Re: (most likely) Version 1.0 of LRMI specification - proposed for inclusion with Schema.org

Thanks Phil for taking the first stab at these questions.

Monty: Many of the questions you asked have been asked before (namely
the ones that Phil responded to already). And even the ones that Phil
did not respond to are ones that I have heard before.

As such, I wrote up a sort of FAQ draft based on my answers to these
questions.

I didn't want to delay in responding any longer so I have thrown a rough
draft of my FAQ up on the LRMI wiki:

http://wiki.creativecommons.org/LRMI/FAQ#Specification_specific_questions

(There are other LRMI FAQs on that page)

Let me know if there is anything else that I missed or not addressed on
that page.

All the best,

Greg


<quote name="Phil Barker" date="2012-06-15" time="20:01:19 +0100">
> 
> Hello
> 
> On 15/06/12 19:20, Monty Swiryn wrote:
> >
> >  * The most obvious:  There does not appear to be a "Subject"
> >    property.  There needs to be a property to indicate the main
> >    subject area (aka curriculum area) of the product. Examples, of
> >    course, are "Social Studies", "Science", etc.
> >
> 
> This one is simple: the 'about' property that comes with schema.org
> creative work already does this. LRMI only adds properties that are
> needed but not already covered.
> 
> >  * There is a typicalAgeRange property, but no property for grade
> >    level.  Educators have different definitions for "grade level" vs
> >    "age range".  Many educational products are developed for use in a
> >    specific grade level, but designed for students who may be older
> >    or younger than the typical age for that grade.  In addition, many
> >    of the publishers with whom we work tag their products with a
> >    variety of "levels." These include "reading level" and "interest
> >    level," as well as some well-known classifications as "Guided
> >    Reading Level," "Reading Recovery Level," and "Lexile Level."
> >Many educators value the ability to search for products by these
> >    categories.  It is not apparent that these criteria are included
> >    in typical standards alignment hierarchies.
> >
> These can all be values of the alignmentType property of the
> AlignmentObject used to describe the educationalAlignment. You
> mention below that common core / state standards don't include
> these, but the value of educationalType is not limited by these.
> 
> >  * There is a concern that publishers and educators in other
> >    countries may have needs for other "level" classifications, such
> >    as the levels of the International Baccalaureate program used by
> >    most British schools.
> >
> (err, no it isn't. A very small minority of British school offer the
> IB, most work to the National Curriculum and offer GCSE and A
> levels.)
> 
> On the broader point, yes, there is a plethora of different
> approaches to level. I think that educationalAlignment with
> alignmentType set as educationLevel is the way to deal with these.
> More specific alignmentTypes may be identified through use.
> 
> 
> >  * However,  this can be taken care of as a data problem rather than
> >    a schema properties problem.  Publishers of materials for these
> >    programs can use a "grade level" property to indicate criteria
> >    such as "sixth-formers" or "MYP"  - terms that their education
> >    customers look for.  Simply using age level won't due in these cases.
> >  * What about the issue of "accessibility"?  In the K-12 market, it
> >    is common to align resources to be compliant with Section 508
> >    Amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Does the proposed
> >    schema account for this area?
> >
> No. Accessibility is not specifically and educational issue, I think
> experts in accessibility should address this.
> 
> 
> I can't really comment on the later points you raise.
> 
> Regards, Phil
> 
> > *
> >  * These are probably some of the most (if not _the_ most) important
> >    search criteria that K-12 educators use to locate resources. It's
> >    obvious, intuitive and well-documented that a 7th grade science
> >    teacher would begin a search for products by looking for resources
> >    where the subject is "science" and the grade is "7".
> >
> >There is an argument that criteria such as subject or grade level
> >is part of the "educationalAlignment" property.  There are some
> >problematic issues with this assumption:
> >
> >  * As mentioned above, typical state and common core standards do not
> >    include things such as "Guided Reading Level," "Reading Recovery
> >    Level," and "Lexile Level."  Publishers who are using these terms
> >    to classify their resources do so because their customers search
> >    for resources by these categories.  Here's an example:
> >    www.newbridgeonline.com/search.html
> >  * Aligning products to state or common core standards is typically a
> >    huge undertaking.  While some publishers have correlated their
> >    products to these standards, from our experience many of the
> >    smaller publishers are not prepared to spend the time and money to
> >    embark on this type of effort.  Consider that a typical standards
> >    schema has hundreds or thousands of specific standards.  Even
> >    these smaller publishers can have thousands of products.  Further,
> >    a single resource may be correlated with dozens of these
> >    standards. Correlating these resources to the standards is clearly
> >    a monumental effort in most cases. Requiring publishers to
> >    correlate their products to state or common core standards
> >    discriminates against publishers who cannot afford the cost and/or
> >    time to do so.
> >  * Searching for products aligned to state or core standards is a
> >    separate issue or need for educators.  Educators may not
> >    necessarily be looking for products that are aligned to standards.
> >    In this case, they will use the basic criteria described above to
> >    search for products and arrive at a list of products that meet
> >    their search criteria.  In the case of standards, they will search
> >    a standards database for the specific standards that they wish to
> >    fulfill. This type of search will lead to a search result list of
> >    standards.  From there, they can then view products that meet
> >    those specific standards. This difference can be very subtle, and
> >    may be difficult to understand for people who have not implemented
> >    a standards correlation search system.  However, we have found
> >    that both publishers and educators find these two different search
> >    mechanisms very useful.
> >  * In order to get K-12 educational publishers on board with the
> >    LRMI, the LRMI must be designed to meet the needs of these
> >    publishers and their customers -- educators in the K-12 school
> >    setting. LRMI must take into consideration how publishers
> >    currently categorize and market their products, and how educators
> >    search for those products, rather than trying to force them into a
> >    new system. If the publishers feel that they have to adopt and
> >    implement a completely new system of representing their products,
> >    they will not have the incentive to spend the time and money to
> >    make the effort.  In order to arrive at a useful schema, it is
> >    necessary to take into consideration the educational criteria that
> >    K-12 publishers and educators value.
> >
> >There are other examples of product "properties" which we have
> >found that publishers and educators both require. We see no
> >problem in adding some of these common attributes to the schema.
> >If they are not used, no harm done.  But if the schema properties
> >that are necessary and important to publishers and educators is
> >not present, it will be a huge disappointment to them.
> >
> >However, we understand that it is not feasible to accommodate all
> >these properties in the LRMI schema.  A suggestion, therefore,
> >would be to allow the spec to be extensible. This way publishers
> >who have a need for specific properties that are not part of the
> >default schema could add their own.
> >
> >Finally, as I mentioned, we have a great deal of data on the
> >categorization of K-12 educational resources and the usage
> >patterns of educators who search for these resources.  With the
> >publishers' permissions, I would be happy to present examples of
> >this data to the appropriate audience, if this would be helpful.
> >
> >Many thanks again for your efforts in this endeavor and for
> >considering these issues.  I apologize if this is not on point.
> >
> >Cheers,
> >Monty
> 
> 
> -- 
> Ubuntu: not so much an operating system as a learning opportunity.
> 

-- 
Greg Grossmeier
Education Technology & Policy Coordinator
twitter: @g_gerg / identi.ca: @greg / skype: greg.grossmeier

Received on Friday, 15 June 2012 23:02:41 UTC