Re: EOCred: Identify the level of a credential

+1

Richard Wallis
Founder, Data Liberate
http://dataliberate.com
Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/richardwallis
Twitter: @rjw

On 19 February 2018 at 11:02, Phil Barker <phil.barker@pjjk.co.uk> wrote:

> OK. Does anyone object if I keep DefinedTerm in the expectedRange? (For
> that matter, does anyone object to dropping it?). Taking a bit of the
> Dublin Core definition, how about:
>
> *Name*: educationalLevel
>
> *Definition*: The level in terms of progression through a learning,
> educational or training context. Examples of educational levels include
> 'beginner', 'intermediate' or 'advanced', and formal sets of level
> indicators such as the European Qualifications Framework.
>
> *Expected Range*: Text, Url, DefinedTerm
>
>
> I am very much of the opinion that these levels are only meaningful if
> they come with definitions in the context of a set of levels, hence my
> desire to keep DefinedTerm in the range. Given the choice of Text and Url I
> can easily imagine getting values like cryptic values like "NQF4" or
> meaningless values like "4" when there is no Url for individual terms.
>
> Phil
>
> On 17/02/18 10:51, Richard Wallis wrote:
>
> “I think text is good, I’d really like to add URL"
>
> That is no problem - it is default in Schema.org to be able to use a URL
> (if you have one) for the value of any property:
>
> *some types such as Role and URL can be used with all properties, and we
> encourage this kind of experimentation amongst data consumers.
> <http://schema.org/docs/datamodel.html#conformance>*
>
>
>
>
> Richard Wallis
> Founder, Data Liberate
> http://dataliberate.com
> Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/richardwallis
> Twitter: @rjw
>
> On 17 February 2018 at 10:20, Fritz Ray <fritley@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Phil,
>>
>> Your understanding continues to make sense to me. I didn't realize the
>> credentials for each level of award were nationalized... I don't believe
>> that changes anything.
>>
>> Nate,
>>
>> I could imagine educationLevels being described as:
>>
>> "Masters"
>> "SPQF Level 5"
>> Taxon/DefinedTerm/reserved URL such as http://ed.gov/degreeLevels/ass
>> ociates
>> by URLs to documents.
>> <https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/associate.doc>
>>
>> That's primarily why I chose a set of things that broad. I'd agree it
>> doesn't serve the use cases, but there are a lot of cases where these
>> levels are defined in documents, so text strings is about all we're going
>> to get.
>>
>> I assume that at some point the web of data people will win and all these word
>> documents
>> <https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/edlite-structure-us.html>
>> and pdfs
>> <http://scqf.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/SCQF-Level-Descriptors-WEB-Aug-2015.pdf>that
>> describe levels will have corresponding URLs for each level.
>>
>> Richard et al,
>>
>> I think text is good, I'd really like to add URL in order to represent
>> taxons and links to descriptions of levels out on the web (so we're at
>> least somewhat as capable as AlignmentObject.)
>>
>> Other than that, I'm happy with where the conversation has ended up.
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 10:33 AM, Vicki Tardif <vtardif@google.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Based on similar experiences in other Schema.org extension areas, when
>>>> it has become complex/difficult to gain consensus on a particular point,
>>>> especially with an initial proposal:
>>>> I suggest that we agree on a property name for this (these) concepts
>>>> and create it with a range of Text and a suitable, not too specific,
>>>> description.
>>>> After some use in the real world, we can then review that usage and
>>>> come up with enhanced propert(ies) definition, range, etc. as part of a
>>>> further following proposal.
>>>
>>> At this current stage translating the forgoing discussions in this email
>>>> trail into a concise description, that will be understandable to the
>>>> Schema,org community that will receive, and hopefully accept, our proposals
>>>> seems a challenge too far for this initial release.
>>>
>>>
>>> I agree with Richard. It may be simplest to use text and see where the
>>> data leads us.
>>>
>>> - Vicki
>>>
>>> On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 12:42 PM, Richard Wallis <
>>> richard.wallis@dataliberate.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Based on similar experiences in other Schema.org extension areas, when
>>>> it has become complex/difficult to gain consensus on a particular point,
>>>> especially with an initial proposal:
>>>>
>>>> I suggest that we agree on a property name for this (these) concepts
>>>> and create it with a range of Text and a suitable, not too specific,
>>>> description.
>>>>
>>>> After some use in the real world, we can then review that usage and
>>>> come up with enhanced propert(ies) definition, range, etc. as part of a
>>>> further following proposal.
>>>>
>>>> At this current stage translating the forgoing discussions in this
>>>> email trail into a concise description, that will be understandable to the
>>>> Schema,org community that will receive, and hopefully accept, our proposals
>>>> seems a challenge too far for this initial release.
>>>>
>>>> ~Richard
>>>>
>>>> Richard Wallis
>>>> Founder, Data Liberate
>>>> http://dataliberate.com
>>>> Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/richardwallis
>>>> Twitter: @rjw
>>>>
>>>> On 16 February 2018 at 17:39, Nate Otto <nate@ottonomy.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Thanks for digging in to get more precise on level here.
>>>>>
>>>>> I like how the SCQF reasons about levels of accomplishment. A
>>>>> Credential can recognize a level of accomplishment, a level of performance,
>>>>> or both. A Course could be "at" a level of accomplishment in terms of
>>>>> difficulty or prerequisite knowledge & skills. These are good use cases to
>>>>> target, and if I think of "educationalLevel", this would be the sense of
>>>>> level that would fit best, versus "level of performance", even though it
>>>>> would be possible to split hairs further between the two categories I
>>>>> started with, which we could abbreviate to "accomplishment level
>>>>> recognized" and "accomplishment level required".
>>>>>
>>>>> This vocabulary's ability to describe level of accomplishment should
>>>>> be distinct from trying to talk about level of performance and not use the
>>>>> same property, in my opinion.
>>>>>
>>>>> Fritz,
>>>>> I'm a little wary of "A string, term or URL". That's amazingly broad
>>>>> to the point where it would likely make it very difficult to serve the
>>>>> comparison use cases.
>>>>>
>>>>> What feels important to me about understanding the level of
>>>>> accomplishment of a credential is its position relative to other
>>>>> credentials, learning opportunities, etc. I am not confident I get that
>>>>> across a range of credentials unless they all use specific URLs pointing to
>>>>> level definitions like the ones from the SCQF.
>>>>>
>>>>> On one hand, one string property is nice and simple, on the other
>>>>> hand, it doesn't serve comparison use cases well unless all the credentials
>>>>> you'd like to compare use a very specific scheme established outside the
>>>>> scope of this vocabulary known to the consumer.
>>>>>
>>>>> Maybe I changed my mind on using alignment, particularly because
>>>>> AlignmentObject already has the "alignmentType" property, which includes
>>>>> "educationalLevel" as an option. We could suggest something like this,
>>>>> adding a numerical levelNumber property and using a URL either for
>>>>> educationalFramework or targetUrl (a little wary of targetUrl because I
>>>>> would think that should represent a URL of the exact level that alignment
>>>>> is desired for, but maybe somebody can ease my mind on this point)
>>>>>
>>>>> {
>>>>> "@context": "http://schema.org",
>>>>> "@type": "Credential",
>>>>> "alignment": [{
>>>>> "educationalFramework": "http://pinballsorcerers.org/levels/2",
>>>>> "alignmentType": "educationalLevel",
>>>>> "levelNumber": 2
>>>>> },
>>>>> {
>>>>> "educationalFramework": "https://ec.europa.eu/ploteus/
>>>>> content/descriptors-page",
>>>>> "alignmentType": "educationalLevel",
>>>>> "levelNumber": 7
>>>>> }
>>>>> ]
>>>>> }
>>>>>
>>>>> It does seems like we're not going to be able to model this nearly as
>>>>> well to serve comparison use cases with a bare text string. Only human
>>>>> eyeballs could make sense of the difference between
>>>>>
>>>>> "educationalLevel": "Pinball Wizard Level 1: Nub" and
>>>>> "educationalLevel": "Pinball Wizard Level 6: Ultimate Extra Baller"
>>>>>
>>>>> Nate
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
> --
>
> 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.
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>
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