Re: schema-course-extend: credential or award offered through course.

I agree with Richard in part.

First, the work on Course should *not be delayed* while the matter of a
credential type in schema.org is ironed out. So, with regard to Phil's
question #2, I think we should pick up on Richard's suggestion and declare
a rangeIncludes of Text and URL. However, I believe that Dan already
changed the range to Thing  in 'pending' because of technical issues with
referencing a non-existent type (regardless of what it is labeled).

Richard, as for the property name grantsCredential, I'd rather go for
something a little "softer" like relatedCredential partially for the
reasons you state--i.e. that an instance of Course does not "grant", some
authoritative agent does that. Second, while it is not impossible for a
single instance of Course to lead to Credential, that is most frequently
not the case in formal educational contexts. *However*, if we interpret the
current definition of Course to include a set/sequence of Courses ("...a
sequence of one or more educational events and/or creative works...") then
it can be akin to "course of study/degree/trainingl program" where the
result of successful completion is an instance of a (yet-to-be-defined)
Credential.

Stuart



On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 2:10 AM, Richard Wallis <
richard.wallis@dataliberate.com> wrote:

> Seeing the somewhat involved discussion around the description of
> credentials I envisage either the overall Course proposal (V1.0) being
> delayed by it or; the credential proposals not being addressed fully.
>
> Pragmatically I propose that initially the property is defined with a
> rangeIncludes of Text & URL.  This will provide the initial ability to at
> least reference credentials.  Following on, a full broad discussion will
> result in a well thought through proposal for a new Credential [or
> alternatively named] Type.  Part of that proposal being to extend the range
> of the Course property to include this new type.
>
> As to the currently proposed Course property name ‘grantsCredential’, we
> still have the question of if ‘credential’ is a good term.  Even if we
> agree it is, I have a concern about ‘grants’.   The Course does not
> *grant* a qualification, that is done by an organisation -
> completing/passing the course leads to the granting of the associated
> qualification.
>
> ~Richard.
>
> Richard Wallis
> Founder, Data Liberate
> http://dataliberate.com
> Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/richardwallis
> Twitter: @rjw
>
> On 16 June 2016 at 09:40, Phil Barker <phil.barker@hw.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>>
>> Hello all, [apologies if you receive this twice, the message I sent
>> yesterday seems to have disappeared]
>>
>> We have a use case for the schema course extension that user should be
>> able to find a course that offers a qualification the searcher would like
>> to acquire hence a requirement that it must be able to identify the
>> qualification offered to those completing a course, see
>> http://bit.ly/sce-us2 .
>>
>> The current proposal has a grantsCredential property of Course with
>> expected (but undefined) type of Credential see,
>> http://course.schema-course-extend.appspot.com/grantsCredential
>>
>> There has been quite an involved discussion on github over the last few
>> weeks around how to describe credentials, starting at
>> https://github.com/schemaorg/schemaorg/issues/195#issuecomment-220588244
>> The modelling of qualifications, awards, credentials clearly goes beyond
>> the modelling of courses and is being addressed else where (see the git hub
>> conversation for references to Credential Transparency Initiative,
>> OpenBadges, blockchain in credentialling etc.)
>>
>> I would like to gauge opinion on two issues:
>> 1. the name credential is proving problematic as to many it associates
>> with security credential, cryptography, etc. It would be useful to find an
>> alternative.
>>
>> 2. What is the minimum that we need to do in order to deal with the link
>> from Courses to credential/qualification/award offered in such a way that
>> it meets our use case and can be picked up by those looking specifically at
>> educational credentials.
>>
>> Bear in mind Richard Wallis's advice of last week concerning "what should
>> be in Course 1.0" where he advises that fine detail be left for future
>> refinements.
>> https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-schema-course-extend/2016Jun/0015.html
>>
>> I am hoping that the answer is something like a property of course called
>> something like grantsCredential or offersEducationalAward which has an
>> expected type text or CreativeWork or a named but otherwise empty subtype
>> of CreativeWork.
>>
>>
>> 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.
>>
>>
>>
>