WebSchemas/VLEs
Overview
This proposal aims to extend to the previous work that has been included in the schema by LRMI in order to provide an enhanced approach to describe learning contents with rich semantic data in a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) context. We propose this proposal here after a long and broad review and discussion by the community. Furthermore, we just presented this proposal in ISWC2014 and LILE2014, as a main part of our paper "An Enhanced Approach to Semantic Markup of VLEs Content Based on Schema.org" in order to have it reviewed by the community before submitting it officially to schema.org. We have used our demonstration VLE in order to implement and test this proposal. However, this proposal does no rely only on our VLE structure, it benefits also from the existing educational vocabularies such as AIISO and TEACH in order to have a comprehensive semantic structure for VLEs and other online courses.
This proposal suggests new vocabularies including six new types and 12 new properties to be embedded with schema.org to structure VLEs content with rich semantic information. A summative figure shows the proposed classes and properties, how they related to the existing schema.org hierarchy can be accessed via this link. This proposal relies on the current expressive types CreativeWork and Action, as they have most of the properties to describe VLEs. We justify our proposal as a conservative extension to schema.org that is informed by the current work of LRMI, AIISO and TEACH. This proposal can be also appropriate for other open online courses such as MOOCs.
Vocabulary
Course
This new type is extended from the existing class CreativeWork to put this type in a Course context. CreativeWork has most properties that are needed to describe Course fields with rich semantic information. We have used the following existing properties: name, description, image, about, provider, genre, inLanguage, typicalAgeRange, headline and author. Full details about these properties can be found in schema.org/CreativeWork. We propose four new properties to the Course type, which are shown in the table below for the fields where there are no relevant vocabularies available in schema.org.
Thing< CreativeWork< Course
| Property | Expected Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| subject | Text | The field of the course; e.g., ‘Computer Programming’. |
| courseMaterial | URL | Any resource or file for the course. |
| courseDate | Date | The start date of the course. |
| courseEndDate | Date | The end date of the course. |
Session
This new type is extended from the existing class InteractAction that is a subtype of Action to put this type in a Session context. However, we propose a Session as subtype of our proposed type LearnAction in order to describe InteractAction in a LearnAction context as this existing type has several specific types such as RegisterAction and JoinAction. We have used the following existing properties: name, description, image, agent, startTime, endTime, participant and location to describe session fields in rich semantic information. Full details about these properties can be found in schema.org/Action. However, the use of agent property here is different with the use of author property in Course. author is used to describe the course instructor in a Course. On the other hand, agent is used here to describe the lecturer of the session, as there could be different lecturers for each session within the course. We also propose three new properties to the Session type, which are shown in the table below that are not available in the current schema. We use Session here instead of Lecture, as Session has a much broader meaning and could be used to describe lecture, seminar, lab class and tutorial. We could extend the Session type with these subtypes but we would like to keep this proposal as simple as we can.
Thing< Action< InteractAction< LearnAction< Session
| Property | Expected Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| sessionMaterial | URL | The session files such as handouts and presentation slides. |
| courseTitle | Course or Text | A citation or reference to the name of the course. |
| objectives | Text | The objectives or headlines of the session. |
Assessment
Assessment is a broad expression in educational context. There is existing type ReviewAction, which is an extended type of AssessAction that could be used to describe Assessment. However, there are no available specific types of AssessAction and ReviewAction in order to describe Assessment in an educational context. Therefore, we propose three new specific types of Assessment (Assignment, Examination and Test) that are extended types from the existing type ReviewAction. ReviewAction and its root types have most properties that are needed to describe Assessment specific types content such as name, description, image, agent, startTime, endTime, participant and resultReview. Full details about these properties can be found in schema.org/ReviewAction.
Assignment
This new type is extended from the existing class ReviewAction that is a subtype of Action/AsssessAction in order to put ReviewAction in an Assignment context. We propose three new properties to this new type as shown in the table below in order to have a full semantic description of Assignment
Thing< Action< AssessAction< ReviewAction< Assignment
| Property | Expected Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| assignmentMaterial | URL | Any resource or file for the assignment. |
| courseTitle | Course or Text | A citation or reference to the name of the course. |
| deadline | Date | The deadline of the assignment. |
Examination
This type of assessment can be described as a formal test or summative after a series of sessions, lectures and lessons or after a period of time. We propose one new property to this new type as shown in the table below.
Thing< Action< AssessAction< ReviewAction< Examination
| Property | Expected Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| courseTitle | Course or Text | A citation or reference to the name of the course. |
Test
Test is checking learning after a specific session, lecture or lab class. We propose one new property to this type as shown in the table below. sessionTitle links the test to its session or lecture. Therefore, this is the key reason of proposing a separate Test type and not includes it with the Examination type, as test usually conducts after specific session and should be linked to this session. For example, test can be seen obviously in lab classes, as usually there is a test after each lab class especially in programming labs. There is also further type of assessment in educational context “Quiz”, which can be listed under the Test type. Quiz is a shorter version of test on a specific topic and could be described as a Test in this proposal.
Thing< Action< AssessAction< ReviewAction< Test
| Property | Expected Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| sessionTitle | Session or Text | A citation or reference to the name of the session. |
Example
- We use our demonstration VLE as an example in order to implement and test this proposal.
- An example of testing the Course type in the Structured Data Testing Tool.
- An example of testing the Session type in the Structured Data Testing Tool.
How to Join the Discussion
Discussions: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-vocabs/2014Nov/0008.html
LRMI Discussion: http://www.lrmi.net/discuss?place=msg%2Flrmi%2F_lNPdi1WDAE%2FGCD9dhrn9pMJ
Reference
- Aldaej, A., Krause, P. (2014). An Enhanced Approach to Semantic Markup of VLEs Content Based on Schema.org. In 4th Int. Workshop on Learning and Education with the Web of Data co-located with 13th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2014) Riva del Garda, Italy, October 20, 2014.