Here is a series of frequently asked questions about the CAPACOA membership form and renewal process.
How long does my CAPACOA membership last and for which period does it apply?
Your CAPACOA membership lasts 12 months. For accounting and administrative reasons, the CAPACOA membership period coincides with the association’s fiscal year, which begins on April 1 and ends on March 31 of the following year. For current members, any membership renewal payment made between April 1 and March 31 of the following year is deemed to apply to a twelve-month period starting April 1 and ending March 31, no matter when the payment is made during this period.
Do I lose my membership status when it expires on April 1st?
No. Even though all CAPACOA memberships technically expire on April 1, current members are considered members in good standing for a grace period that extends until July 31 of every year. Then, when the membership is renewed, it applies retroactively from April 1.
What is the “Type” field about?
This field explicitly and unambiguously states whether your member record describes an organization or a person.
By “organization”, we mean: “a structured group of people, united by a common purpose.” This includes both groups that are formally structured as a legal body (e.g., a not-for-profit corporation) as well as those that are informally structured, but otherwise act together. This concept is equivalent to the class ado:Organization.
By “person”, we mean: “a physical person (alive, dead or fictional)”. This includes an artist primarily identified by their stage name. This concept is equivalent to the class foaf:Person.
Assigning an explicit type to each database record is an important step in CAPACOA’s Membership Open Data Strategy.
Why do we have to provide our organization’s operating name(s), legal name and “Also known as” name?
People who search for your organization over the web or in databases may look you up under more than one name. We want to make sure people can easily find your organization no matter what name they search.
Moreover, knowing all names and identifiers by which your organization is known makes it easier to synchronize your CAPACOA record with other records about your organization. That way, when CAPACOA pushes your organization’s record in other databases (as part of our open data strategy), we can make sure that we don’t create duplicate entries.
Just for absolute clarity:
- Your username is your account name to login to the CAPACOA website. Members often chose to abbreviate the organization name to create a simple username.
- Your operating name(s) is the usual name you use in your day-to-day activities.
- The legal name is the name that you would use on official forms such as an annual return.
- The “also known as” name can be an acronym, an abbreviation, a former name or any other alternative name commonly used to designate the organization.
Why does CAPACOA ask members to provide their Business Number?
How can I retrieve my organization’s business number?
The business number is a unique identifier for businesses and legal entities in Canada. Unique IDs are super helpful for verifying and matching records across different datasets. The business number can serve multiple purposes. For example, your business number and your organization information can be used by Statistics Canada to deliver more accurate statistics on the performing arts sector.
The business number is a nine digit identifier. You can find it in your organization’s HST/GST number or charity number. Take the first nine digits, leave the RT or RR suffix out, and that’s your business number.
Note: If you have a hard time retrieving your organization’s business number, don’t let that stop you from joining CAPACOA! Just leave it blank, submit your form and come back later to provide the correct business number.
What is a “Wikidata ID” and how can I retrieve it?
The Wikidata identifier is a persistent identifier assigned to each “item” (i.e., entry) in Wikidata. It makes it possible to unambiguously distinguish an item from another item with a similar name. Each Wikidata ID has a matching URL that resolves to the web page of the corresponding item.
CAPACOA’s Wikidata ID is: Q85541788. Its full URL is: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q85541788.
Wikidata is a free, open and multilingual knowledge base. It is an important source of information for search engines, because it excels at establishing hyperlinks with Wikipedia and with hundreds of external databases. That’s why we sometimes refer to the Wikidata ID as a “bridge identifier”.
You can look up your Wikidata ID by conducting a search at wikidata.org. The search engine is in the top right corner of the page.
Be mindful that both your organization and your venue(s) may have distinct Wikidata IDs. Be sure to retrieve the right ID for the right field in the membership form.
Once you find your organization Wikidata item (and/or venue item), next to its name, you will see in brackets a series of characters starting with the letter Q. That’s your Wikidata ID.
If your organization doesn’t have a Wikidata ID, don’t worry. We’ll create one for you. That’s one of the benefits of being a CAPACOA member!
How can I add images to my member profile?
In order to enhance your member profile with an image, you must make this image available under a free-use license via Wikimedia Commons and then link the image to your Wikidata item by adding an image statement (as in this example). The image will be automatically retrieved and added to your member profile. If there are multiple images on your Wikidata item(s), promote one of them to the preferred rank so that the software powering the LIVE Performing Arts Directory will know which one to choose.
We have chosen to use Wikimedia Commons as a media repository for multiple reasons. The main one is that Wikimedia Commons is an excellent platform to enhance the digital discoverability of the performing arts.
You can find out more about Wikimedia Commons in this one-pager.
If you need help uploading a photo to Wikimedia Commons, do not hesitate to ask the CAPACOA team. We will be pleased to assist you!
Why is my consent required to display my member information in the directory? What will happen if I do not agree with the terms and conditions of the open data strategy?
CAPACOA’s LIVE Performing Arts Directory is entirely powered by open data. In order to be displayed in the directory, your information must first be transformed into linked open data and it must then be uploaded to the Artsdata knowledge graph, where it will be assembled with other available open data. In addition, information in the directory is published under the Creative Commons 0 license, which means anyone can freely access and use its information. If you are not comfortable having your member information transformed and disclosed as open data, then you should not feel comfortable having it displayed in the directory.
If you do not give your consent, your member name will still be listed in the main directory listing as a member in good standing, but no member profile page will be attached to it.