RE: Course, a new dawn?

Before looking at anyone else's replies: I think this approach has a lot of merit.  Having coursePresentation as a Course is a good solution IMHO, as it makes things a lot simpler to implement.  A similar approach was used in our (old) InteropAbility Competence project, and it worked well on our test implementations.

Some minor comments:

courseCredits / courseCreditsUnit:  this seems to cover number of credits and the credit Scheme, though it's not clear on whether it covers credit level as well (could be subsumed under courseCreditsUnit?).  I suggest modifying courseCredits, either to include both credit value (a number) and credit level or split it into two parts - courseCreditsLevel, courseCreditsValue.  See CEN CWA on Educational Credit Model (example: http://www.alanpaull.co.uk/xcri/web/wiki/indexphp/Credit.html).  I would marginally favour splitting it, so that identification is easier.  The Educational Credit Model referred to here has creditLevel, creditScheme and creditValue to cover each of the 3 parts separately.

estimatedWorkload - pet hate warning! Can we have definitions that don't use the term they're defining? "A description of the estimated actual hours of study, including both contact time and personal study."

grantsCredential - "A certificate, award, or other statement granted upon successfully completing the Course."

---

An example of a UK HE qualification-bearing course:
Course
  Thing > name: MSc in Space Science and Technology
  Thing > url: http://www.open.ac.uk/postgraduate/qualifications/f77

  courseCode: F77
  courseCredits: 180
  courseCreditsLevel (added): Postgraduate (M)
  courseCreditsUnit: The Open University Credit Scheme
  courseMode: Distance Learning
  coursePrerequisites: Entry to this qualification will typically require a minimum of an honours degree...
  CreativeWork > about: Key features of the course...
  CreativeWork > audience: This postgraduate qualification is designed for those with an academic or professional interest in space science...
  CreativeWork > award: MSc
  CreativeWork > educationalAlignment: Postgraduate
  CreativeWork > hasPart: Space Science (S818), Managing technological innovation (T848) ...
  CreativeWork > learningResourceType: Course
  CreativeWork > provider: The Open University
  Event > duration: 2 to 7 years
  grantsCredential:     MSc in Space Science and Technology

This example doesn't include presentations, because a complication of the OU qualification-based courses is that specific offerings (and payments) are done by modules, not by qualifications. We've found in the past that if we can handle OU courses, then others are simpler.

An OU module: 
Course
  Thing > name: Space Science
  Thing > url: http://www.open.ac.uk/postgraduate/modules/s818

  courseCode: S818
  courseCredits: 60
  courseCreditsLevel (added): Postgraduate (M)
  courseCreditsUnit: The Open University Credit Scheme
  courseMode: Distance Learning
  coursePrerequisites: We would typically expect students to have...
  CreativeWork > about: This module begins by introducing some of the basic concepts of space-flight ...
  CreativeWork > educationalAlignment: OU - Postgraduate; SCQF: 11; FHEQ: 7
  CreativeWork > isPartOf: MSc in Space Science (F77)
  CreativeWork > learningResourceType: Course
  CreativeWork > provider: The Open University
  Event > duration: 9 months
       coursePresentation:
 Event > startDate: 28 January 2016
   Event > endDate: October 2016
 Event > offers: Scotland fee £2041.00
 Event > offers: England fee £2041.00
 Event > offers: Outside Europe fee: £3049.00

In this example, the web page is just showing the next presentation, rather than a list of all future ones.  If an institution wished to show a list (cf. Tavis'), then the coursePresentation information could be duplicated readily.

We also have the ability to link the modules and qualifications with hasPart and isPartOf, which is very interesting.

Alan

-----Original Message-----
From: Phil Barker [mailto:phil.barker@hw.ac.uk] 
Sent: 25 February 2016 17:48
To: public-schema-course-extend@w3.org
Subject: Course, a new dawn?


Well, that got complicated & confusing.

Richard and I had a chat this afternoon, he suggested we try something different. Briefly, it is to try a new starting point (and I hope I have interpreted correctly):

Do not have separate types for Course and CourseOffering.

Define Course as a subtype of both Creative Work and Event, which can be used for both the abstract description and the concrete instances.

Define a coursePresentation property of Course to relate the concrete instances to the abstract description when necessary. (I guess and inverse property might useful).

When describing a concrete instance of a course, declare it to be both a Course and an Offer. This allows the use of price, offeredBy, ApplyAction and so on.

There is an mock-up of this at
http://course.schema-course-extend-rjwprop.appspot.com/Course If you scroll right down to the bottom there are a couple of examples as Google testing tool output (more or less human readable) and RDFa.

Any comments on this as a general approach? Does it make enough of a distinction between a Course and its Sections/Presentations/Offerings for it to be clear to people who care about such a distinction?

Don't worry too much about details of the properties that are currently in the mock-up, that could lead more rabbit holes prematurely.

Phil

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

Heriot-Watt University

Ubuntu: http://xkcd.com/456/

   not so much an operating system as a learning opportunity.

Received on Friday, 26 February 2016 10:42:49 UTC