<compound-subject> Compound Subject Name

Wrapper element to hold all the parts of a multi-part subject (for example, a subject term and the code representing that term).

Usage/Remarks

Attribute Best Practice

If the content of the <compound-subject> element is a term from a controlled vocabulary (ontology, taxonomy, term-list, vocabulary, industry glossary, or other known source), the vocabulary attributes should be used to identify that source. The source named can be a formal ontology or an informal field of study. The specific term can also be referenced in the source, using the vocabulary term identification attributes.
Vocabulary Identification Attributes
Two attributes are used in this Tag Set to identify a vocabulary. If these attributes have already been used on <subj-group>, they need not be repeated on each <compound-subject>.
vocab
Name of the controlled or uncontrolled vocabulary, taxonomy, ontology, index, database, or similar that is the source of the term. For example, for a subject term, a value might be the IPC Codes (“ipc”) or MESH headings (“mesh”). For an uncontrolled term, the value might be an area of study such as “medical-devices” or merely the word “uncontrolled”.
vocab-identifier
Unique identifier of the vocabulary, such as (but not limited to) a URI or DOI. For example, for Dublin Core (DCC), the identifier may be “http://dublincore.org/documents/2012/06/14/dces/”.
Vocabulary Term Identification Attributes
Two attributes are used in this Tag Set to identify an individual term from a vocabulary (controlled or an uncontrolled):
vocab-term
The content of the element is the display version of the vocabulary or taxonomic term. The @vocab-term attribute holds the canonical version of the same term, as it appears in the vocabulary.
vocab-term-identifier
Unique identifier of the term within a specific vocabulary, such as (but not limited to) an item number, a URI, DOI, etc.
Related Elements
The <compound-subject> may be used if a subject has multiple parts, but need not be used unless both parts need to be captured:
  • If a subject is only a word or phrase (Neuroscience, Physical Sciences), the simple <subject> element can be used to capture this information (<subject>Neuroscience</subject> or <subject>Physical Sciences</subject>).
  • If a subject contains both a term and a code (A11 Permeability) but only one of those objects needs to be captured, a <subject> element may still be used, to record either the code (<subject>A11</subject>) or the subject (<subject>Permeability</subject>). If such a compound subject is considered to be a single subject, the <subject> element may also be used: <subject>A11 Permeability</subject>.
  • If a subject contains both a term and a code, and it is useful to record both the code and the term separately, each can be captured as a <compound-subject-part> inside a <compound-subject>. (See tagged examples below.)
Attributes

Base Attributes

Models and Context
May be contained in
Description
Content Model
<!ELEMENT  compound-subject
                        %compound-subject-model;                     >
Expanded Content Model

(compound-subject-part+)

Related Resources