Re: Domain sketch

The way I see it, once an Educational Organization formally endows someone
with a "competency," they've just issued him a credential, just a smaller
scale one.  I see the difference between competency and credential as being
the difference between a "course description" and "passing the course (or
required set of courses, if a degree), which fact is now formally recorded
and stored."

Credentials go beyond degrees to include certifications, nanodegrees,
microcredentials and - where we're headed - certified competencies.  This
concept of credential was something Credential Engine taught me.  It is
very useful and cuts cleanly through a lot of issues surrounding the
proliferation of not-quite-degrees.  The confusion comes because the term
"credential" is used so loosely in other, non-technical, non data
contexts.  In some of these places "credential" is often used mean JUST a
conventional degree.

Merrilea
(tiny keyboard, pls excuse typos)

On Mon, Aug 19, 2019, 2:24 PM Julie Uranis <juranis@upcea.edu> wrote:

> Hi everyone-
>
> I’ve been lurking but Jason’s email inspired me to chime in. I’m +1’ing
> his comment, that is if his interpretation of “A credential can be offered
> by an EducationalOrganization but a competency cannot be” is accurate. I
> share his concern with this statement.
>
>
>
> EducationalOrganization must be able to offer both credentials and
> competencies understanding that they can be of same class. To echo and
> append Jason, this is both the way the field is moving and is a reality for
> the millions of students that leave higher education without credentials
> but with competencies. Being inclusive of these conditions would fit with
> known use cases and student characteristics.
>
>
>
> To pull in your last email, “Organizations can offer assessments that
> assess competencies, and if passed lead to the award of credentials.” I
> think we need to parse this a bit more. Organizations can offer assessments
> that assess competencies that may or may not lead to a credential – and the
> student may never complete the full credential, so the credential needs to
> be recognized as an item unto itself.
>
>
>
> If this interpretation is wrong and my email unhelpful I’m happy to return
> to my lurker status.  J
>
>
>
> Julie
>
>
>
> *From:* Tyszko, Jason [mailto:jtyszko@USChamber.com]
> *Sent:* Monday, August 19, 2019 2:02 PM
> *To:* public-talent-signal@w3.org
> *Subject:* RE: Domain sketch
>
>
>
> Phil,
>
>
>
> I’m coming in late to the conversation, and I’m probably not understanding
> that context, but I thought I would chime in anyway, just in case.  The
> statement below caught my attention:
>
> A credential can be offered by an EducationalOrganization but a competency
> cannot be.
>
> Are we suggesting that, per the way schemas are currently setup, an
> EducationalOrganization cannot offer competencies in lieu of credentials?
> If so, that strikes me as potentially limiting and not necessarily
> reflective of where the field is going.
>
>
>
> In T3 and in our other work, employers, for instance, are increasingly
> interested in competency-based hiring outside of credentialing.
> Competencies are increasingly needed to stand alone so employer, education
> providers, workforce trainers, and others, can offer competencies as part
> of a learner or worker record.  This is also consistent with where the
> university registrars are going in the U.S.  From where the Chamber stands,
> credentials can include competencies, but competencies are not exclusively
> found in a credential.
>
>
>
> Not sure if my comments add value given where the conversation was going,
> but in order for us to support innovations in the talent marketplace, we
> need a data infrastructure that makes this distinction clear.  Happy to
> walk this back if I’m off track.
>
>
>
> Jason
>
>
>
> *From:* Phil Barker <phil.barker@pjjk.co.uk>
> *Sent:* Monday, August 19, 2019 1:44 PM
> *To:* public-talent-signal@w3.org
> *Subject:* Re: Domain sketch
>
>
>
>
>
> On 19/08/2019 18:19, Nadeau, Gregory wrote:
>
> My understanding of CTDL is that it only models Credentials as Achievement
> Descriptions, and does not include models for PII Assertion Records.
>
> True, but the addition of hasCredential <https://schema.org/hasCredential>
> as a property of Person in schema.org is a significant change from that.
>
>   While a relativist view could assert that the any distinction could be
> semantic and change in context, I continue to assert that there is a hard
> logical distinction between Achievement and Assertion,
>
> True, but they can be modeled with similar terms. There is a hard logical
> distinction between a Person and a Book, but they both have a name. There
> is a logical distinction between a TextBook and a Course, but many of their
> properties and attributes are the same. Achievement and Assertion can be
> modeled as different profiles drawn from the same term set.
>
> but not between Competency and Credential.
>
>   While it is true that Credentials can have Competencies, they are in
> fact the same class of entity and often have recursive associations between
> them.
>
> With the simple distinction that a credential can require a competency but
> a competency cannot require a credential.
>
> A credential can be offered by an EducationalOrganization but a competency
> cannot be.
>
> Outside of learner records, credentials and competencies are quite
> different.
>
> Phil
>
>
>
> In short:
>
>
>
> Achievement Description types include Credentials, Competencies, Skills.
> While historically different in some contexts, increasingly these terms are
> blurred and there is no logical/structural difference between them.
>
>
>
> Achievement Assertions can refer to Achievement Descriptions and include
> specific PII information about the Learner and Issuer, and can include
> specific instance information like Evidence, Endorsement, Result, and
> Verification.
>
> Greg Nadeau
>
> Chair, IMS Global CLR
>
> Chair, IEEE CM4LTS
>
>
>
> *From:* Phil Barker <phil.barker@pjjk.co.uk> <phil.barker@pjjk.co.uk>
> *Sent:* Monday, August 19, 2019 12:59 PM
> *To:* public-talent-signal@w3.org
> *Subject:* Re: Domain sketch
>
>
>
> I agree mostly with Alex (and Stuart's reply). I want to add some
> consideration of context into the mix and think about reuse of terms in
> different contexts (which is how schema.org works).
>
> In short, I think the distinction between assertions and descriptions
> comes from putting circles around different parts of the domain sketch
> (different profiles of the same set of terms, if you prefer). This is part
> of what I mean when I say that it is not a domain model because there are
> different perspectives on it. I think what Alex describes is one (valid)
> set of perspectives.
>
> In achievement descriptions, competency is separated from credential in
> most of the work that we are following (CTDL, OpenBadges BadgeClass, ESCO
> etc.), and it needs to be. When describing an
> EducationalOccupationalCredential you need to be able to say what
> competencies are being credentialed. That's why the competencyRequired
> property of EducationalOccupationalCredential got into schema.org.
>
> It's also useful to separate competencies from credentials when describing
> learning resources. Then it is necessary to be able to show an alignment to
> a learning objective (i.e. a competence) separately from credentials, in
> order to promote reuse in different contexts.
>
> But in other contexts the schema.org classes can be used as part of an
> assertion. I don't think anyone is doing this in schema.org, but if I
> were to write, as part of a JSON-LD CV (and I'm making up a couple of
> properties):
>
> {
>
>    "@id": "http://people.pjjk.net/phil#id" <https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fpeople.pjjk.net%2Fphil%23id&data=01%7C01%7CGNADEAU%40PCGUS.COM%7C8b30741ac8e04b5fa3fc08d724c6ac40%7Cd9b110c34c254379b97ae248938cc17b%7C0&sdata=OjN7d4yOZAz%2FEOPSM5UUJhz5lzZxgf3S0PR%2BN2woZAM%3D&reserved=0>,
>
>    "hasCredential": {
>
>       "@type": "EducationalOccupationalCredential",
>
>       "name": "PhD in Physics",
>
>       "issuedBy": "https://www.bristol.ac.uk/" <https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bristol.ac.uk%2F&data=01%7C01%7CGNADEAU%40PCGUS.COM%7C8b30741ac8e04b5fa3fc08d724c6ac40%7Cd9b110c34c254379b97ae248938cc17b%7C0&sdata=VfvNkGLhvdwwmy%2FKy26UmLyVgXOENIFX%2Bhb2RHlNgFc%3D&reserved=0>,
>
>    },
>
>    "hasSkill": "Educational metadata modeling"   //a literal representing a competence, could be DefinedTerm
>
> }
>
> then I am making achievement assertions. (And in order to make these
> assertions verifiable you would have to wrap them up into some collection
> of assertions and provide the means of verification.)
>
> I agree with Alex that
>
> Once you have a record that matches a person with a "competency" or
> "achievement description", and "evidence" or "assertion" from an "approved"
> organization that that person has either passed an assessment or done
> something that shows that... you have an "achievement assertion"
>
> But not with
>
> or "credential".
>
> As Stuart says, to date in schema.org the
> EducationalOccupationalCredential class has been used to represent a
> credential offered (something that "may be awarded") in the sense of being
> the thing that the University of Bristol says I can sign up to if I want to
> study for a PhD in physics, not the specific PhD that I hold. So this is an
> example of a EducationalOccupationalCredential that is not an achievement
> assertion:
>
> {
>
>    "@type": "EducationalOccupationalProgram",
>
>    "url": "http://www.bristol.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/2019/sci/phd-physics/" <https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bristol.ac.uk%2Fstudy%2Fpostgraduate%2F2019%2Fsci%2Fphd-physics%2F&data=01%7C01%7CGNADEAU%40PCGUS.COM%7C8b30741ac8e04b5fa3fc08d724c6ac40%7Cd9b110c34c254379b97ae248938cc17b%7C0&sdata=FNiUXEKEslmkB0C4wUuVorWHKnGcPkcIBJWrOd3vowo%3D&reserved=0>
>
>    "educationalCredentialAwarded": {
>
>       "@type": "EducationalOccupationalCredential",
>
>       "name": "PhD in Physics"
>
>    }
>
> }
>
> Phil
>
> On 19/08/2019 16:36, Alex Jackl wrote:
>
> I agree with Greg that the distinction between the "achievement
> description" and the "achievement assertion" is critical, but in this case
> I think we are once again running aground on the semantic reefs.
>
>
>
> If we think of an "achievement description" as a description of a
> Knowledge, Skill, Aptitude, or Experience (either inside of some taxonomy
> or not) then it matches cleanly what most people mean by competency.
>
>
>
> It typically does not include the assessment or test that would "prove"
> "provide evidence" that that competency exists with some person.  That
> matches with what people usually refer to as an "assessment" or
> "evidence".
>
>
>
> Once you have a record that matches a person with a "competency" or
> "achievement description", and "evidence" or "assertion" from an "approved"
> organization that that person has either passed an assessment or done
> something that shows that... you have an "achievement assertion" or
> "credential".
>
>
>
> I think it is that simple.  :-)    Now - I know each of these categories
> have hierarchies and taxonomies and differing levels of granularity and
> different ways t o represent an assessment or organizations
> trustworthiness  or authority, but this model can be represented by what
> Phil is describing.
>
>
>
> What am I missing?   I see no issue with the following semantic
> equivalences:
>
> competency <-> achievement  description
>
> assessment <-> evidence (I understand that not all evidence takes the form
> of a "test" but you are assessing somehow!)
>
> credential <-> achievement assertion
>
>
>
>
>
> ***
>
> Alexander Jackl
>
> CEO & President, Bardic Systems, Inc.
>
> alex@bardicsystems.com
>
> M: 508.395.2836
>
> F: 617.812.6020
>
> http://bardicsystems.com
> <https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fbardicsystems.com%2F&data=01%7C01%7CGNADEAU%40PCGUS.COM%7C8b30741ac8e04b5fa3fc08d724c6ac40%7Cd9b110c34c254379b97ae248938cc17b%7C0&sdata=Pt21CQ4Vt9zb6dc%2FsndTH9APIJ0KdXfGs1M9fss%2FzoE%3D&reserved=0>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Aug 19, 2019 at 11:20 AM Nadeau, Gregory <gnadeau@pcgus.com>
> wrote:
>
> Friends,
>
>
>
> I challenge the aspect of the model that separates a competency from
> credential.  I believe that both credentials as expressed by CTDL and
> competencies as CASE (as well as badges and micro-credentials) are all
> overlapping labels and structures for expressing the general Achievement
> Description.  Degree, credential, micro-credential, badge, skill,
> knowledge, ability, course objective, academic standard, and learning
> target are all labels for this concept without accepted boundaries between
> them and distinctions.  The more important distinction from an information
> architecture standpoint is separation of the general, linked-data public
> Achievement Description from the Achievement Assertion that contains PII
> data about the Learner:
>
>
>
> [image:
> https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/bSatpUf4dqQ3J0rWNtXXEL35xDDZHKYE6NlcobcNIo-uVYMV5yfxlyWCcjGj55e9RwdGh6sZm8XIQUT6OX-eC-9KRIU30DcRLpKYFxrrmVgG7mtrtEi5LrgOOhSMF5oZ_x8P1EX6v_k]
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *Greg Nadeau *Manager
>
>
>
> 781-370-1017
>
> gnadeau@pcgus.com
>
> publicconsultinggroup.com
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>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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>
> *From:* Phil Barker <phil.barker@pjjk.co.uk>
> *Sent:* Thursday, August 15, 2019 6:03 AM
> *To:* public-talent-signal@w3.org
> *Subject:* Domain sketch
>
>
>
> Hello all, I got a little feedback about the domain sketch that I've shown
> a couple of times, and have altered it accordingly, and tried to clarify
> what is and isn't currently in schema.org
> <https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fschema.org&data=01%7C01%7CGNADEAU%40PCGUS.COM%7C8b30741ac8e04b5fa3fc08d724c6ac40%7Cd9b110c34c254379b97ae248938cc17b%7C0&sdata=79ki8sv52msOXfEk%2FpXVMt%2BzPyXnmFNfn2HIF8MRiuA%3D&reserved=0>.
>
>
> Here it is again. I'm thinking about putting it on the wiki, and hoping
> that, along with the issue list
> <https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2Fcommunity%2Ftalent-signal%2Fwiki%2FIssues%2C_use_cases_and_requirements%23Issues_open_for_consideration&data=01%7C01%7CGNADEAU%40PCGUS.COM%7C8b30741ac8e04b5fa3fc08d724c6ac40%7Cd9b110c34c254379b97ae248938cc17b%7C0&sdata=K4ZA3A2qLVNx2nK34H15DTqyddggE5Eyh69qUbZWyzA%3D&reserved=0>,
> it might serve as a useful way of introducing what we are about and what we
> are doing.
>
> I really want to stress that it is not intended to be a complete or formal
> domain model, nor is it intended to be prescriptive. (I think that for a
> domain as big as this, with so many possible perspectives, it is premature
> to try to get consensus on a complete formal model now, if indeed that will
> ever be possible.)
>
> I would welcome feedback on whether this sketch helps, and how it might be
> improved, what needs further explanation, or anything else.
>
> Regards, Phil
>
> --
>
> Phil Barker
> <https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fpeople.pjjk.net%2Fphil&data=01%7C01%7CGNADEAU%40PCGUS.COM%7C8b30741ac8e04b5fa3fc08d724c6ac40%7Cd9b110c34c254379b97ae248938cc17b%7C0&sdata=wp%2BKWrKmRT0kMuHaN5opZwjB9NeM1VVMjuoBFlSDlk8%3D&reserved=0>.
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> --
>
> Phil Barker
> <https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fpeople.pjjk.net%2Fphil&data=01%7C01%7CGNADEAU%40PCGUS.COM%7C8b30741ac8e04b5fa3fc08d724c6ac40%7Cd9b110c34c254379b97ae248938cc17b%7C0&sdata=wp%2BKWrKmRT0kMuHaN5opZwjB9NeM1VVMjuoBFlSDlk8%3D&reserved=0>.
> http://people.pjjk.net/phil
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> technology to enhance learning; information systems for education.
>
> CETIS is a co-operative limited liability partnership, registered in
> England number OC399090
> PJJK Limited is registered in Scotland as a private limited company,
> number SC569282.
>
> --
>
> Phil Barker <http://people.pjjk.net/phil>. http://people.pjjk.net/phil
> CETIS LLP <https://www.cetis.org.uk>: a cooperative consultancy for
> innovation in education technology.
> PJJK Limited <https://www.pjjk.co.uk>: technology to enhance learning;
> information systems for education.
>
> CETIS is a co-operative limited liability partnership, registered in
> England number OC399090
> PJJK Limited is registered in Scotland as a private limited company,
> number SC569282.
>