BIO: A vocabulary for biographical information

This Version
http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/bio-vocab-20040305 [HTML] [RDF]
Latest Version
http://purl.org/vocab/bio/
Previous Version
http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/bio-vocab-20030728
Contributors
Ian Davis
David Galbraith

Copyright © 2002-2004 Ian Davis and David Galbraith

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Table of Contents

Introduction

This document describes a vocabulary for describing biographical information about people, both living and dead. It has been designed to be compatible with both RDF and non-RDF XML formats such as FOAF, RSS 1.0 and RSS 2.0. It contains terms useful for finding out more about people and their backgrounds and has some cross-over into genealogical information.

Changes From Previous Version

Namespace

The preferred namespace URI for this vocabulary is http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/ and the preferred prefix is bio

Vocabulary Properties

olb

URI
http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/olb
Label
One-line bio
Definition
A one-line biography of the person.
Domain
http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/Person
Range
http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#Literal

keywords

URI
http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/keywords
Label
Key words
Definition
A comma delimited list of key words that describe this person.
Sub Property Of
http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/subject
Domain
http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/Person
Range
http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#Literal

date

URI
http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/date
Label
Date
Definition
The date of an event.
Sub Property Of
http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/date
Domain
http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/Event

The date should be formatted as specified in ISO8601. For example: 2003-03-15 corresponds to the 15th March 2003, and 2003-03-15T13:21-05:00 corresponds to 15th March 2003, 8:21 am, US Eastern Standard Time.

place

URI
http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/place
Label
Place
Definition
The place of an event.
Domain
http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/Event

event

URI
http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/event
Label
Event
Definition
An event associated with a person.
Domain
http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/Person
Range
http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/Event

Vocabulary Classes

Event

URI
http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/Event
Label
Event
Definition
A general event, i.e. something that the person participated in.

Birth

URI
http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/Birth
Label
Birth
Definition
A birth event.
Sub Class Of
http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/Event

Marriage

URI
http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/Marriage
Label
Marriage
Definition
A marriage event.
Sub Class Of
http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/Event

Death

URI
http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/Death
Label
Death
Definition
A death event.
Sub Class Of
http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/Event

Examples

Using With FOAF

The BIO vocabulary simply slots into standard FOAF documents:

  
<rdf:RDF
      xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
      xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#"
      xmlns:foaf="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/"
      xmlns:bio="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/"
      >
  <foaf:Person rdf:nodeID="ian">
    <foaf:name>Ian Davis</foaf:name>
    <foaf:title>Mr</foaf:title>
    <foaf:firstName>Ian</foaf:firstName>
    <foaf:surname>Davis</foaf:surname>
    <bio:olb>
        British; software developer; former CTO of Calaba; 
        author of OCS; co-author of RSS 1.0; developer of myRSS and Pepys.
    </bio.olb>
    <bio:keywords>
      CTO, RSS, web services, xml, nerd, geek, scifi, RDF, engineering, 
      open source, php, de-centralization, chillout, science fiction, physics,
      Perl
    </bio:keywords>
	
    <bio:event>
      <bio:Birth>
        <bio:date>1970-06-15</bio:date>
        <bio:place>Brentwood, Essex, United Kingdom</bio:place>
      </bio:Birth>
    </bio:event>
  
    <bio:event>
      <bio:Marriage>
        <bio:date>1995-08-04</bio:date>
        <bio:place>
          Northampton Register Office, 
          Northampton, Northamptonshire, United Kingdom
        </bio:place>
      </bio:Marriage>
    </bio:event>
  </foaf:Person>
</rdf:RDF>

Using With RSS 1.0

There are a couple of ways to use the BIO vocabulary with RSS 1.0. The first is simply to include the olb property:

<rdf:RDF 
      xmlns="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/"
      xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" 
      xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" 
      xmlns:foaf="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/"
      xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#"
      xmlns:bio="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/"
      >

  <channel rdf:about="http://internetalchemy.org/">
    <title>Internet Alchemy</title>
    <link>http://internetalchemy.org/</link>
    <description>Digital explorations and experiments</description>
    <bio:olb>
        British; software developer; former CTO of Calaba; 
        author of OCS; co-author of RSS 1.0; developer of myRSS and Pepys.
    </bio.olb>
  </channel>    
</rdf:RDF>

For a channel that is an aggregate of different writers it could be useful to include biographical info for each item:

<rdf:RDF 
      xmlns="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/"
      xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" 
      xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" 
      xmlns:foaf="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/"
      xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#"
      xmlns:bio="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/"
      >

  <channel rdf:about="http://internetalchemy.org/">
    <title>Internet Alchemy</title>
    <link>http://internetalchemy.org/</link>
    <description>Digital explorations and experiments</description>
    <items>
      <rdf:Seq>
        <rdf:li rdf:resource="http://www.example.com/item1.html" />
        <rdf:li rdf:resource="http://www.example.com/item2.html" />
      </rdf:Seq>
    </items>
    
  </channel>    
  <item rdf:about="http://www.example.com/item1.html">
    <title>This was written by Ian</title>
    <link>http://www.example.com/item1.html</link>
    <bio:olb>
        British; software developer; former CTO of Calaba; 
        author of OCS; co-author of RSS 1.0; developer of myRSS and Pepys.
    </bio.olb>
  </item>
  <item rdf:about="http://www.example.com/item2.html">
    <title>This was written by Dave</title>
    <link>http://www.example.com/item1.html</link>
    <bio:olb>
        Scottish, based in San Francisco, former architect at Foster and 
        partners, co founder: Moreover, co founder: Origins.net, 
        co author RSS 1.0
    </bio.olb>
  </item>


</rdf:RDF>

Another way is to include a snippet of FOAF in a dc:creator property:

<rdf:RDF 
      xmlns="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/"
      xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" 
      xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" 
      xmlns:foaf="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/"
      xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#"
      xmlns:bio="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/"
      >

  <channel rdf:about="http://internetalchemy.org/">
    <title>Internet Alchemy</title>
    <link>http://internetalchemy.org/</link>
    <description>Digital explorations and experiments</description>
    <dc:creator>
      <foaf:Person>
        <foaf:name>Ian Davis</foaf:name>
        <bio:olb>
            British; software developer; former CTO of Calaba; 
            author of OCS; co-author of RSS 1.0; developer of myRSS and Pepys.
        </bio.olb>
        <foaf:mbox_sha1sum rdf:value="69e31bbcf58d432950127593e292a55975bc55fd" />
        <rdfs:seeAlso rdf:resource="http://internetalchemy.org/iand/foaf.rdf" />
      </foaf:Person>
    </dc:creator>
  </channel>    
</rdf:RDF>

Using With RSS 2.0

The BIO vocabulary can be used with RSS 2.0 if care is taken to avoid any specific RDF extensions. This essentially means that the date and place properties must contain only plain text. The most common use, however, will be the addition of the olb tag:


<rss version="2.0" xmlns:bio="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/">
  <channel>
    <title>Ian's Channel</title>
    <link>http://internetalchemy.org/</link>
    <description>Ian's weblog</description>
    <bio:olb>
      British; software developer; former CTO of Calaba; 
      author of OCS; co-author of RSS 1.0; developer of myRSS and Pepys.
    </bio:olb>
    <item>
      <title>Lack of Imagination</title>
      <description>Here's an RSS item</description>
    </item>
  </channel>
</rss>

It could also be useful to add the bio information at the item level:


<rss version="2.0" xmlns:bio="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/">
  <channel>
    <title>Ian's Channel</title>
    <link>http://internetalchemy.org/</link>
    <description>Ian's weblog</description>
    <item>
      <title>Lack of Imagination</title>
      <description>Here's an RSS item</description>
      <bio:olb>
        British; software developer; former CTO of Calaba; 
        author of OCS; co-author of RSS 1.0; developer of myRSS and Pepys.
      </bio:olb>
    </item>
  </channel>
</rss>

Using With HTML

The olb property can be embedded within HTML using meta tags:


<html>
  <head>
    <title>Ian's home page</title>
    <meta name="bio.olb" content="British; software developer; former CTO of Calaba; author of OCS; co-author of RSS 1.0; developer of myRSS and Pepys." />
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>Ian's home page</h1>
  </body>
</html>

RDF Schema

The schema included here is informational only. The normative schema can be found at http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/bio-vocab-20040305.rdf

<rdf:RDF
   xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
   xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#"
   xmlns:owl="http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#"
   xmlns:bio="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/"
   xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
   xmlns:vann="http://purl.org/vocab/vann/"
   xmlns:dcterm="http://purl.org/dc/terms/"
   xmlns:cc="http://web.resource.org/cc/">
  
  <owl:Ontology
     rdf:about=""
     dc:title="BIO: A vocabulary for biographical information"
     dc:date="2003-03-15">
    <dc:description xml:lang="en">
      This document describes a vocabulary for describing biographical 
      information about people, both living and dead. It has been designed to 
      be compatible with both RDF and non-RDF XML formats such as FOAF, RSS 
      1.0 and RSS 2.0. It contains terms useful for finding out more about 
      people and their backgrounds and has some cross-over into genealogical 
      information.
    </dc:description>
    <owl:imports rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema"/>
    <owl:imports rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl"/>
    <owl:imports rdf:resource="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/"/>
    <dc:identifier>http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/bio-vocab-20040305</dc:identifier>
    <dcterm:isVersionOf rdf:resource="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/"/>
    <dcterm:replaces rdf:resource="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/bio-vocab-20030728"/>
    <dc:contributor>Ian Davis</dc:contributor>
    <dc:contributor>David Galbraith</dc:contributor>
    <dc:rights>Copyright © 2002-2004 Ian Davis and David Galbraith</dc:rights>
    <vann:preferredNamespaceUri>http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/</vann:preferredNamespaceUri>
    <vann:preferredNamespacePrefix>bio</vann:preferredNamespacePrefix>
    <vann:changes rdf:resource="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/bio-changes-20040305.html"/>
    <vann:example
       rdf:resource="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/bio-example-foaf-20040303.html"
       dc:title="Using With FOAF"/>
    <vann:example
       rdf:resource="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/bio-example-rss10-20040303.html"
       dc:title="Using With RSS 1.0"/>
    <vann:example
       rdf:resource="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/bio-example-rss20-20040303.html"
       dc:title="Using With RSS 2.0"/>
    <vann:example
       rdf:resource="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/bio-example-html-20040303.html"
       dc:title="Using With HTML"/>
    <dcterm:hasFormat>
      <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/bio-vocab-20040305.html">
        <dc:format>
          <dcterm:IMT>
            <rdf:value>text/html</rdf:value>
            <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">HTML</rdfs:label>
          </dcterm:IMT>
        </dc:format>
      </rdf:Description>
    </dcterm:hasFormat>
    <dcterm:hasFormat>
      <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/bio-vocab-20040305.rdf">
        <dc:format>
          <dcterm:IMT>
            <rdf:value>application/rdf+xml</rdf:value>
            <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">RDF</rdfs:label>
          </dcterm:IMT>
        </dc:format>
      </rdf:Description>
    </dcterm:hasFormat>
  </owl:Ontology>
  
  <cc:Work rdf:about="">
    <cc:license rdf:resource="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/1.0/"/>
    <dc:type rdf:resource="http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/Text"/>
  </cc:Work>
  
  <cc:License rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/1.0/">
    <cc:permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Reproduction"/>
    <cc:permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Distribution"/>
    <cc:requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Notice"/>
    <cc:requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Attribution"/>
    <cc:permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/DerivativeWorks"/>
  </cc:License>
  
  <rdfs:Class rdf:about="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/Event">
    <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Event</rdfs:label>
    <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">
      A general event, i.e. something that the person participated in.
    </rdfs:comment>
    <rdfs:isDefinedBy rdf:resource="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/"/>
  </rdfs:Class>
  
  <rdfs:Class rdf:about="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/Birth">
    <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Birth</rdfs:label>
    <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">A birth event.</rdfs:comment>
    <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/Event"/>
    <rdfs:isDefinedBy rdf:resource="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/"/>
  </rdfs:Class>
  
  <rdfs:Class rdf:about="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/Marriage">
    <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Marriage</rdfs:label>
    <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">A marriage event.</rdfs:comment>
    <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/Event"/>
    <rdfs:isDefinedBy rdf:resource="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/"/>
  </rdfs:Class>
  
  <rdfs:Class rdf:about="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/Death">
    <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Death</rdfs:label>
    <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">A death event.</rdfs:comment>
    <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/Event"/>
    <rdfs:isDefinedBy rdf:resource="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/"/>
  </rdfs:Class>
  
  <rdf:Property rdf:about="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/olb">
    <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">One-line bio</rdfs:label>
    <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">A one-line biography of the person.</rdfs:comment>
    <rdfs:domain rdf:resource="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/Person"/>
    <rdfs:range rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#Literal"/>
    <rdfs:isDefinedBy rdf:resource="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/"/>
  </rdf:Property>
  
  <rdf:Property rdf:about="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/keywords">
    <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Key words</rdfs:label>
    <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">
      A comma delimited list of key words that describe this person.
    </rdfs:comment>
    <rdfs:domain rdf:resource="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/Person"/>
    <rdfs:range rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#Literal"/>
    <rdfs:isDefinedBy rdf:resource="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/"/>
    <rdfs:subPropertyOf rdf:resource="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/subject"/>
  </rdf:Property>
  
  <rdf:Property rdf:about="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/date">
    <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Date</rdfs:label>
    <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">The date of an event.</rdfs:comment>
    <rdfs:domain rdf:resource="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/Event"/>
    <rdfs:subPropertyOf rdf:resource="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/date"/>
    <rdfs:isDefinedBy rdf:resource="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/"/>
    <vann:usageNote rdf:resource="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/date-usage-20040303.html"/>
  </rdf:Property>
  
  <rdf:Property rdf:about="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/place">
    <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Place</rdfs:label>
    <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">The place of an event.</rdfs:comment>
    <rdfs:domain rdf:resource="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/Event"/>
    <rdfs:isDefinedBy rdf:resource="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/"/>
  </rdf:Property>
  
  <rdf:Property rdf:about="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/event">
    <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Event</rdfs:label>
    <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">An event associated with a person.</rdfs:comment>
    <rdfs:domain rdf:resource="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/Person"/>
    <rdfs:range rdf:resource="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/Event"/>
    <rdfs:isDefinedBy rdf:resource="http://purl.org/vocab/bio/0.1/"/>
  </rdf:Property>
</rdf:RDF>

License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

The following section is informational only, please refer to the Original License for complete license terms.

This license grants the following rights:

This license imposes the following restrictions: