Item talk:Q50862

For the GeoKB, we need some representation of USGS organizational units to link to from associated information. There are no fully comprehensive or absolutely correct representations of the USGS organizational structure online, but the USGS Web does provide how the organization is portrayed to the rest of the world. In keeping with the constraint of only processing and organizing publicly available information, the GeoKB organizes the Web-based representation of USGS organizational units with a little bit of liberty taken on classification in order for the structure to make the most sense within the knowledgebase context.

The following query starts at the classification of "USGS organization" (this item) and shows the subclasses built to provide instance of claims on specific organizational units.

PREFIX wd: <https://geokb.wikibase.cloud/entity/>
PREFIX wdt: <https://geokb.wikibase.cloud/prop/direct/>

SELECT ?item ?itemLabel ?itemDescription ?subclass_of ?subclass_ofLabel
WHERE {
  ?item wdt:P2* wd:Q50862 . # subclass of "USGS organization"
  ?item wdt:P2 ?subclass_of .
  SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "en" }
}

Try it!

The liberties taken here in classification attempt to provide some slightly deeper sense of what the different kinds of organizational units are, building a bit on the USGS Web attempt to show things like "laboratories" and "observatories" beyond the basic designation of "Science Center," which has more to do with budgetary organizational dynamics. We'll work with this over time in practice as we discover the best ways of linking everything together in the graph.

The organizational structure in USGS changes through time, from the organization of Programs (appropriated funding line items) to Regions and Science Centers. The Wikibase structure offers an opportunity to organize this changing structure with respect to time-based qualifiers that indicate when specific organizational dynamics are or were current. Things like the Mission Areas under which Programs are organized or the Regions in which Science Centers are defined change through time. Currently, we are employing "point in time" qualifiers to indicate the year that a claim is/was considered to be true. We are not attempting to "recreate history" with this approach but will use it as a point-forward way of keeping some track of organizational change.