Interactions, Social Relationships & Memberships

Introduction

Description

This profile gathers classes and properties describing basic social interactions of people like memberships, social relationships, etc.

For advanced users, find in OntoME the details on this profile.

Use Cases

Record information on:

1. a person's interactions with other individuals .

2. a person's social relations (professional relations, private relations).

3. a person's participation in informal and formal groups (membership).

Classes

Among others, this profile contains the following classes:

Person (E21)

This class comprises real persons who live or are assumed to have lived. Legendary figures that may have existed, such as Ulysses and King Arthur, fall into this class if the documentation refers to them as historical figures.

Example:

• Tut-Ankh-Amun

• Nelson Mandela

Intro

How to use this class:

These tabs explain you how to use the class "person".

1) Add a person

Select an existing person (on the right) or create a new one (left) by adding a name.

Person's Interaction (C18)

This class describes the interaction of persons in time and physical (generally geographical) space. Hence, each interaction is to be understood as a one-time encounter/meeting/exchange of persons. See below how persons' interactions then can be linked to social relationships.

The interaction is not restricted to a quantity of persons (a meeting can be represented with this class).

Intro

How to use this class:

These tabs explain you how to use the class "person's interaction".

1) Add persons

Add persons involved in the interaction/meeting/encounter.

2) Add a place

Add a geographical place for the interaction.

3) Add time span

As a second step you can indicate when (in what time-span) the interaction took place.

4) Add setting

If you wish you can further specify to which social relationship(s) this interaction/encounter/meeting contributed to or was part of:

Function: This is a temporal class used for the time dimension. Add a date/time-span to it!

Also, you can link it to a geographical place!

Social Relationship (C3)

This class models the phenomenon of a more or less active social relation between people, groups or countries as it is perceived in the context of specific social representations.For example phenomenon like frienship, marriage, apprenticeship can be classified as "social relationships".

In other words, this class does not model a physical interaction of actors in space and time (for persons this interaction is modelled with the C18 Persons' Interaction class) but the perception of a phenomenon like frienship, marriage, apprenticeship, etc. that happens in minds and the social space.

Each relationship generally involves only two instances of one or more classes. If more then two instances are involved (e.g. multilateral political relationships) the unity of time and social space (i.e. the social context) must be given.

Furthermore, you can distingish on the nature of the relationship. A relationship can be symmetric (between two friends) or asymetric (between a master and his/her disciple).

• symmetric: you can link entities via "involves partners"

• asymmetric: you can link entities via "has relationship target/source"

Examples:

• The friendship between Erasmus and Thomas More (symmetric relationship).

• Thomas More was a student of Thomas Linacre (the student will be in the source, the teacher in the target role)

Intro

How to use this class:

These tabs explain you how to use the class "social relationship".

1) Add persons

Decide which nature the relationship has:

symetrical: select "involves partners

asymetrical: select "has relationship source" and "has relationship target

2) Add time span

As a second step you can add a timespan for which you are certain that this relationship was true.

3) Add Setting

If you wish you can further specify from which encounters/meetings of the two persons you actually know about this relationship.

• In the case of the friendshop between Erasmus and THomas More this might be written letters

• In the case of Thomas More and Thomas Linacre, it might be records of an exchange at Oxford University.

Each such encounter can be recorded as a person's interaction (see description above).

Function: This is a temporal class used for the time dimension. Add a date/time-span to it!

Note: The types of social relationships can be further specified in the controlled vocabulary under settings-> controlled vocabulary.

Group (E74)

A gathering of people becomes an group when it exhibits organizational characteristics usually typified by a set of ideas or beliefs held in common, or actions performed together. These might be communication, creating some common artifact, a common purpose such as study, worship, business, sports, etc.

Contrary to a legal entity, a group is understood as informal in its character (there are no official documents unifiny this group such as statutes, constitution or similar).

Examples

• King Solomon and his wives

• Friends' weekly sports gathering

Intro

How to use this class:

These tabs explain you how to use the class "group".

1) Add a group

Select an existing group (on the right) or create a new one (left) by adding a name.

2) Add a definition

Add a definition that helps you understand to what the group refers to.

Note: The types of group can be further specified in the controlled vocabulary under settings-> controlled vocabulary.

Legal body (E40)

This class comprises institutions or groups of people that have obtained a legal recognition as a group and can act collectively as agents. This means that they can perform actions, own property, create or destroy things and can be held collectively responsible for their actions like individual people. The term 'personne morale' is often used for this in French.

The class legal body is to be understood as a clarification (or sub-class) of the more general class group (E74).

Examples:

• Greenpeace

• Paveprime Ltd

• the National Museum of Denmark

Intro

How to use this class:

These tabs explain you how to use the class "legal body".

1) Add a legal body

Select an existing legal body (on the right) or create a new one (left) by adding a name.

2) Add a definition

Add a definition that helps you understand to what the legal body refers to.

Membership (C5)

This class models the fact that a person or an organization belongs to a group during a given time span.

Example:

• François Mitterand was a member of the Parti socialiste from 1971 to 1996.

Intro

How to use this class:

These tabs explain you how to use the class "membership".

1) Add a person

Add the person that is a member

2) Add group/organisation

When adding a group/organisation, one has to decide whether adding a "legal body" or a "group".

Legal body is understood as any group that has some kind of formal character (such as a club with its statutes, or a country with its constitution)

A group on the other hand is an informal reunion of people such as friends meeting regularly for playing soccer.

3) Time span

Add a time span for the duration of the membership.

4) Add Joining/Leaving

If you wish you can further specify when exactly a person became member or left the group. For this, you can create the event "joining" or "leaving" and add it to the membership.

Function: This is a temporal class used for the time dimension. Add a date/time-span to it!

Note: The types of membership can be further specified in the controlled vocabulary under settings-> controlled vocabulary.