Variables are not included in the Schema.org metadata representation

[ga-schneider]

• Observation: Variable names are part of the metadata (BonaRes metadata schema, element 43 and subelements). Even though this information is available, it is currently not part of the Schema.org metadata representation.
• Improvement idea: Add the variable names of datasets to the Schema.org description of https://schema.org/Dataset by using https://schema.org/variableMeasured as a property.
  • The variables could either be a free text (https://schema.org/Text) or a https://schema.org/PropertyValue with links to additional information on a variable. Following properties could be used for this:
  • https://schema.org/value to provide the measured value of a variable
  • https://schema.org/unitCode / https://schema.org/unitText to provide the unit of a variable.
    • https://schema.org/unitCode would be preferred to link to terminologies, e.g. the Unit Ontology (http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/uo.owl), increasing the machine-readability of the variables
• Benefits: Enable basic variable based searches in the FAIRagro Search Hub