Re: [Proposal] schema:OnlineCourse

Regional variation and semantic differentiation!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Course_%28education%29

> In the United Kingdom, Australia and Singapore, a *course* is the entire
programme of studies required to complete a university
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University> degree, and the word "unit" or
"module" would be used to refer to an academic course in the North American
sense.

> In between the two, in South Africa, a course officially is the
collection of all courses (in the American sense, these are often called
"modules") over a year or semester, though the American usage is common. In
the Philippines, a course can be an individual subject (usually referred to
by faculty and school officials) or the entire programme (usually referred
to by students and outsiders).

... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Course_%28education%29#Types_of_courses

On Tue, Dec 16, 2014 at 9:55 AM, Barker, Phil A <Phil.Barker@hw.ac.uk>
wrote:
>
>
> Hi Vicki
>
>  1. Courses can comprise Courses. This is especially important at
> Universities that recruit into and award certificates for programmes
> (Courses) that are built from modules (Courses).
>
>  > Can you give an example of this? It may be better to model these as
> different types rather than trying to mash
> > them together. The programmes type could then include the modules.
>
> I see from Stuart's comment on the Google doc that US Universities may do
> this differently, and I mentioned before that terminology is difficult, so
> I'll pick an example as close to home as possible, and I will use the terms
> that we use and have used here.
>
> Heriot-Watt University advertises and enrols students into programmes
> see http://www.hw.ac.uk/study/course-a-z.htm  for examples specifically
> G400 Computer Science BSc
> http://www.undergraduate.hw.ac.uk/programmes/G400/
> G560 Information Systems BSc
> http://www.undergraduate.hw.ac.uk/programmes/G560/
> Information Technology (Business) MSc/Diploma
> http://www.postgraduate.hw.ac.uk/prog/msc-information-technology-business-/
> (At HW we call these programmes, but I think the most common term for them
> in the UK is courses, the most common way for UK students to apply for
> undergraduate study is through UCAS, http://search.ucas.com/ which calls
> them courses).
>
> The Heriot-Watt Information Systems programme comprises several courses
> (more generally known in the UK as modules or units). Students cannot sign
> up for these unless they are enrolled on a relevant programme and so they
> are not advertised externally in the same way, I don't know if you can see
> the course handbook at
> http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/macshome/IS_UG_Handbook.pdf but is shows which
> courses a student will take in each year / semester. For example
> year 1 / semester 1
> * F27SA software development 1
> * F27IS Interactive systems
> * F27PX Praxis
> * F27TS Technology in Society
> (if you cannot see the course handbook, there is similar information
> available for the Manchester University Computer Science BSc available from
>
> http://www.cs.manchester.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/courses/computer-science/?code=00560&pg=options
> they are similar to the courses that you have been using as examples.)
>
> Is that the sort of information that helps?
>
> Phil
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>  ------------------------------
> *From:* Vicki Tardif Holland [vtardif@google.com]
> *Sent:* 16 December 2014 14:28
> *To:* Barker, Phil A
> *Cc:* Wes Turner; GUANGYUAN PIAO; Thad Guidry; Aaron Bradley; Public
> Vocabs
> *Subject:* Re: [Proposal] schema:OnlineCourse
>
>
> On Tue, Dec 16, 2014 at 6:19 AM, Barker, Phil A <Phil.Barker@hw.ac.uk>
> wrote:
>
>>  1. Courses can comprise Courses. This is especially important at
>> Universities that recruit into and award certificates for programmes
>> (Courses) that are built from modules (Courses).
>>
>
>  Can you give an example of this? It may be better to model these as
> different types rather than trying to mash them together. The programmes
> type could then include the modules.
>
>
>
>>
>> 2. I don't think there is much to be gained from having a separate class
>> on OnlineCourse rather than a property of a Course to flag whether it is
>> online or not. I  think the properties you have for OnlineCourse also apply
>> to regular courses. Most regular courses have an online component.
>>
>>
>  Point taken. I think it is important to designate MOOCs from other
> courses. I tend to prefer using subclasses instead of booleans as it is
> easier to expand a subclass to include properties I missed the first time
> around.
>
>
>
>>  3. I think it would be better to model an instance of a Course as a
>> collection of EducationalEvents and CreativeWorks.
>>
>>
>  The integration with Event is one of the places that needs refining.
>
>
>
>>  4. Language is difficult. The different usage between UK and US English
>> is one thing, but more importantly commonly used terms often relate to
>> specific education systems or pedagogies. So phrases like "instructors
>> deliver lessons to students" implies a particular pedagogy. Also this means
>> that common terms become ambiguous and open to misinterpretation in
>> international use, e.g. class, course, programme, module. This is important
>> in schema.org where definitions tend to be minimalist.
>>
>>
>  Good point. I'll update the description to be more inclusive of other
> educational systems.
>
>
>
>>
>> As a general question, do you have some usecases in mind and target
>> example websites? It's difficult to assess whether these properties are
>> sufficient and realistic without those.
>>
>
>  I'll update the document to include some of the sites I was using for
> reference, but they were:
>
>  Coursera (The example came from
> https://www.coursera.org/course/datascitoolbox)
> MIT course catalog (http://student.mit.edu/catalog/m6a.html)
> Stanford course catalog (https://explorecourses.stanford.edu)
> edX (https://www.edx.org/)
> Cambridge Center for Adult Education (http://www.ccae.org/)
>
>  - Vicki
>
>
>   Vicki Tardif Holland | Ontologist | vtardif@google.com
>
>
>
>
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