RE: schema-course-extend: credential or award offered through course.

Just a comment on  the term “grantsCredential”



Agree that “grants” is a problem. “Related” is better, but loses the
semantics. Courses can result in a credential, be evidence for a
credential, be required for a credential etc. Having some variety of ways
to relate a course to a credential would be more complex but might be
useful.





Robby Robson


*Eduworks*robby.robson@eduworks.com





*From:* Phil Barker [mailto:phil.barker@hw.ac.uk]
*Sent:* Thursday, June 16, 2016 7:11 AM
*To:* Richard Wallis <richard.wallis@dataliberate.com>
*Cc:* public-schema-course-extend@w3.org
*Subject:* Re: schema-course-extend: credential or award offered through
course.







On 16/06/2016 10:10, Richard Wallis wrote:

Seeing the somewhat involved discussion around the description of
credentials I envisage either the overall Course proposal (V1.0) being
delayed by it or; the credential proposals not being addressed fully.



I agree.


Pragmatically I propose that initially the property is defined with a
rangeIncludes of Text & URL.  This will provide the initial ability to at
least reference credentials.  Following on, a full broad discussion will
result in a well thought through proposal for a new Credential [or
alternatively named] Type.  Part of that proposal being to extend the range
of the Course property to include this new type.



Why URL rather than Thing? I would quite like to be able to provide a name
and URL.  Also, I don't like the semantics of implying that the student
will get a URL at the end of the course!


As to the currently proposed Course property name ‘grantsCredential’, we
still have the question of if ‘credential’ is a good term.  Even if we
agree it is, I have a concern about ‘grants’.   The Course does not *grant* a
qualification, that is done by an organisation - completing/passing the
course leads to the granting of the associated qualification.


Yes, I see your point.

Phil




~Richard.


Richard Wallis

Founder, Data Liberate

http://dataliberate.com

Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/richardwallis

Twitter: @rjw



On 16 June 2016 at 09:40, Phil Barker <phil.barker@hw.ac.uk> wrote:


Hello all, [apologies if you receive this twice, the message I sent
yesterday seems to have disappeared]

We have a use case for the schema course extension that user should be able
to find a course that offers a qualification the searcher would like to
acquire hence a requirement that it must be able to identify the
qualification offered to those completing a course, see
http://bit.ly/sce-us2 .

The current proposal has a grantsCredential property of Course with
expected (but undefined) type of Credential see,
http://course.schema-course-extend.appspot.com/grantsCredential

There has been quite an involved discussion on github over the last few
weeks around how to describe credentials, starting at
https://github.com/schemaorg/schemaorg/issues/195#issuecomment-220588244
The modelling of qualifications, awards, credentials clearly goes beyond
the modelling of courses and is being addressed else where (see the git hub
conversation for references to Credential Transparency Initiative,
OpenBadges, blockchain in credentialling etc.)

I would like to gauge opinion on two issues:
1. the name credential is proving problematic as to many it associates with
security credential, cryptography, etc. It would be useful to find an
alternative.

2. What is the minimum that we need to do in order to deal with the link
from Courses to credential/qualification/award offered in such a way that
it meets our use case and can be picked up by those looking specifically at
educational credentials.

Bear in mind Richard Wallis's advice of last week concerning "what should
be in Course 1.0" where he advises that fine detail be left for future
refinements.
https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-schema-course-extend/2016Jun/0015.html

I am hoping that the answer is something like a property of course called
something like grantsCredential or offersEducationalAward which has an
expected type text or CreativeWork or a named but otherwise empty subtype
of CreativeWork.


Phil


-- 
--
Phil Barker           @philbarker
LRMI, Cetis, ICBL     http://people.pjjk.net/phil
Heriot-Watt University

Ubuntu: http://xkcd.com/456/
   not so much an operating system as a learning opportunity.





-- 

Phil Barker           @philbarker

LRMI, Cetis, ICBL     http://people.pjjk.net/phil

Heriot-Watt University



Workflow: http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/~philb/workflow/