Invitation to participate in COST Action on Linked Data for Education [via Open Linked Education Community Group]

Dear all,

We would like to invite you - all members of the W3C OpenEd Community Group - to
participate in a COST Action Proposal on Linked Data in Education/Learning, i.e
on a topic of particular relevance for this group. While COST networks are open
to all individuals/organisations working in the area, we would see this as a
particular opportunity, to support the activities of this W3C community group
with some (limited) funds, for instance, to organise joint events or support
research visits and exchanges.

This action proposal is led by one of our group members, Mari Carmen
Suárez-Figueroa, and targets the current call (deadline is 24th March; see
here). The main goal of this type of project is to create a long-term network
on a focused topic. The provisional title is “Educational Linked Data for all
(EduLD4All)” and the main objectives are summarized in the text copied
below. Proposals for COST actions are reasonably lightweight, so you should not
expect this to require major efforts on your part.

If successful, this action could become a good umbrella to facilitate
group-related activities, collaborations and related initiatives.

We would be glad about seeing many members of this group participating. If you
decide to be on board, Mari-Carmen will share the proposal document and would be
looking forward to your feedback and comments. In order to avoid spamming the
list, please feel free to contact Mari Carmen directly, rather than responding
to this list.

Looking forward to receive your response.

Mari Carmen Suárez-Figueroa, Stefan Dietze, Mathieu d’Aquin

ProposalSummary

Educational Linked Data (EduLD) are becoming more and more useful for different
levels and stakeholders in the educational community (teachers, students,
families, and  management personnel) and for different purposes (e.g., to help
teachers to find and create educational materials, to assist students and
families in their educational decisions throughout their life, to improve
management systems used in educative organizations). However, for such usages
to reach their potential impact, a coordinate initiative is needed to ensure
high quality data is available that covers the wide range of relevant area, and
that applications are developed that demonstrates their benefits. This action
will promote educational linked data creation and usage across the EU through
the so-called EduLD Feedback Loop:

1. Evidence Stage - to gather requirements and critical aspects for educational
linked data: which data are useful to have in the LD cloud? and which key
applications would we need to use such data? The idea here is to involve
different educational communities (universities, schools, colleges, educational
companies, etc.) and different user and skill levels in educational
organizations (teachers, technical people, management people, students, etc.)

2. Connection Stage - to obtain the current picture of existing datasets and
applications and how they are related each other. The main objective here is to
have a map/observatory that helps us to analyze the gap: what is missing with
respect to the requirements gathered

3. Relevance Stage - to create a collection of datasets and applications that
covers at some point the identified gap. The idea here is to prioritize the
requirements and the gaps and to focus on a limited set of needs. in the
previous stage and to build a map between datasets and applications (existing
ones or news in both cases)

4. Outcome Stage - to propose and observe the use of both datasets
and applications in diverse educational communities and by different levels in
such communities

5. Testimonial Stage - to collect evidences of the efficacy and effectiveness
of using Linked Data datasets and applications for different aims (to improve
educational skills of students and professional skills of teachers, to help
people to take right decisions in their educational life, etc.). These findings
will be gather by means of practical evaluation (using questionnaires). The
findings are measured and the feedback loop can start again.

In summary, the objective of this action is to gather a community around
educational linked data, including education, linked data and technology enhance
learning practitioner to effectively implement the EduLD feedback loop across
dozens of organisations and initiatives in Europe.

 



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'Invitation to participate in COST Action on Linked Data for Education'

https://www.w3.org/community/opened/2015/03/06/invitation-to-participate-in-cost-action-on-linked-data-for-education/



Learn more about the Open Linked Education Community Group: 

https://www.w3.org/community/opened

Received on Friday, 6 March 2015 18:03:00 UTC