RE: Updated draft specification

Hi Lee and everybody

Please find attached Allison and my comments on the draft so far.

We think it would be useful to ensure that we get an operator to review these as we are conscious that none were on the last call to see if it makes sense to them, as they are one of the biggest providers of data.


1.1. Categories of Physical Activity Data

The diagram for opportunity data should be updated to reflect that this is more than just booking – refer to the statement at the start about the spec including not only descriptions of the activities, as well as the events and locations in which they take place.

In the bullet points that define 'opportunity data' we should have a bullet point that references the activity itself  - this is an essential component of opportunity data

2.1 Activities


Are we comfortable that an Activity needs to be exercise/sport related? If so, should we be calling this section Physical Activities? What about other activities that our stakeholders may also run, e.g dog shows, playgroups, coffee mornings, massage services etc.? We're happy to exclude these from the specification, but should we be clearer in our definition to ensure that is well understood? Are there other wider 'Activity List' standards that we should connect to in other standard working groups? We thought this was mentioned by the guy on the LGA Standards Group that was vocal after the first meeting? (apologies we have forgotten his name). We should at least understand where the overlap lies between these lists.

Do we need to differentiate between sporting and non sporting activities? We think this creates false demarcations, though we could use tags and meta data to draw the differences out rather than refer to some things as sport, and some as physical activity.

Clear links from Activity to other elements:
·         Place - what activities take place
·         Facilities - what activities is the facility marked out for or could be booked
·         Format - what activity is the format linked to

Activity categories shouldn’t be thought of as exclusive – rather than talk about these as groupings, I think behaviourally and culturally for our sector, these would be better reflected as meta data or tags linked to the core activity list. We need to prevent creating greater complexity and over complicating what should be quite a simple list.

2.2 Events & Sessions

One of the key conversation pieces on the last call was the difference between events and campaigns and sessions, which fundamentally comes down to the timing, or recurrence of a session which you have noted as the schedule. e.g. is it one off, recurring (weekly, fortnightly, monthly) annual.

We would want to question whether we need to differentiate between an event and session? Do we just need a common term that refers to the combination of an activity, happening in a place and location, within certain time and date parameters? We're not sure what is currently used to differentiate an event and session really does defines them differently – e.g. an Event will also occur at a specific date and time, not just a session.

We notice that we have used the term Session in the heading, but then largely just referred to Events – we should remove session if we agree Event is the term that is all encompassing, and it is the schedule that differentiates. Maybe it should be referred to as Physical Activity Events to be even clearer?

2.3 Locations, Places and Equipment

Keen to very clearly differentiate between Place and Location. As a minimum a place should have a geospatial location e.g. lat/long, etc. We also seem to use Venue a lot, and we need to define what we mean by this, as opposed to Place.

Need to add that activities take place in a location - at its simplest form

The example used for Place in the bullet point list of a leisure centre is also an example of a Facility – have we reviewed Active Places to ensure we are leveraging what already exists? Active Places can also help articulate further detail on the descriptive properties.

Not sure that "by the lake" is an exact descriptor as it must need an address first, but this should be available as a secondary fuzzy descriptor of the location, or contextual information that is relevant to an Event, such as meeting point.

Do we need to be more specific around the size of a location? This is a particular issue for rural locations e.g. the listing of a national park which lists what activities you can do is not appropriate even though it has spatial boundaries.

In Active Lives we capture Setting, which describes where the activity is taking place - I.e. is it indoor or outdoor? There is then a set of defined settings that you could allocate to the location, e.g. Indoor examples are shown below:
·         At Home
·         Leisure/Fitness/Sport Centre or Gym
·         Community Centre or Village Hall
·         Specialist Facility
Of course the above could also be applied to an activity and event

A diagram or organogram of the relationships between these concepts would be helpful to more clearly define them or to create discussion around the relationships and definitions.

2.4 Format

This needs to be discussed with the operators to tease this out more and whether this is the correct phrase as format can mean something different e.g. a subset of activity yoga - hatha yoga etc.

We should also be clearer that we are referring to what is more commonly referred to across the sector as Programmes. E.g. Back to Netball is the name of a Programme.

Need to consider how we deal with brand names, such as Spin, Zumba etc – are they defined as both an Activity and a Format? Or do they need to be one? Fitness classes is a big area of the activity list, and relevant to a large proportion of the population, but not necessarily well discussed yet.

Is Format needed as a separate section in its own right, or just a descriptive element within the Activity? Could you ever have a Format without an Activity?

Issue 3 seems to be answered by Issue 4?

Other event properties could include:
·         Activity Style – e.g. Group, 1 to 1, Individual
·         Activity Structure – e.g. formal or informal. Formal could include Club Training session, Coached session, Competition, while Informal could include Holiday, Social
·         Purpose – e.g. Leisure, Competition, Training, Commuting

Issue 5

Facilities should have a one to many relationship with a place. This is easy for built facilities but is more problematic in the outdoors and natural areas e.g. should a crag for mountaineering be regarded as a facility? What would a long distance footpath be defined as?

Therefore need to consider things such as start point and end point, as some may be walking routes, or canal paths.

3.3. Activity

Appears to provide a relevant structure, but is quite Medicine focused so it feels like we will need to create many of the relevant definitions .

The enumerations for Physical Activity Category may be helpful to help categorise some of the fitness activities, focusing more on the physical benefit you are seeking from the activity. However whether these will make sense to a consumer, We're not sure.

·         AerobicActivity<https://health-lifesci.schema.org/AerobicActivity>
·         AnaerobicActivity<https://health-lifesci.schema.org/AnaerobicActivity>
·         Balance<https://health-lifesci.schema.org/Balance>
·         Flexibility<https://health-lifesci.schema.org/Flexibility>
·         LeisureTimeActivity<https://health-lifesci.schema.org/LeisureTimeActivity>
·         OccupationalActivity<https://health-lifesci.schema.org/OccupationalActivity>
·         StrengthTraining<https://health-lifesci.schema.org/StrengthTraining>

Issue 7

Activities, more likely formal activities, also include disciplines – e.g. Swimming disciplines are Olympic, Open water, Freestyle, Backstroke etc – this appears to fit with the need for categories or sub categories, but they also need to have the ability to have one to many relationships. E.g. Water polo as a team sport and a water sport.

Need to consider the difference between a Discipline and a Format.


3.4. Programmes

Programmes are covered by Format

Examples
These might need to be reviewed and updated in light of the above comments, as they don't quite align with the language we are using in the above definitions – e.g A venue with Facilities – don't we mean a Location with Equipment?

Clubs - Can we put a retainer in for defining clubs? Evidently they link across to a lot of the other areas such as place, activities, format etc. and could be seen as the organiser within 3.1.  Queries around this are bound to emerge when discussing with NGBs about publishing lists of clubs as open data etc.

Coaches and Volunteers - Can we also put down retainers for these even if we are not defining them at this stage


Nick Evans Head of Planning  T: 020 7273 1578  M: 07775 558134
From: Leigh Dodds [mailto:leigh.dodds@theodi.org]
Sent: 10 February 2017 17:53
To: public-openactive@w3.org
Subject: Updated draft specification

Hi,

Following some of the feedback from the last hangout I've updated the modelling specification to make a number of revisions to the key concepts.

Specifically I have:

* Provided more detail on Activities and Activity lists, to hopefully clarify more of the model
* Replaced "Programme" with "Format", partly because the term seems to be used in different ways
* Updated definition of places, venues and equipment

There's still plenty to do in terms of adding more examples and details of properties, as well as a schema diagram, but I wanted to share this as soon as possible. I'd like to focus on the activities, event and scheduling data on our next call.

https://www.openactive.io/modelling-opportunity-data/#key-concepts


If you have feedback in the meantime, then please do share your comments with the group.

Have a great weekend!

Cheers,

L.

--
Leigh Dodds, Senior Consultant, theODI.org
@ldodds
The ODI, 65 Clifton Street, London EC2A 4JE

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