[ICA-EGAD-RiC] Relationships in RiC

[Chris Hurley]

 Someone has certainly been busy - 792 relationships and still counting.
Phew!  I read somewhere that a diligent German historian was only able to
find 210 reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire.  We certainly got that
beat.  This is a list of implementation options rather than a conceptual
model – some of the logical possibilities when designing and implementing
an application.  To explore the full range of possibilities, two things are
needed :

   1. the underlying relationship-types must be identified;
   2. the terms must be defined (cf. p.39) so that we all interpret the
   words in the same way.

Then we can pay more attention to refining or expanding those concepts that
are currently being most contested (e.g. “create”) and to discovering
additional instances (e.g. “received by” under Transmission, “involved
party” under Formation, “adopted (by)” under Existential Features, etc.).
But it is more important to conceptualise than to itemise, therefore (by
way of example):

One could begin with a thesis (inviting the antithesis) that provenance is
to be found in Relationship-Type : Formation (see below).  This could be
tested by examining whether the 63 instances listed so far are, in fact,
acceptable statements of provenance and whether any other ideas about
provenance, of the kind that have been put forward lately in the
literature, can fit within the instances listed or require additional
instances to accommodate them.  Is provenance only to be found within
Formation?  Are there formative relationships that are not allowable
statements of provenance?  Can provenance be found in other
Relationship-Types?  Does a formative relationship between Agents
("establish", for example) confer ambient provenance vicariously on a
document-type?  If so, how would that differ from "uses [agent-delegate]"
which I have nominated as Existential?  Alternatively, should ambience and
provenance be kept conceptually separate? Does the Relationship-Type
framework assist or hinder in (re)defining or (re)imagining our core
concepts such as provenance.


I have trouble with two of the proposed entity-types (viz. Date and Place)
of which more anon, so I can’t yet come to terms with those proposed
relationships involving one or other or both of those (204 out of the
total).  Interestingly, I singled these two out as problems long before I
reached p.91 where Date and Place are also nominated as "properties" of
relationships so maybe I'm not alone in needing to think some more about
them.  And I don’t think it’s worth dwelling long over the
relationship-type “associated with” (292 out of the total).  We’ve used
that for years as a cop out for making links where we are too lazy or too
uncertain to be specific.  Anything can be associated with anything and,
once you’ve said that, there’s not much more to say and little benefit from
saying it 292 times.  Of the remainder, here is my first attempt at a
categorisation into relationship-types (without the benefit of certainty as
to what any of the terms mean):

   -

   Relationship-Type : Formation (63 instances) viz. “create/created by”;
   “authored”; “collect(ed); “wrote/written”; results from/in”; “accumulate”;
   “assemble”; “arrange”; “establish”.
   -

   Relationship-Type : Governance (42 instances) viz. “owns/owned by”;
   “rights held”; “controls”; “directs”; “manages”; “superior/subordinate”.
   -

   Relationship-Type : Succession (22 instances) viz.
   “successor/predecessor”; “parent/child”.
   -

   Relationship-Type : Belonging (30 instances) viz. “part/part of”;
   “member of”; “is/has example”.
   -

   Relationship-Type : Possession (12 instances) viz. “held/holder”.
   -

   Relationship-Type : Transmission (4 instances) viz. “sent by”.
   -

   Relationship-Type : Documentary Features (73 instances) viz. “copy of”;
   “draft/original of”; “subject of”; “addressee”; “documentary form”;
   “evidence of”.
   -

   Relationship-Type : Existential Features (57 instances) viz. “has/had
   functional relation”; “assumed identity”; “sibling/spouse”; “uses
   [agent-delegate]”; “pursues/occupies [position or occupation]”; “fulfils
   [function]”; “performs [activity]: “authorize(d)”; “required competency”;
   “defined/revised [by mandate]”.

There is, of course, much room for debate (e.g. is “authorize” an instance
of the Governance or Existential type?).  Nevertheless, I would find
discussion at that level more rewarding than simply multiplying instances
before something like that has been done.

All the best

Chris Hurley
www.descriptionguy.com