Andy, again, quite useful.  In addressing your two major issues, I would say the following:

1)  Both ConceptualEducationalActivity and EducationalActivityInstance should be in scope (i.e, inside the yellow AP area of your model (i.e., my 'descriptive domain')) so they can serve that function of tying together.  I have trouble seeing their utility otherwise since to use them as entities is to create them as such and no one else will provide the means if we don't.

That said, I would also move the Agent entity outside the yellow AP area.  While the relationship a Resource or an EducationalActivityDocumentation holds with an agent is important (e.g., the dcterms:creator placeholder in your model), I still don't think our AP should trigger, for example, a description template for an Agent entity?  I just don't think it is the DCEd-AP's business to constrain or otherwise provide for the description of agents.  Also, I don't think that Agent fits your definition of what is inside the yellow AP area which you state represents "all resources that describe or prescribe an idea for an educational activity or the instantiation of that idea into educational practice together with any other resources that are used as part of those educational activities."  Andy I have attached a revised version that puts ConceptualEducationalActivity and EducationalActivityInstance within the AP and Agent outside it (Andy-rev-SAS.jpg).

While having ConceptualEducationalActivity and EducationalActivityInstance in scope of the AP as entities that may be described adds complexity, in practical terms, many would simply describe Resource or EducationalActivityDocumentation (or just Resource--see #2 below).  I would think that the higher-order entities would not be described until more complex (familial) relationships among particular Resources triggered the need.  This seems no different to me than would be the case were the entities present in the model but outside AP (your yellow area).

2)  With ConceptualEducationalActivity and EducationalActivityInstance in descriptive scope (i.e., inside your yellow area), we don't absolutely have to have the EducationalActivityDocumentation as a separate resource as long as Resource can be the subject of an isDocumentationFor relationship.  I have taken a stab at that revision as well (Andy-rev2-SAS.jpg).

Andy, hope I haven't overly misconstrued.

Stuart

-----Original Message-----
From: DCMI Education Community [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Andy Powell
Sent: Monday, January 11, 2010 3:24 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: DC-Ed Application Profile: Defining resource classes for the AP

OK, so here's my attempt at a new representation of the model.

Only the parts inside the yellow bit are in scope of the AP being discussed here.  In English, the yellow area represents "all resources that describe or prescribe an idea for an educational activity or the instantiation of that idea into educational practice together with any other resources that are used as part of those educational activities".

I see two major issues:

1) If ConceptualEducationalActivity and EducationalActivityInstance are *outside* the AP, then we can't use them to tie together the documentation and other resources that are associated with a particular idea or instance.  We need a direct relationship between an associated resource and an item of documentation (for an idea or instance) to do that. This relationship is represented by the '?' in the image attached here. The trouble is... it's not clear what that relationship is.  Following the arrows gives you something like

usedAsPartOfTheActivityDocumentedBy

which is, err, a bit of a mouthful :-)

I'm not sure what to do about this.

The converse relationship (between documentation and resource) would be something like

isDocumentationForAnActivityThatUses

!!

2) An item of EducationalActivityDocumentation is a Resource - it's not 100% clear to me that we actually need a separate class for this entity??  However, keeping the class is useful for this discussion I think.

Andy

Andy Powell
Research Programme Director
Eduserv

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________________________________________
From: DCMI Education Community [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Andy Powell [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 11 January 2010 10:27
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: DC-Ed Application Profile: Defining resource classes for the AP

Stuart,
I think there's a risk that we think we are getting confused when we aren't.  Here's another take...

As we have it, there are 5 entities in our model.

ConceptualEducationalActivity

EducationalActivityInstance

EducationalActivityDocumentation

Resource

Agent

(Note: for purely consistency reasons, it might be worth renaming ConceptualEducationalActivity as EducationalActivityIdea - but I haven't done this for the remainder of this message).

A ConceptualEducationalActivity is a conceptual Resource - the idea for a learning activity.

An EducationalActivityInstance is an Event - the instantiation of the idea at a particular place and time.

An item of EducationalActivityDocumentation is a DLO (a text document, an image, a sound recording, a video, ...) - something that prescribes or describes the idea or instantiation.

Do we agree so far?

My current thinking is that ConceptualEducationalActivity and EducationalActivityInstance are *in* the model but would be *out* of the AP - i.e. we wouldn't describe these things directly.  They are in the model primarily to help us understand what is what - (in part, having them in the model allows us to say explicitly, "these things are not being described by this AP").

Items of EducationalActivityDocumentation and other Resources for which there is an associated EducationalActivityInstance or ConceptualEducationalActivity are collectively what I think we have primarily termed LearningResources or LearningObjects (or similar) in the past.

Again, do we agree?

I think it is only these LearningResources (i.e. items of EducationalActivityDocumentation and other Resources for which there is an associated EducationalActivityInstance or ConceptualEducationalActivity) that will be described by this AP.

I don't think there is any implied flow thru the model but I do think that there is an idea (a ConceptualEducationalActivity) for every instance (EducationalActivityInstance) which has associated documentation (EducationalActivityDocumentation) and/or associated resources (Resource).  The  'idea>>activity>>documentation' ordering in the diagram was how you chose to draw it?!  I think you could have just as easily drawn it as 'idea>>documentation>>activity'.  As far as I'm concerned both representations fit with my (as yet unwritten) definitions of the entities above.  It might be worth trying to draw those 3 entities in the form of a triangle with Agent and Resource at the centre ??

Andy

Andy Powell
Research Programme Director
Eduserv

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________________________________________
From: Stuart Sutton [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 10 January 2010 18:55
To: Andy Powell; [log in to unmask]
Subject: RE: DC-Ed Application Profile: Defining resource classes for the AP

Andy, as I looked at your post over the last few days, I grew increasingly uncomfortable with how the entities are defined and the conceptual role of "activity".  In the examples thrown out on Friday (your "lesson plan" and Mikael's "English-language book"), _neither_ are "activities" (actual uses) in and of themselves and yet, to a large extent, these are the kinds of entities of primary concerned to the DCEd-AP.  These are resources of the general class I called "Learning Resource" at [1].  If I am understanding your definitions of entities at the moment, Andy, neither book nor lesson plan have a place in the model as non-activity entities even though both the book and the lesson plan are likely to have attributes that trigger assertions about things such as educationLevel, audience, conformsTo etc. etc.  However, I may well be off-base with your intentions...happens to me :-)

I think we all agree that _uses_ of both the English-language book and the lesson plan are activities (and, for our purposes, we can assume those activities are educational in nature (otherwise the book might make a great doorstop)).  But, to the extent that those activities are ephemeral--e.g. (as you put it, Andy), 'giving the lesson to a particular group of students in a particular school at a particular time'[2], they are of no _practical_ concern to us in this AP regardless of how interesting they may be to educational theorists. Now, should someone 'capture' one of those activities in a tangible medium of expression capable of being perceived beyond the ephemeral timeframe of the actual "use", say, as a derived lesson plan, a video etc., then those _expressions/representations_ also would be Learning Resources and of as much concern to us as the original book and lesson plan.  But, I would posit, those representations are _not_ the same things as the ephemeral uses that triggered the representations; instead these representations are new resources (related to book and lesson plan) that serve as the breeding ground for future uses just as did the original book and lesson plan.  So, I guess I would be less uncomfortable at the moment were the entities in the model not all framed as "activities" with the knowledge that a Learning Resource might well be either: (1) a representation of some long-gone ephemeral "use" represented in a tangible medium of expression; or, (2) something we cannot characterize as an activity in and of itself (e.g., a textbook or a lesson plan).

The use of higher-order abstract entities in the model to identify 'families' of learning resources if needed makes sense to me and I thought that was what Mikael was driving at in his original post at [3]--e.g., the abstract work entity in FRBR operationalized as a uniform title ties together all of the versions/variations of Alice in Wonderland.

I am also uncomfortable with the model's implied 'flow' in seeming to assert that idea gives rise to an activity that gives rise to representation/documentation (i.e., idea>>activity>>documentation).  I note in [4] that both the lesson plan and book commonly frame an alternative flow (idea>>documentation>>activity) and I am not sure how that fits with the model given your definitions, Andy.

Stuart
[1] http://dublincore.org/educationwiki/Classes
[2] http://tinyurl.com/yg48cef
[3] http://tinyurl.com/y8svj2d
[4] http://tinyurl.com/yacmsys


-----Original Message-----
From: DCMI Education Community [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Andy Powell
Sent: Friday, January 08, 2010 4:13 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: DC-Ed Application Profile: Defining resource classes for the AP

In this case...

The ConceptualEducationalActivity is the teacher's 'idea for a lesson'.

The EducationalActivityInstance is the teacher actually 'giving the lesson to a particular group of students in a particular school at a particular time'.

The EducationalActivityDocumentation is the 'lesson plan' that the teacher uses to write-up their idea (but it might also include a 'retrospective summary/report of the particular lesson', or a video of the same, ...).

At least in my understanding of those terms.

A ConceptualEducationalActivity is a conceptual Resource (an idea).

An EducationalActivityInstance is an Event.

An item of EducationalActivityDocumentation is a Document-like Object.

Andy

________________________________

Andy Powell
Research Programme Director
Eduserv

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twitter.com/andypowe11

> -----Original Message-----
> From: DCMI Education Community [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of Lorna M Campbell
> Sent: 08 January 2010 12:08
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: DC-Ed Application Profile: Defining resource classes for
> the AP
>
> On 8 Jan 2010, at 11:47, Mikael Nilsson wrote:
> >
> > I was thinking of "activity instance" as something that happens at a
> > particular place in space-time (or cyberspace-time), with certain
> > participants etc., such as a concrete scheduled lesson.
>
> That's exactly my understanding of "activity instance".
>
> > This would be a
> > Learning Opportunity, which I thought might be out of scope for
> > DC-Ed right now.
>
> Ah right, I see where you're coming from.  If an "activity instance"
> is indeed a "learning opportunity" then it should / could be covered
> by MLO?
>
> > I'm interpreting your reaction (and a fresh look at the
> > diagram) as meaning that "Activity Instance" is what is described by
> > e.g. a lesson plan document. In that case, a learning opportunity is
> > not modeled at all, which to me does indicate it being out of scope
> > just as I thought :-)
> >
> > However, what would a conceptual activity be? Example?
>
> Would an example of a  conceptual activity be the lesson plan?  As
> opposed to an instantiation of that plan which would be an activity
> instance / learning opportunity?
>
> Just trying to think this through :)
>
> Cheers
> Lorna
>
>
> >
> > /Mikael
> >
> >
> >
> >>
> >> Stuart
> >>
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: DCMI Education Community [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> >> On Behalf Of Mikael Nilsson
> >> Sent: Thursday, January 07, 2010 8:22 AM
> >> To: [log in to unmask]
> >> Subject: Re: DC-Ed Application Profile: Defining resource classes
> >> for the AP
> >>
> >> tor 2010-01-07 klockan 07:31 -0800 skrev Stuart Sutton:
> >>> Does this latest stab at a graphic capture it (assuming,
> >>> regardless of the labels on entities in the graphic, that the
> >>> entities can be defined ostensively as those resources of the
> >>> class learning use/activity)?
> >>
> >> Well, yes, I'd agree that the graphic captures a meaningful and
> >> useful model of what we're discussing.
> >>
> >> The distinction between Conceptual Activity and Activity Instance
> >> is meaningful, and has strong overlaps with metadata for Learning
> >> Opportunities (see [1]). I'd assume description of the Activity
> >> Instance to be outside the scope of DC-Ed?
> >>
> >> I'm not 100% sure about the need for a "documentation" resource
> class
> >> and a separate property for that, but that might be a secondary
> >> aspect that lends itself to fruitful debate :-).
> >>
> >> /Mikael
> >>
> >> [1]
> http://zope.cetis.ac.uk/members/scott/blogview?entry=20081021140752
> >>
> >>>
> >>> Stuart
> >>>
> >>> [1] http://tinyurl.com/y96gdkp
> >>>
> >>> -----Original Message-----
> >>> From: DCMI Education Community [mailto:DC-
> >>> [log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mikael Nilsson
> >>> Sent: Thursday, January 07, 2010 6:52 AM
> >>> To: [log in to unmask]
> >>> Subject: Re: DC-Ed Application Profile: Defining resource classes
> >>> for the AP
> >>>
> >>> Hello everyone!
> >>>
> >>> Catching up with this extremely interesting discussion, I'd like
> >>> to give just one piece of input at this stage...
> >>>
> >>> tis 2009-12-22 klockan 11:02 +0000 skrev Andy Powell:
> >>>> I suggest an alternative, which is that we model the set of
> >>>> things in the world of interest to us as being the set of things
> >>>> of class rdfs:Resource which have an associated EducationalUsage.
> >>>
> >>> I had precisely the same thought as Andy. Instead of imagining an
> >>> "ontological change" happening in a resource once it is used in an
> >>> educational setting (turning into a Learning Resource which it was
> >>> not before), it seems more natural to model the "use" as a
> >>> separate resource.
> >>>
> >>> The obvious advantage, of course, is that you suddenly make it not
> >>> only possible, but *sensible* to model multiple educational uses
> >>> for the same resource.
> >>>
> >>> Framed differently: is it reasonable to have the following two
> >>> descriptions of a learning resource (an english-language book):
> >>>
> >>> Description 1:
> >>>
> >>> Audience: French-speaking English students, advanced level
> >>> Difficulty: Hard
> >>>
> >>> Description 2:
> >>>
> >>> Audience: English-speaking literature students, college
> >>> Difficulty: Easy
> >>>
> >>> ?
> >>>
> >>> I'd be inclined to answer *YES* :-). The question then becomes:
> >>> can these descriptions coexist? Just try to merge them:
> >>>
> >>> Audience: French-speaking English students, advanced level
> >>> Audience: English-speaking literature students, college
> >>> Difficulty: Hard
> >>> Difficulty: Easy
> >>>
> >>> and the metadata no longer makes sense - if becomes self-
> >>> contradictory.
> >>> If merged metadata becomes invalid, the modeling is somehow wrong.
> >>>
> >>> Incidentally, the same situation exists in LOM, Category 5
> >>> Educational.
> >>> Do the elements there (difficulty, typical learning time etc)
> >>> apply to the learning resource itself, or do they describe some
> >>> kind of "Usage"?
> >>> As a matter of fact, the whole of category 5 is repeatable, and
> >>> therefore enables the kind of independent descriptions as modeled
> >>> above.
> >>>
> >>> This, IMHO, is the last piece of the puzzle of getting LOM into
> >>> RDF - deciding whether category 5 needs an intermediary resource,
> >>> of
> class
> >>> something like "Educational Usage" or maybe "Educational
> >>> description".
> >>>
> >>> This discussion brings me a lot closer to the opinion that such a
> >>> resource class is necessary for LOM category 5. If LOM and DC-Ed
> >>> take the same path there, it will make reuse of properties a whole
> >>> lot easier.
> >>>
> >>> /Mikael
>
> --
> Lorna M. Campbell
> JISC CETIS Assistant Director
> University of Strathclyde
> Glasgow
> Email: [log in to unmask]
> Phone: +44141 548 3072
> Skype: lorna120768
>
> The University of Strathclyde is a charitable body, registered in
> Scotland, number SC015263.