4.4.13: Dates

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Date

The property date refers to a description of any dates or ranges in the lifecycle of a resource and is typically associated with the creation or availability. If the destinction between different sorts of date is necessary, the following subproperties should be used. If a date is describing the content of a resource the properties coverage or temporal have to be used.

Created

This property refers to a description of the date or range of the creation of a resource. According to the one-to-one principle this has to be the creation date of the resource being described and not the creation date of any other resource from which the described resource derives (e.g. a former version or a superior resource). So a resource is created only once, every other date of creation belongs to another resource that has to be described on its own.

Issued

This property refers to a description of the date of the formal issuance resp. publication of a resource. A resource is issued only once, every other issuance belongs to another resource that has to be described on its own. If the issuance of a resource is not formal the property "available" should be used.

Available

This property refers to a description of the date a resource did become or will become available. A resource becomes available only once, every other availability belongs to another resource that has to be described on its own. If the availability of a resource starts with the formal issuance resp. publication use "issued".

Modified

This property refers to a description of the date a resource was changed. You may record every date a resource was modified by repeating this property or record only one date (this should be the last one).

Valid

This property refers to a description of the date or range a resource is, was or will be valid. This property should be used if a resource is only valid resp. relevant until a particular date.

DateCopyrighted

This property refers to a description of the date or range of the copyright of the resource.

DateSubmitted

This property refers to a description of the date a resource was submitted (e.g. a thesis at a university department, an article at the editorial board of a journal, etc.).

DateAccepted

This property refers to a description of the date a resource was accepted (e.g. a thesis by a university department, an article by the editorial board of a journal, etc.)

Guidelines for the creation of content for dates

For the structure of date properties we recommend the usage of the W3CDTF profile of ISO 8601 [W3CDTF]. It allows to sort search results by date and facilitates the merging of metadata of different applications.

You should use this encoding for a point in time

created

2003-04-10

W3CDTF

as linked data

but must not use it with a range,

valid

2007-05-06/2007-07-15

as linked data

or when the date is located before the common area.

created

-500

gYear

as linked data

If you need to structure range data, make a distinction of start and end date.

date
	start	2007-05-06"	W3CDTF
	end	2007-07-15	W3CDTF

as linked data

If the complete date is unknown you should use

month and year

available

2006-07

W3CDTF

as linked data

or only the year

issued

2009

W3CDTF

as linked data

If more than one date of the same type (e.g. modified) is recorded, the property must be repeated.

modified	2009-12-22	W3CDTF
modified	2010-01-08	W3CDTF
modified	2010-02-15	W3CDTF

as linked data

Since a resource has only one date of creation, issuance, availability and/or copyright you may repeat the properties created, issued, available and dateCopyrighted only if you want to provide the same date in another structure.

created	1752	W3CDTF
created	probably after 1752

as linked data

If the described date is only approximately known, you may use plain text,

created

aprox. 500 B.C.

as linked data

or describe it.

date
	year	500
	qualifier	approx.
	epoch	B.C.

as linked data

Another date of creation, issuance, availability and/or copyright however belongs to another resource that has to be described on its own. The relation of both resources may be described by one of the relation properties or by source.

title	Population estimates in Scandinavia
created	2004	W3CDTF
source
	title	World health report 2002 statistical annex
	created	2002	W3CDTF

as linked data