Re: Modelling Course and CourseOffering

On 10 February 2016 at 15:44, Phil Barker <phil.barker@hw.ac.uk> wrote:

> Thanks Richard, I had wondered about the relationship between
> CourseOffering and the existing Offer type. After thinking about Alan
> Paulls query around cost, I think they might be different things. A single
> CouseOffering might have several costs, depending on the student. So they
> would be distinct instances of schema.org:Offer but not of
> CourseOffering.


Is that different to a an organization Offer[ing] the same service to
different people at different costs dependant on eligibility - separate
offers describing the cost of a haircut for children, adults, and retired
persons?


> That would suggest to me that CourseOffering would have the (repeatable)
> schema.org:offers property.
>

If we do end up with what you describe I get the feeling we should be
concerned about  the overuse of the words offer and offering and how it
might impact understandability.


> A definition of CourseOffering might help. Several other specs make the
> distinction between abstract and concrete aspects of courses the relevant
> definitions are:
> XCRI-CAP BS 8581-1:2012 : “the course offered at a specific time and
> place, or through specific media”
>
> MLO-Advertising CWA 15903 : "A single occurrence of a learning
> opportunity. Unlike a Learning Opportunity Specification, a Learning
> Opportunity Instance is not abstract, may be bound to particular dates or
> locations, and may be applied for or participated in by learners."
>
> CEDS: "A setting in which organized instruction of course content is
> provided to one or more students for a given period of time. Note: A Course
> may be offered to more than one Course Section. Instruction may be
> delivered in person by one or more instructors or via a different medium.
> Sections that share space should be considered as separate Course Sections
> if they function as separate units for more than 50 percent of the time."
>
> One option would be to define CourseOffering in such a way that it match
> schema.org's Offer, something like: "the course offered at a specific
> time and place, or through specific media, at a specific price depending on
> the learner" But I don't like this: it would lead to unnecessary
> duplication of all the properties of a CourseOffering except for price.
>
> It's also worth considering whether the name CourseOffering is a poor
> choice of name if it leads to confusing assertions like schema.org:CourseOffering
> schema.org:offers schema.org:Offer.
>

As I said above before reading this ;-)


>
> Phil
>
> On 10/02/2016 14:55, Richard Wallis wrote:
>
>> 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 <mailto: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 <http://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
>>     <mailto:phil.barker@hw.ac.uk>> wrote:
>>     >
>>     > Consensus seems limited at the moment to
>>     > - we need a schema.org <http://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?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
> --
> Phil Barker           @philbarker
> LRMI, Cetis, ICBL     http://people.pjjk.net/phil
> Heriot-Watt University
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