LODE: An ontology for Linking Open Descriptions of Events

This Version
http://linkedevents.org/ontology/2009-07-28/ [HTML] [RDF/XML]
Latest Version
http://linkedevents.org/ontology/
Authors
Ryan Shaw
Contributors
Lynda Hardman
Raphaël Troncy

Copyright © 2010 Ryan Shaw

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Table of Contents

Introduction

This document describes an ontology for publishing descriptions of historical events as Linked Data, and for mapping between other event-related vocabularies and ontologies.

Namespace

The URI for this vocabulary is

http://linkedevents.org/ontology/

When used in RDF or XML documents the suggested prefix is lode

Each class or property in the vocabulary has a URI constructed by appending a term name to the vocabulary URI. For example:

http://linkedevents.org/ontology/Event
http://linkedevents.org/ontology/circa

Summary of Terms

This vocabulary defines one class and 6 properties .

Term NameTypeDefinition
Eventclass "Something that happened," as might be reported in a news article or explained by a historian.
atPlaceproperty a named or relatively specified place that is where an event happened.
atTimeproperty an abstract instant or interval of time that is when an event happened.
circaproperty an interval of time that can be precisely described using calendar dates and clock times.
inSpaceproperty an abstract region of space (e.g. a geospatial point or region) that is where an event happened.
involvedproperty a (physical, social, or mental) object involved in an event.
involvedAgentpropertyan agent involved in an event.

Vocabulary Classes

Class: Event

Definition: "Something that happened," as might be reported in a news article or explained by a historian.

An event consists of some temporal and spatial boundaries subjectively imposed on the flux of reality or imagination, that we wish to treat as an entity for the purposes of making statements about it. In particular, we may wish to make statements that relate people, places, or things to an event.

Note that, unlike some defintions of "event," this definition does not specify that an event involves a change of state, nor does it attempt to distinguish events from processes or states.

URI:http://linkedevents.org/ontology/Event
Label:Event
Subclass of:dctype:Event and http://purl.org/NET/cidoc-crm/core#E2_Temporal_Entity
Equivalent to:dul:Event and event:Event

History

Vocabulary Properties

Property: atPlace

Definition: [The value of this property is] a named or relatively specified place that is where an event happened.

This property relates an event to some meaningful place, which may have a name (e.g. "Paris") or may be defined relative to some other entity or entities (e.g. "the unincorporated area between Carson and Harbor Gateway"). An event may be related to more than one such place.

URI:http://linkedevents.org/ontology/atPlace
Label:at place
Domain:Event
Range:dul:Place
Subproperty of:dul:hasLocation

History

Property: atTime

Definition: [The value of this property is] an abstract instant or interval of time that is when an event happened.

Equivalent definitions from other ontologies: * C4DM Event ontology: "Relates an event to a time object, classifying a time region (either instantaneous or having an extent)."

This property relates an event to some subjectively imposed temporal boundaries, i.e. a span of time. An event can be related to only one such span of time.

URI:http://linkedevents.org/ontology/atTime
Label:at time
Domain:Event
Range:owltime:TemporalEntity
Subproperty of:http://purl.org/NET/cidoc-crm/core#P4_has_time-span and dul:isObservableAt

History

Property: circa

Definition: [The value of this property is] an interval of time that can be precisely described using calendar dates and clock times.

This property relates a span of time that cannot be precisely located in a chronological series to another span of time that can be precisely located, thus asserting that the latter is an approximation of the former.

An temporal relation expressing nearness in time.

URI:http://linkedevents.org/ontology/circa
Label:circa
Domain:owltime:TemporalEntity
Range:owltime:DateTimeInterval

History

Property: inSpace

Definition: [The value of this property is] an abstract region of space (e.g. a geospatial point or region) that is where an event happened.

Note that a statement that relates an event to a region of space using this property only asserts that an event occurred somewhere within the region and does not assert that it occurred everywhere within the region.

This property relates an event to some subjectively imposed spatial boundaries, i.e. a region of space. An event can be related to only one such region of space.

URI:http://linkedevents.org/ontology/inSpace
Label:in space
Domain:Event
Range:geo:SpatialThing
Subproperty of:dul:hasRegion

History

Property: involved

Definition: [The value of this property is] a (physical, social, or mental) object involved in an event.

This property relates an event to any physical, social, or mental object or substance. It does not imply any causal relationship or influence or any other kind of explanatory relationship such as creation, destruction, etc.

URI:http://linkedevents.org/ontology/involved
Label:involved
Domain:Event
Range:dul:Object

History

Property: involvedAgent

Definition: [The value of this property is] an agent involved in an event.

This property relates an event to anything with agency, such as a (legal or natural) person, a group, an organization, a computational agent, etc. It does not imply any causal relationship, influence, intentionality, etc.

URI:http://linkedevents.org/ontology/involvedAgent
Label:involved agent
Domain:Event
Range:dul:Agent
Subproperty of:involved

History

License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.