Re: EOCred: Identifying subtypes of credential

Hello Kerri, everyone.

On 23/01/18 16:45, Kerri Lemoie wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> One gap in understanding that I have is the correlation between the 
> schema and the CTDL and also, what are the consequences if they diverge?
>
That's a good question, one which occurs a lot in connection with 
schema.org. You'll know schema.org's basic mission is about a standard 
way of sharing structured data on web pages with big search engine 
providers like Google (although it's also useful for other things, and 
it's important to understand that schema.org is not a Google product). 
CTDL was developed for the Credential Engine, to meet more specific use 
cases about educational and occupational credentials and going beyond 
search. Schema.org aims web-scale reach, the credential engine works 
closely with partners. So the Credential Engine can ask for quite tight 
conformance with CTDL based on an agreed understanding of a common aim, 
but schema.org isn't really able to. schema.org does have the advantage 
of breadth and reach: it can be used to describe books, videos, events, 
people, and it is used globally. So courses and educational resources 
from places that are not connected with the Credential Engine are being 
described with schema.org.  My hope is that describing Educational and 
Occupational Credentials in schema.org in a way that is compatible with 
CTDL (and other relevant specs) will allow links between the Credential 
Engine and these other places.

This isn't unique to Credentials. I have heard Dan Brickley say 
something along the lines of whatever you domain, there will be a domain 
specific vocabulary that works better for that domain than schema.org. 
The strength of schema.org is in providing a simple way of linking 
between these domains. I have also heard Richard Wallis talking about 
library metadata saying something along the lines of if you want to 
share information about books between libraries use the appropriate 
library standard {MARC,RDA,METS,MODS...}, if you want to share that 
information with the rest of the world use schema.org (specifically 
bib.schema.org).

The consequences of EOCreds in schema.org and CTDL diverging depends on 
the degree of divergence, but they include loss of specificity in the 
data, and increased difficulty in publishing CTDL data in schema.org. 
The former of those is often an unavoidable consequence of going from a 
specification for a partnership to one with global reach. It is one of 
the aims of schema.org to avoid the second of those consequences, even 
at the expense of making the data more difficult to handle for consumers.

> While both the schema and the CTDL serve the purpose of finding 
> credentials it would seem that both are also useful referentially for 
> issued credentials. For instance, I am proposing to Credentials 
> Community Group that a property be added to assertions to reference 
> credentials in the registry.
>
That sounds great.

> I do think that the CredentialType and the subclasses in the CTDL are 
> tremendously useful properties that not only make it possible to seek 
> opportunities related to credential types button also compare 
> verifiable credentials post issuance. For instance, being able to 
> compare efficacy of online courses with badges or a series of courses 
> to degrees.
>
Again, I agree, with the caveat that here in Scotland a similar use case 
would be to compare academic and occupational careers after HND, HNC, 
Highers, Advanced Highers and A-levels, so in that case CTDL wouldn't work.

> With that in mind, (although curious about the divergence question), I 
> definitely think we minimally need a CredentialType and while I agree 
> that it would be onerous and take too long to compile an exhaustive 
> list now, I prefer option three (DefinedTerm) with possibly an 
> adaptable reference list to encourage consistency.
>
> Thanks,
>
Thank you. I hope I answered your questions and didn't just rehash 
things you has already considered.

Phil

-- 

Phil Barker <http://people.pjjk.net/phil>. http://people.pjjk.net/phil
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