Re: Schemas [for educational courses]

Hello. Yes, I agree there is currently a gap in schema.org for 
educational courses.

Aaron, thanks for mentioning LRMI (though actually ExercisePlan is from 
elsewhere). Yes that will add properties to schema.org for the 
description of the educational properties of resources. The intention is 
that the properties LRMI comes up[1] with will be added to schema.org 
Creative Works and Events. I'll leave you to decide which best describes 
the courses you deal with :)

So looking at Justin's list (noting that he mentions duration and so 
thinking of it as an event, indeed http://schema.org/EducationEvent ):

For Course Name use name from schema.org/thing
For Course Length use duration from schema.org/Event
For Learning Objective use educationalAlignment from LRMI with an 
alignment type of "teaches"

For Certificate possibly use educationalAlignment from LRMI with 
suitable alignment type

I'm not familiar with CEU values, but it looks like a framework from 
describing the educational credit associated with a course, in which 
case educationalAlignment could be used.

Course author, this could be performer from schema.org/Event (which 
covers presenters), but I think it is odd that there is no Event 
property for a generic "organizer" which would cover some other aspects 
of course author (such as what we mean when we say that something is an 
MIT course). Alternatively you could use the additionalType property to 
bring in properties from schema.org/CreativeWork such as author, 
creator, provider.

Anyway, I suggest it would be interesting to do some work to find out 
how much of the gap in schema.org regarding educational events is can be 
filled using existing properties (including well developed proposals 
such as LRMI), and what new properties or changes would be desirable.

Phil
(cc LRMI discussion list,  <lrmi@googlegroups.com>)


1. The proposed properties from LRMI are available at 
http://www.w3.org/wiki/WebSchemas/LearningResources


On 31/10/2012 19:11, Aaron Bradley wrote:
> Justin, some time ago I noticed that same lack of vocabulary coverage and opened a conversation on building out an extension for online courses.  This conversation fizzled, so I'm glad you've raised the issue again.
>
> That there are (evolving) schemas with seemingly "obscure" items like ExercisePlan is due in large part to the excellent work of the Learning Resource Metadata Initiative [1], lead by the Association of Educational Publishers and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation [2].
>
> This highlights the fact that the best route to building accepted extensions is through formal collaborative vocabulary featuring key players in the industry to which an extension applies (the same principle is true of the health and medical vocabulary that has been integrated into schema.org [3]).
>
> It seems to me the - especially with the rapidly rising popularity of MOOC [4] initiatives like Coursea [5] - that this is perfect time to bring together elearning professionals to collaboratively to work on a metadata initiative along the lines of LMRI for online courses and related aspects of distance education (with the added benefit - as per the principle of vocabulary reuse is a good thing) that such an initiative can in part build on LMRI work where it is relevant).
>
>
> I haven't had the time to take much of a organizational role here, but I invite you and any other list members involved in online education to contact me directly if the will exists to work on such a collaborative vocabulary-building initiative.
>
>
> Thanks,
> Aaron Bradley
>
>
> [1] http://www.lrmi.net/
>
> [2] http://www.lrmi.net/about
> [3] http://blog.schema.org/2012/06/health-and-medical-vocabulary-for.html
> [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_open_online_course
> [5] https://www.coursera.org/
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: Justin Leoni <justin@nextknowledge.com>
>> To: public-vocabs@w3.org
>> Cc:
>> Sent: Monday, October 29, 2012 8:18:27 AM
>> Subject: Schemas
>>
>> T o whom it may concern,
>>
>> With the constant evolution in Internet technologies and the need now for a
>> schema based layout for better results when dealing with organic searches.  I
>> find it hard to believe that there is no schema for online courses / training.
>>
>> There are 1000's of schema provided for obscure things like ExercisePlan but
>> not for an educational unit.  This should contain things like.
>>
>> Course Name
>> Course Length
>> Course Description
>> Learning Objective
>> CEU Value
>> Course Author
>> Certificate
>>
>> Etc.
>>
>> Justin Leoni
>>


-- 
<http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/~philb/>



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Received on Thursday, 1 November 2012 09:42:19 UTC