to handle situations such as, if codes (foreign keys) were not found from the standard vocabularies, then look them up in a separate AusPlots Rangelands-specific vocabulary.

An example of this occurs in Site Location for landform_element.

The formulation of the vocabularies from the Yellow Book follow the rules at https://confluence.csiro.au/public/VOCAB/vocabulary-formalization-and-conversion/case-specific-examples/australian-soil-and-land-survey-field-handbook-yellow-book

In the interest of time, the AusPlots vocabularies may be mapped to the Yellow Book at a later date, as we require a working prototype with both the AusPlots and CORVEG data in the portal by 26th of November for ESA.

Common Codes from Look-up Tables

The look-up tables in AusPlots Rangelands do not follow the same schema, but there are some consistent rules for common codes.

The code column is named either code or id. The second column can be treated as the label column. The values of the following columns after the first and second are unpredictable.

There is a common concept of “Other” or “see site notes” but the code/id is always inconsistent.

Table LUT_OBSERVER has Not Collected with a different ID. It may not be a problem because this table may not require capturing.

People and Organisations in AusPlots

AusPlots Rangelands has people who are full-time, part-time, as well as volunteers, who go out to the field and collect the data. These persons generally represent an organisation when they partake in field activities. TERN already has a model for representing organisations and persons, however the model does not have the properties prov:actedOnBehalfOf for a prov:Agent. In order to integrate the persons found in the AusPlots database, we will have to extend the small agent model and allow for prov:actedOnBehalfOf as an optional value to another agent, which in our model would be either sdo:Person or sdo:Organization.