Re: Modelling Course and CourseOffering

The use of Course and CourseOffering suggests an affinity with an already
established well used pattern in Schema.org.

That pattern is based around the Offer <http://schema.org/Offer> type.
This enables the modelling/describing of the relationship between a thing
being offered (e.g.. a Course) and the Person/Organization (University ?)
offering that thing under certain circumstances - cost, availability,
eligibility, etc.

Several types (Product, Service, CreativeWork, Event) have an offers
<http://schema.org/offers> property “*An offer to provide this item—for
example, an offer to sell a product, rent the DVD of a movie, perform a
service, or give away tickets to an event.*” This could easy be also added
to Course.  Person & Organisation have a makesOffer property that enables
the description of the reverse relationship.

This pattern allows an Organisation to describe multiple offers for the
same thing - just as we are discussing multiple instances of the same
course.  It also would allow the description of multiple organisations
offering the same thing - this would be ideal for a site identifying which
institutions offer the course a student is searching for.

By creating a CourseOffer subtype of Offer, we could accommodate course
specific elements of the relationship, whilst being able to use the already
established mechanism in Schema.org to accommodate many of our needs.

~Richard.

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

On 9 February 2016 at 23:30, Developer, SleepingDog <
developer@sleepingdog.org.uk> wrote:

> Hi Phil
>
> Thanks for your clarifications. I am happy with your interpretations of my
> feedback, your recent wiki additions and with the Course and CourseOffering
> parent-child model proposed (+1). I guess if that is acceptable then the
> relevant properties of each will follow a similar pattern to existing
> schemas: Course would have things like qualifications and level;
> CourseOffering would have temporal/spatial/attendance-related properties. I
> will need to look existing schema.org properties.
>
> I have no strong views about the Intangible or CreativeWork decision. I
> guess that some courses could effectively be just (collections of) authored
> learning objects that someone could choose to take at any time or place,
> which could lean towards CreativeWork; but then again, some other courses
> could be more like participation in some kind of event (or series of
> events, maybe like driving lessons), which leans towards Intangible. I just
> don’t know (+0).
>
>
> Tavis Reddick
>
>
> > On 09 Feb 2016, at 13:02, Phil Barker <phil.barker@hw.ac.uk> wrote:
> >
> > Consensus seems limited at the moment to
> > - we need a schema.org type: Course
> > - there are abstract and concrete aspects of courses, i.e. the (abstract
> ) thing that is offered year after year and instantiations of it that run
> between set dates and at set locations (on- or offline)
> >
> > Open for discussion:
> > - should Course be a subtype of Intangible or CreativeWork
> > - is there a need for a separate type for the instantiation?
> >  --if there is need, can we agree to call it a CourseOffering?
>
>
>
>