Re: EOCred: Identify the level of a credential

I'll let Robby chime in and explain my understanding of Level better than I
can.

Level has at least three senses of the word that are applicable, that I
have found.

   - There is a general sense of someone's capability as defined by a
   level, such as a novice, beginner, intermediate, journeyman, advanced,
   expert, professional, etc. *Sometimes* these have formal (but not
   necessarily specific) definitions, but much of the time they are just
   labels for a person's capability in that credential. They don't take much,
   if any expertise to identify or understand though, and that makes them
   useful to non-practitioners. I see this as being used more in competencies
   and less in credentials, but I am including it for contrast.

   - There's a formal and specific sense of someone's capability in breadth
   and depth in this credential and a subset of more granular courses or other
   competency granting things. These are most commonly ascribed to
   credentials. A *Bachelor's of Science* in Software Engineering indicates
   so many credit hours of mandatory technical, social, math, etc, so many
   credit hours of elective classes, and additional projects. That is, the
   credential's level indicates the courses and competencies obtained.

   Note: It is often correct to think of these as different credentials,
   since an Associate's degree and a Bachelor's degree have different
   requirements, but they are both in the same domain, so thinking of them as
   levels is common.

   - And then there's a technical and specific sense of someone's
   capability, which could be considered "SMART" -- Specific, Measurable,
   Achievable, Realistic and Time-Oriented. A *Summa Cum Laude* Bachelor's
   of Science in Software Engineering includes the implication of an algorithm
   or rubric (in this case of the individual's GPA) and the measurement
   against some thresholds (3.85 / 4.0 and above). Awards for Olympic
   achievements like breaking the Olympic record, for instance, include this
   sense.

   Note: It is often impractical to think of these as different
   credentials, since each Olympic record breaking credential would require a
   different description for its specific 'credential'.

I don't pretend to have definitive nomenclature for each of these (and I'm
not sure anyone does), but "Naive/General Level, (Tiers, Ranks, Levels),
and Performance Level" tend to be accepted.

I'd describe the first definition with _just_ short strings or terms, the
middle definition with links to more specific credentials, and the latter
with some sort of performance profile, like a rubric, or performance
record, like the data indicating someone broke an Olympic record.

Note: The third definition may be outside current capabilities to describe.
I already accept this.

On Tue, Feb 13, 2018 at 4:24 AM, Phil Barker <phil.barker@pjjk.co.uk> wrote:

> Thank you for all the discussion so far. I have tried to summarise where
> we are with describing the level of a credential in a draft on the wiki
> <https://www.w3.org/community/eocred-schema/wiki/User:Philbarker/Draft:Educational_level_of_a_credential>.
> I have gone with direct references to terms that described educational
> levels, without any AlignmentObjecting
>
> In doing so I have tried not to refer to credentials explicitly, because I
> think this property might be useful for Courses and learning resources in
> general, but I am open to input on that if you think that it makes the
> definition unnecessarily vague.
>
> The main issue I see is whether educationalLevel is the right name. If it
> is not, I suspect that Robbie has started writing his reply before reading
> this far :) I am very open to wording from people involved in occupational
> credentialling and workplace learning for wording that is more inviting to
> their community.
> As ever, all comments welcome.  Phil
>
>
> [draft educationaLevel] https://www.w3.org/community/
> eocred-schema/wiki/User:Philbarker/Draft:Educational_level_of_a_credential
>
>
> On 07/02/18 12:27, Phil Barker wrote:
>
> The next use case I would like to discuss is around identifying the level
> of an educational / occupational credential currently stated as: it should
> be possible to search or review results of a search by specific credential
> level, e.g. post-graduate, High school, entry, intermediate, advanced.
>
> To do this we need to be able to relate an educational / occupational
> credential to a description or representation of an educational level. I
> see two options for this:
>
> A. we do the same as is currently done for learning resources and courses
> and use the educationalAlignement <http://schema.org/educationalAlignment>property
> to point to an AlignmentObject <http://schema.org/AlignmentObject> which
> in turn points to and/or describes an educational level.
>
> B. we add a new property educationalLevel which could point to either an
> AlignmentObject or directly to a DefinedTerm for the educational level.
>
> I'm interested in anyone's thoughts on which they would prefer.
>
>
> =A bit of background to the AlignmentObject.=
>
> - the educationalAlignment / AligmentObject pairing is useful when you
> don't want to pre-define and thus limit types of alignments involved by
> having a few properties for specific alignments (that's at the root of why
> LRMI introduced it, here we have a specific alignment type we know we want.)
>
> - the AlignmentObject is useful when the thing to which you are aligning
> is not properly defined a a firstclass schema.org object; it allows you
> to refer to it by description
>
> - the AlignmentObject is useful when you want to say things about the
> alignment itself (e.g. describe who asserts the alignment is true and how
> they came to this judgement) though this ability is under developed and to
> my knowledge not used
>
> - research <https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3054160>[*] into LRMI
> schema.org markup in the wild suggests that the AlignmentObject (and
> relatively more complex / abstract approaches in general) are used less
> frequently than simpler property - value [literal] relationships.
>
> - the Open Badges spec uses an alignment property to point from a badge
> class to an AlignmentObject representing objectives or educational
> standards (which is slightly different to this use case, though we several
> use cases for aligning to competencies)
>
>
> Please let me know your thoughts.
>
> Phil
>
>
> * open access copy of that paper at https://blogs.pjjk.net/phil/
> confpaper/analysing-improving-embedded-markup-learning-resources-web/
>
>
> --
>
> Phil Barker <http://people.pjjk.net/phil>. http://people.pjjk.net/phil
> PJJK Limited <https://www.pjjk.co.uk>: technology to enhance learning;
> information systems for education.
> CETIS LLP: a cooperative consultancy for innovation in education
> technology.
>
> PJJK Limited is registered in Scotland as a private limited company,
> number SC569282.
> CETIS is a co-operative limited liability partnership, registered in
> England number OC399090
>
>
> --
>
> Phil Barker <http://people.pjjk.net/phil>. http://people.pjjk.net/phil
> PJJK Limited <https://www.pjjk.co.uk>: technology to enhance learning;
> information systems for education.
> CETIS LLP: a cooperative consultancy for innovation in education
> technology.
>
> PJJK Limited is registered in Scotland as a private limited company,
> number SC569282.
> CETIS is a co-operative limited liability partnership, registered in
> England number OC399090
>