Re: EOCred: Credentials and competences

Phil, thanks for pushing forward.

So, in essence, the question is how to handle referencing competencies from
the credential and what's on the other end of rangeIncludes.

As for the property referencing a competency, I hope we do NOT use the
existing educationalLevel / AlignmentObject for the reasons already
discussed on this list. There is a broad consensus out there that defines
competencies as assertions of knowledge, skills, and abilities--what
someone should know, already knows and/or is able to do. While the pending
schema.org/skills property could have it's definition tweaked as you
suggest, Phil, as noted above, skills are just one kind of competency. So
perhaps the tweaking of the label 'skills' would make the use more
inclusive of what the term means across the talent pipeline--from syllabus
learning outcomes, through credentialing requirements to job postings and
HR functions.

Competencies have been the focus of both ad hoc and de facto standards
efforts--i.e., a lot of experts have looked at the description problem and
there is a lot of accord across them.  The LRMI Task Group started out
looking at developing a schema.org proposal for competencies and decided
that the then emergent DefinedTerm proposal (see Category Code in pending
and discussion to change name
<https://github.com/schemaorg/schemaorg/issues/1775>) would basically work
for this purpose. While the DefinedTerm proposal isn't ideal, it's a sound
base that will likely have broad use. Perhaps, if useful, it could be
subtyped later to provide the few properties that might optimize it for
competencies.

On Wed, Mar 7, 2018 at 7:22 AM, Phil Barker <phil.barker@pjjk.co.uk> wrote:

> Hello again.
>
> We have several use cases relating to the competences that an educational
> / occupational credential requires. Does adapting the skills
> <http://pending.schema.org/skills> ('skills required to fulfill this
> role.') from the JobPosting fulfil our need?
>
>
> The use case / requirements we have are
>
>    - Individuals should be able to search for and find credentials that
>    best address competencies they wish to attain.
>    - Individuals should be able to search and find credentials that best
>    match competencies that the individual posses and wishes to be recognized
>    - Employers should able to search for and find credentials that
>    address the competencies required of an employee.
>    - [having identified a credential] It should be possible to identify
>    the competencies required in order to obtain a credential.
>
> Also, knowing the competences required to earn a credential would help
> someone find relevant learning resources / opportunities, i.e. those which
> had similar competencies as learning outcomes.
>
>
> Currently, there is no means in schema.org to describe competencies.
> There is a lot of work going on in different forums around the description
> of forums, and some of us have ideas for how the proposed Defined Term type
> might be extended to describe competences.
>
> We have several choices to make.
>
> Firstly do we use the educationalAlignment / AlignmentObject for this, or
> do we create a new property for  'required Competence'.
> For reasons discussed when we were dealling with educationalLevel, I would
> prefer not to use the Alignment Object. We may want to discuss the
> similarity between the new property and skills
> <http://pending.schema.org/skills> ('skills required to fulfill this
> role.') from the JobPosting
>
> Secondly, do we try to propose properties for Competency and
> CompetencyFramework types here or do we leave this for others to do and
> settle for text descriptions or URL links?
>
> Given that Defined Term is not yet in schema, and given the work going on
> elsewhere, I am inclined to leave defining Competency and
> CompetencyFramework types to later, and to settle for text descriptions or
> links.
>
>
> My inclination would be to modify the existing schema.org/skills property
> by tweaking the definition.
>   skills: the skills and competences required.
> and add EducationalOccupationalCredential to its expected domain.
>
> We could also raise an issue about the desirability of a more formal means
> of representing competencies.
>
> What do you think?
>
> Phil
>
> --
>
> Phil Barker <http://people.pjjk.net/phil>. http://people.pjjk.net/phil
> PJJK Limited <https://www.pjjk.co.uk>: technology to enhance learning;
> information systems for education.
> CETIS LLP: a cooperative consultancy for innovation in education
> technology.
>
> PJJK Limited is registered in Scotland as a private limited company,
> number SC569282.
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> England number OC399090
>



-- 
Stuart A. Sutton, Metadata Consultant
Associate Professor Emeritus, University of Washington
   Information School
Email: stuartasutton@gmail.com
Skype: sasutton