[Proposal] CategoryCode as valid type for valueReference for any PropertyValue in Bioschemas/schema.org

Hi everybody,

During the Hackathon event last week with various Biobanks representatives we had the chance to use Bioschemas profiles and types to support BioBanks use cases for metadata sharing.

As you may know, in the Sample profile we proposed a solution for linking ontology terms to a PropertyValue using CategoryCode as valid type for the valueReference field. Note that CategoryCode is already a proposed schema.org <http://schema.org/> type but in the bioschemas/samples specification we propose that it should be an acceptable value for valueReference.

To support BioBank use cases, we are using DataRecord and they need to use the same CategoryCode strategy to describe all the PropertyValue associated with a DataRecord.

In our opinion this is a very strong use case for supporting the use of CategoryCode as valid type for valueReference for any PropertyValue in Bioschemas/schema.org <http://schema.org/>, not only for the Sample profile. We can see this being very useful in other areas where there is a need for a flexible linking of ontology terms to values.

We would like to get your feedback on this.

Best regards,

Luca and Matt