relation

• Obligation:  See Application Profiles
• Occurrence:  See Application Profiles
• Conditions:  See Application Profiles
• Scheme:  See Application Profiles

Element Semantics (Definition)

A reference to a related resource.

General

• Name:  relation
• Label:  Relation
• Namespace:  http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/
• Registration Authority:  Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI)
• Notes:  Recommended best practice is to reference the resource by means of a string or number conforming to a formal identification system.

Best Practices

1. Since the «relation» element identifies important related resources, wherever possible, identify that resource using a URI that can be resolved, thus providing a machine-addressable link.
2. The sorts of relations that are appropriate to identify include, but are not limited to: a collection-level resource when the entity being described is a member of that collection; a source document or entity from which the entity being described was derived; and any entity that is correlated with the resource being described such as an academic content standard.
3. Unqualified Dublin Core does not provide a means for stating the "kind" of relationship represented. It merely asserts that there is a relationship and identifies the related entity. Using refinements (qualifiers) to the «relation» element provides the means for representing the kind of relationship.

Metadata Encodings Examples

• Resource Description Framework (RDF/XML)
  

  <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
  <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf='http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#'
      xmlns:dc='http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/'>
  <rdf:Description>
      <dc:relation rdf:resource='http://www.homepage.org'/>
  </rdf:Description>
  </rdf:RDF>

• XML (Tags & Attributes)
  

  <record xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
      xmlns:xsi='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance'>
  <dc:relation xsi:type='dcterms:URI'>
      http://www.homepage.org
  </dc:relation>
  </record>

• Crosswalks
  IEEE LOM: 7:Relation
  MARC: 787$n (Nonspecific Relationship Entry/Note)
             (Value URI) 787 0#$o (Nonspecific Relationship Entry/Other identifier)