Re: Modelling Course and CourseOffering

Thanks Richard, I had wondered about the relationship between 
CourseOffering and the existing Offer type. After thinking about Alan 
Paulls query around cost, I think they might be different things. A 
single CouseOffering might have several costs, depending on the student. 
So they would be distinct instances of schema.org:Offer but not of 
CourseOffering. That would suggest to me that CourseOffering would have 
the (repeatable) schema.org:offers property.

A definition of CourseOffering might help. Several other specs make the 
distinction between abstract and concrete aspects of courses the 
relevant definitions are:
XCRI-CAP BS 8581-1:2012 : “the course offered at a specific time and 
place, or through specific media”

MLO-Advertising CWA 15903 : "A single occurrence of a learning 
opportunity. Unlike a Learning Opportunity Specification, a Learning 
Opportunity Instance is not abstract, may be bound to particular dates 
or locations, and may be applied for or participated in by learners."

CEDS: "A setting in which organized instruction of course content is 
provided to one or more students for a given period of time. Note: A 
Course may be offered to more than one Course Section. Instruction may 
be delivered in person by one or more instructors or via a different 
medium. Sections that share space should be considered as separate 
Course Sections if they function as separate units for more than 50 
percent of the time."

One option would be to define CourseOffering in such a way that it match 
schema.org's Offer, something like: "the course offered at a specific 
time and place, or through specific media, at a specific price depending 
on the learner" But I don't like this: it would lead to unnecessary 
duplication of all the properties of a CourseOffering except for price.

It's also worth considering whether the name CourseOffering is a poor 
choice of name if it leads to confusing assertions like 
schema.org:CourseOffering schema.org:offers schema.org:Offer.

Phil

On 10/02/2016 14:55, Richard Wallis wrote:
> The use of Course and CourseOffering suggests an affinity with an 
> already established well used pattern in Schema.org.
>
> That pattern is based around the Offer <http://schema.org/Offer> 
> type.  This enables the modelling/describing of the relationship 
> between a thing being offered (e.g.. a Course) and the 
> Person/Organization (University ?) offering that thing under certain 
> circumstances - cost, availability, eligibility, etc.
>
> Several types (Product, Service, CreativeWork, Event) have an offers 
> <http://schema.org/offers> property “/An offer to provide this 
> item—for example, an offer to sell a product, rent the DVD of a movie, 
> perform a service, or give away tickets to an event./” This could easy 
> be also added to Course.  Person & Organisation have a makesOffer 
> property that enables the description of the reverse relationship.
>
> This pattern allows an Organisation to describe multiple offers for 
> the same thing - just as we are discussing multiple instances of the 
> same course.  It also would allow the description of multiple 
> organisations offering the same thing - this would be ideal for a site 
> identifying which institutions offer the course a student is searching 
> for.
>
> By creating a CourseOffer subtype of Offer, we could accommodate 
> course specific elements of the relationship, whilst being able to use 
> the already established mechanism in Schema.org to accommodate many of 
> our needs.
>
> ~Richard.
>
> Richard Wallis
> Founder, Data Liberate
> http://dataliberate.com
> Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/richardwallis
> Twitter: @rjw
>
> On 9 February 2016 at 23:30, Developer, SleepingDog 
> <developer@sleepingdog.org.uk <mailto:developer@sleepingdog.org.uk>> 
> wrote:
>
>     Hi Phil
>
>     Thanks for your clarifications. I am happy with your
>     interpretations of my feedback, your recent wiki additions and
>     with the Course and CourseOffering parent-child model proposed
>     (+1). I guess if that is acceptable then the relevant properties
>     of each will follow a similar pattern to existing schemas: Course
>     would have things like qualifications and level; CourseOffering
>     would have temporal/spatial/attendance-related properties. I will
>     need to look existing schema.org <http://schema.org> properties.
>
>     I have no strong views about the Intangible or CreativeWork
>     decision. I guess that some courses could effectively be just
>     (collections of) authored learning objects that someone could
>     choose to take at any time or place, which could lean towards
>     CreativeWork; but then again, some other courses could be more
>     like participation in some kind of event (or series of events,
>     maybe like driving lessons), which leans towards Intangible. I
>     just don’t know (+0).
>
>
>     Tavis Reddick
>
>
>     > On 09 Feb 2016, at 13:02, Phil Barker <phil.barker@hw.ac.uk
>     <mailto:phil.barker@hw.ac.uk>> wrote:
>     >
>     > Consensus seems limited at the moment to
>     > - we need a schema.org <http://schema.org> type: Course
>     > - there are abstract and concrete aspects of courses, i.e. the
>     (abstract ) thing that is offered year after year and
>     instantiations of it that run between set dates and at set
>     locations (on- or offline)
>     >
>     > Open for discussion:
>     > - should Course be a subtype of Intangible or CreativeWork
>     > - is there a need for a separate type for the instantiation?
>     >  --if there is need, can we agree to call it a CourseOffering?
>
>
>
>

-- 
Phil Barker           @philbarker
LRMI, Cetis, ICBL     http://people.pjjk.net/phil
Heriot-Watt University

Workflow: http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/~philb/workflow/



----- 
We invite research leaders and ambitious early career researchers to 
join us in leading and driving research in key inter-disciplinary themes. 
Please see www.hw.ac.uk/researchleaders for further information and how
to apply.

Heriot-Watt University is a Scottish charity
registered under charity number SC000278.

Received on Wednesday, 10 February 2016 15:45:08 UTC