I’ve been working recently on definining RDF application profiles, defining specifications in JSON-Schema, and converting specifications from a JSON Schema to an RDF representation. This has lead to me thinking about, and having conversations with people about whether JSON Schema can be used to define and validate JSON-LD. I think the answer is a qualified “yes”. Here’s a proof of concept; do me a favour and let me know if you think it is wrong.
Tag Archives: schema.org
Mapping learning resources to curricula in RDF
Some personal reflections on relating educational content to curriculum frameworks prompted by some conversation about the Oak National Academy (a broad curriculum of online material available to schools, based on the English national curriculum), and OEH-Linked-Frameworks (an RDF tool for visualizing German educational frameworks). It draws heavily on the BBC curriculum ontology (by Zoe Rose, I think). I’m thinking about these with respect to work I have been involved in such as K12-OCX and LRMI.
If you want to know why you would do this, you might want to skip ahead and read the “so what?” section first. But in brief: representing curriculum frameworks in a standard, machine-readable way, and mapping curriculum materials to that, would help when sharing learning resources.
New properties for learning resources in schema.org
I am somewhat late in writing this, but back in May some new properties developed by LRMI were added to schema.org that simplify and expand how schema.org can be used to describe learning resources and educational events.
The new properties are:
teaches: The item being described is intended to help a person learn the competency or learning outcome defined by the referenced term.
assesses: The item being described is intended to assess the competency or learning outcome defined by the referenced term.
These are added as properties of CreativeWork and EducationEvent, and can both be used with either a DefinedTerm or text as the value (or URL, which is an allowed value for any schema.org property).
In a related change, the domain of educationalLevel, (“the level in terms of progression through an educational or training context”), which was added last year for EducationalOccupationalCredentials was expanded so that it can also be used with CreativeWork and EducationEvent. It also can have DefinedTerms, text or URL as a value.
New work with the Credential Engine
I am delighted to be starting a new consulting project through Cetis LLP with the Credential Engine, helping them make credentials more transparent in order to empower everyone to make more informed decisions about credentials and their value. The problem that the Credential Engine sets out to solve is that there are (at the last count) over 730,000 different credentials on offer in the US alone. [Aside: let me translate ‘credential’ before going any further; in this context we mean what in Europe we call an educational qualification, from school certificates through to degrees, including trade and vocational qualifications and microcredentials.] For many of these credentials it is difficult to know their value in terms of who recognises them, the competences that they certify, and the occupations they are relevant for. This problem is especially acute in the relatively deregulated US, but it is also an issue when we have learner and worker mobility and need to recognise credentials from all over the world. Continue reading
One year of Talent Marketplace Signaling
I chair the Talent Marketplace Signaling W3C Community Group, this progress report is cross-posted from its blog
It is one year since the initial call for participation in the Talent Marketplace Signaling W3C Community Group. That seems like a good excuse to reflect on what we have done so far, where we are, and what’s ahead.
Indiana Appathon Credential Data Learn and Build
This week I took part in the Credential Engine’s Indiana Appathon in Indianapolis. The Credential Engine is a registry of information about educational and occupational credentials (qualifications, if you prefer; or not, if you don’t) that can be earned, along with further information such as what they are useful for, what competencies a person would need in order to earn one and what opportunities exist to learn those competencies. Indiana is one state that is working with the Credential Engine to ensure that the credentials offered by all the state’s public higher education institutions are represented in the registry. About 70 people gathered in Indianapolis (a roughly equal split between Hoosiers and the rest of the US, plus a couple of Canadians and me) with the stated intentions of Learn and Build: learn about the data the Credential Engine has, how to add more and how to access what is there, and build ideas for apps that use that data, showing what data was valuable and potentially highlighting gaps. Continue reading
K12 Open Content Exchange
I’ve been intending to write about the K12 Open Content Exchange project, and its metadata, but for various reasons haven’t got round to it. As I have just submitted a use case to the DCMI Application Profile Interest Group based on the projects requirements I’ll post that.
The project is being run by Learning Tapestry in the US, I am contracted to build the metadata specification in an iterative fashion based on experiences of content exchange between the partners (currently we are at iteration 1). I want to stress that this isn’t an authoritative description of all the project’s intents and purposes, or even all the metadata requirements, it’s a use case based on them, but I hope it gives a flavour of the work. The requirements section is more relevant if you’re interested in how to specify application profiles than for the OCX spec per se. Continue reading
Inclusion of Educational and Occupational Credentials in schema.org
The new terms developed by the EOCred community group that I chaired were added to the pending area in the April 2019 release of schema.org. This marks a natural endpoint for this round of the community group’s work. You can see most of the outcome under EducationalOccupationalCredential. As it says, these terms are now “proposed for full integration into Schema.org, pending implementation feedback and adoption from applications and websites”. I am pretty pleased with this outcome.
Please use these terms widely where you wish to meet the use cases outlined in the previous post, and feel free to use the EOCred group to discuss any issues that arise from implementation and adoption.
My own attention is moving on the Talent Marketplace Signalling community group which is just kicking off (as well as continuing with LRMI and some discussions around Courses that I am having). One early outcome for me from this is a picture of how I see Talent Signalling requiring all these linked together:
Talent marketplace signalling and schema.org JobPostings
For some time now I have been involved in the Data Working Group of the Job Data Exchange (JDX) project. That project aims to help employers and technology partners better describe their job positions and hiring requirements in a machine readable format. This will allow employers to send clearer signals to individuals, recruitment, educational and training organizations about the skills and qualifications that are in demand. The data model behind JDX, which has been developed largely by Stuart Sutton working with representatives from the HR Open Standards body, leverages schema.org terms where possible. Through the development of this data model, as well as from other input, we have many ideas for guidance on, and improvements to the schema.org JobPosting schema. In order to advance those ideas through a broader community and feed them back to schema.org, we have now created the Talent Marketplace Signaling W3C Community Group.
In the long term I hope that the better expression of job requirements in the same framework as can be used to describe qualifications and educational courses will lead to better understanding and analysis of what is required and provided where, and to improvements in educational and occupational prospects for individuals.
Metadata for markdown / MkDocs
I’ve been experimenting with ways of putting JSON-LD schema.org metadata into HTML created by MkDocs. The result is a python-markdown plugin that will (hopefully) find blocks of YAML in markdown and insert then into the HTML that is generated. You can find the plugin on github, and you can read more about the development of it in some pages generated by MkDocs (that incidentally use the plugin).