Interactions, Social Relationships and Memberships of Persons

Profile description and usage

Description

This profile includes classes and properties that express interactions between people and memberships of people in groups or organisations.

Find here the profile description on OntoME.

Hint: This profile is often used in combination with the profiles :

• Professional life,

• Intellectual and literary life,

• Social and legal qualities of a person,

• Higher Education Teaching / Education.

Main classes of this profile

Main classes & properties	Use cases
Person's interaction	--> Use this class to record the interaction of persons in time and physical (generally geographical) space. Each interaction is to be understood as a one-time encounter/meeting of persons, e.g. a conversation between Einstein and Niels Bohr during a congress.
Social relationship	--> Use this class to record a more or less active social relation between people, groups or countries as it is perceived in the context of specific social representations. Phenomenons like a friendship, marriage, apprenticeship can be classified as "social relationships".
Group	--> Use this class to record a gathering of people, which exhibits organisational 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. E.g. the impressionists, the university of Oxford, the Greeks, King Solomon and his wives…
Membership	--> Use this class to record the fact that a person or an organization belongs to a group during a given time span.
Joining / Leaving	--> Theses classes comprise the activities that result in an instance of an actor becoming a member of a Group / being disassociated from a Group. E.g. Sir Isaac Newton's election as Member of Parliament for the University of Cambridge to the Convention Parliament in 1689 / the end of his duty as member of the same institution in 1702.

Most common use cases

Detail someone's membership in a group

If you want to record that a person was part of an informal group or an institution, for example a footballer joining a club, you can proceed as follow :

Step 1) Create a group

If the group to which the person belonged is not already recorded in your project, create a new group by clicking on "Entities" > "add" > "Group".

Learn more about groups and how to use this class here.

Step 2) Add a membership

For instance, Lionel Messi joining the FC Barcelona

Record a person's membership

• On the person's card, click on the "+" button, on the right of the field "is member of" (don't forget to use the Edit mode).

• In the form that appears, click on the "+" button on the right of the field "Group (organization)".

• On the right side of the new form, select the group you previously created.

"Joining" / "leaving" a group

• You can create a new "joining" and/or "leaving" entity at the same that you record a person's membership, by using the "+" buttons of the corresponding fields. You should then re-indicate the group in question (the same as the membership) and the person joining or leaving (again, the same person as in the membership process).

• You can also create a new "joining" and/or "leaving" entity anytime, by clicking on "Entities" > "add" > "Joining" / "Leaving"

A group can also join another group : for example, Switzerland's membership in the U.N. (2002).

Inform about a social relation between different entities

Interactions between persons

Create a new interaction

• Create a new interaction by clicking on "Entities" > "add" > "Person's interaction".

• In the form that appears, click on the "+" button on the right of the field "Is interaction of".

• On the right side of the new form, select a "person" entity that you previously created. Once it is done, repeat the process to add a second person.

• Name the interaction (for example: Conversation between Thomas More and Thomas Wolsey), and add other informations that you have, such as the time or the place that the interaction took place.

Create a new interaction from a person's card

• It is preferable for the moment to record person's interactions by creating a new "person's interaction" as described in the first tab, rather than clicking on the "+" button of the "interacts in" field on a person's card (you might face issues to precise the other persons involved in the interaction).

Record an established relationship between two actors

For example: the friendship between Thomas More and Erasmus.

Create a new social relationship type

• Create a new social relationship type by clicking on "Entities" > "add" > "Social relationship type".

• Name and define the type of relationship (for example: Friendship).

Record a relationship between two persons

• Create a new "Social relationship" entity by clicking on "Entities" > "add" > "Social relationship".

• Use the "involves partner" field to add the persons concerned by the relationship. Click on the "+" button on the right of the field, and select a person you previously created on the right side of the form. Repeat the process to add a second person.

• Click on the "Advanced form" button.

• In the "Basics" category, select the relationship type you previously created in the drop-down menu under the "has relationship type" field (in this example : friendship).

• If you want to, you can name and define the relationship, and add other informations, such as the time frame in which it occurred.

• The relationship now appears on the person's cards, under the specific field "has social relationship". As for the other properties, you can click on the star on the left to see the details of this "social relationship" entity.

Notice that the two selected persons should appear under the "involves partner" field

Profile overview

The details of each classes and properties can be found on the OntoMe webpage of the profile.

Overview of the "Interactions, Social Relationships and Memberships of Persons" profile structure