Re: XDMDL Call-06

Hi Aswini,

Glad you enjoyed the call - I did too.

I would like to understand better your proposal below. Are you making a distinction between the runtime data and the metadata?

One of the issues that came up in our discussions in LETSI on "Learning Activity Definition" is different meanings of "activity". It can mean a template, an activity definition, as in "we'll start the lesson with a plenary and then split into a group discussion". Or it can mean the event itself, what happens in a particular place, at a particular time, with particular participants.

The xAPI runtime data describes an activity in the second sense - the particular event - while the Learning Activity Definition (which I would call metadata in a more traditional sense) describes the activity in the first sense - as a template. Are you talking about getting data back from an activity about what happened when the activity was run in a particular case - or general information about the activity template (e.g. what is the range of marks that might be awarded etc)?

When we talk about modelling, I think there are also two senses in which we can use this term.

1. My objective for this group is a modelling language that will be machine readable and precise in the sense of providing a schema that can be used to specify interoperability. That may require the development of a new specification (or it may allow us to use existing specifications).

2. We can also model our ideas more informally, as a way of exploring use cases. It is in this sense that I have been using UML - but I don't think the format in this case is important. We could just sketch out our ideas on the back of an envelope and scan them.

I would love to get people contributing use-cases and modelling them diagrammatically. That is what I was trying to use UML for. But, as we discussed on the call with Avron, there might be two sorts of diagram: what I have been calling topologies - i.e. the entitities in a system and the relationships between them - and then the processes and workflows. There is a piece on modelling workflows in UML at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activity_diagram. And on class diagrams at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_diagram. I have used a version of the class diagram in my draft documents on the wiki.

I will try and create a couple of UML diagrams that model standard SCORM 1.2 - both as a class/entity diagram and as a workflow. Perhaps you might be able to model your use case in the same way? We could then try and model standard xAPI and ADB too?

I have added a section on the wiki at http://wiki.saltis.org/display/XDMDL/Use+cases for people to add their modelling diagrams. But I'll go first.
Best,
Crispin


On 1 May 2015, Aswini Sridhar <ashumeow@live.com> wrote:
> 
> Hey everybody,
> Today’s meeting was great. It was nice hearing people talk and discuss on their view-points. Sorry that i couldn’t speak, but i was listening.
> While reading the xAPI spec, i noticed mainly that activity metadata is stored in JSON. But, i don’t find any dataset. It’s possible to build a dataset from JSON that helps in retrieving the data records through simple querying. What do you all think about it?
> 
> Regards,
> Aswini.S
> 
> From: Crispin Weston <crispin.weston@saltis.org>
> Sent: ‎Friday‎, ‎01‎ ‎May‎ ‎2015 ‎14‎:‎47
> To: <public-xdmdl@w3.org>
> Cc: Jonathan Poltrack <jonathan.poltrack.ctr@adlnet.gov>, Andrew Downes <andrew.downes@tincanapi.com>
> When: ‎01‎ ‎May‎ ‎2015 ‎19‎:‎30 – ‎20‎:‎30
> Where: join.me/saltis_call, see conference numbers in the invitation
> 
> Good morning all,
> 
> Apologies for the late notice for today's XDMDL call. We have a mixed agenda, which includes an opportunity to continue the discussion about Jono's very interesting presentation of the ADL SCORM profile of xAPI (as requested by Aswini!), a briefing from Jason on his work in his vocabulary group (the full presentation will be given in a future session), and a discussion about next steps.
> 
> The agenda is at http://wiki.saltis.org/display/XDMDL/Call-06 and my (as yet unedited and somewhat disorganised) minutes of last week's presentation are at http://wiki.saltis.org/display/XDMDL/Call-05.
> 
> Looking forward to speaking later.
> 
> Best, Crispin.
> 
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