Vocabulary: http://www.ivoa.net/rdf/datalink/core Author: Markus Demleitner Date: 2020-09-09 Term: #calibration Action: Modificiation Label: Applicable Calibration Description: Data products that can be used to remove instrumental signatures from #this. Note that the calibration steps such data products feed have not been applied to #this yet. Used-in: http://dc.g-vo.org/kapteyn/q/dl/dlmeta?ID=ivo%3A//org.gavo.dc/~%3Fkapteyn/data/fits/POT015_000317.fits Term: #bias Action: Modification Description: Data products that can be used to remove detector offset levels from #this. Term: #dark Action: Modification Description: Data products that can be used to remove detector dark current from #this. Term: #flat Action: Modification Description: Data products that can be used to remove the signature of non-homogeneous detector sensitivity from #this. Rationale: In a discussion on the semantics mailing list (see http://mail.ivoa.net/pipermail/semantics/2020-June/002735.html and follow-ups) it was found that the existing descriptions of #calibration and its narrower terms are ambiguous; "resource used to calibrate" could mean both "resource that has been used" or "resource that can be used". This VEP tries to make it clear that the "has been used" interpretation is for #progenitor, wheras #calibration is for "can be used". Discussion: On the Semantics mailing list (http://mail.ivoa.net/pipermail/semantics/2021-March/002774.html and followups), concerns were brought forward that excluding calibration data already applied would unnecessarily complicate the vocabulary; the temporal aspect ("has been applied" vs. "can be applied") should, if possible, be kept out of it. Against that it was put forward that doing this would leave parts of #calibration within #progenitor (the "has been applied" part), other parts essentially in what some people suggested is #auxiliary (the "can be applied" part"). This violates the conditions for keeping the concepts organised in a tree, which was considered undesirable. On the other hand, it was recognised that being able to trace "science data" (as opposed to auxiliary resources like calibration data) through the provenance chain is valuable. A method proposed to effect this, given that with VEP-006 #calibration is not available for this, could be to narrow the definition of #progenitor to "less calibrated science data". But even if this step is not taken and #progenitor remains "anything upstream in the provenance chain", a new term #calibration-applied would seem useful (an example given was: when fusing 50 images, people want to tell those apart from, for instance, a master PSF that also went into the fusion). Parties having use for such a concept are encouraged to author a VEP for it. In the end, after a side meeting at the May 2021 Interop consensus was found that #calibration should certainly not contain elements both in and outside of #progenitor; it was agreed that while, if we started again today, we would call the VEP-006 #calibration something like #calibration-applicable. However, given the label is there, and that the level of detail below #calibration (with #bias, #dark, and #flat) probably mainly is useful (as far as datalink with its focus on actionable semantics is concerned) when a client wants to semi-automatically perform the calibration itself, it was decided that #calibration is kept with its label changed to "Applicable Calibration" and a corresponding definition. As we sharpen the definition of #auxiliary ("resources aiding the scientific exploitation of #this"), #calibration should probably become a child of it. This, however, would be part of a VEP on #auxiliary. This VEP recommended originally using #progenitor for labelling calibration already applied. This was quite severely opposed and hence dropped from the description. The VEP was accepted in the present from at the TCG session of 2021-10-27.