Classification of Programs of Study and Course Models

[philbarker]

Use Case

Initial proposal from Rachel is here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XkBZTLnEZflq9Z9TqPzhtnOVSmoyygFnxXi_VaamRAE/edit?usp=sharing (limited access).

In short: functionality similar to that provided by the Occupation and Industry classes is requested but for grouping together Programs that address similar occupational outcomes. This includes:

• ability to browse programs that are classified as addressing the same subject. This is similar to what may be achieved by using CIP or similar Concept Schemes for classifying programs.
• allow states to define a program of study and support delivery at different institutions. This probably goes beyond what one would cover in a Concept Scheme: "bundle a coherent course sequence, industry-based certifications, and work-based learning under a single named program justified against labor-market demand" and link to Learning Programs that deliver that program.

Examples

This is a common way of displaying program searches in Texas career exploration tools

• Texas CREWS, https://txcrews.org/ - Explore majors and degree programs
• Texas Career Check, https://texascareercheck.com/ExploreEducation/ProgramsOfStudy - Explore Education by Programs of Study
• MyTXFuture, https://www.mytexasfuture.org/career-explorer/ - Search by Career Cluster or Relevant Areas of Study

Notes

• In the short term something like a CIP Concept Scheme is the best option, but does not address the second part of the use case as fully as a new class would. This is analogous to Occupation, where ONET may be coded as a Concept Scheme but the Occupation class offers greater functionality in linking to related objects.
• The name "Program of Study" is also used for local specifications of a curriculum by institutions; as such it would be hard to distinguish from it LearningProgram. We discussed ProgramOfStudyClassification / ProgramClassification as an alternative, or even using LearningProgram.

[philbarker]

here is a very tentative sketch of what I have in mind:

Tentative definition for the new class:

"Program of study defined by a central authority specifying requirements to which learning programs provided by others should adhere."

Part of my thinking in choosing certain properties over others is that instances of the new class do not "teach" anything, they specify how they should be taught; they are not offered they specify things that may be offered; they do not themselves lead to a credential, but they are in some way associated with them.

This could be modified to include similar specifications for Courses if I am right in my hunch that the California course identifiers act as classifiers for courses in a similar way.

We could also look to ELM's elm:Specification and its subclasses, though these also map to LearningProgram.

[philbarker]

The California Course Model Curriculum and its C-IDs are similar in concept to this. On Aug 4 we discussed them and noted that the proposal was to use ceterms:Course for Course Specifications or Course Descriptors that are created by state agencies /national authorities on which providers base their own Courses which are then offered. If that is the route we are taking, a similar broadening of Program to include the Program of Study / Classification may accommodate this use case.

[philbarker]

Here is a sketchy triples diagram for what the data would look like if we modelled Programs of Study as Programs:

based loosely on https://texascareercheck.com/ProgramsOfStudyInfo/ProgramsOfStudySummary/12.0501/

(with some additional data for illustrative purposes):

Data looks like:

[philbarker]

We discussed this on August 25 in parallel with the California Course Model Curriculum and its C-IDs.

We agreed that

• both should be covered by the same solution
• the use of learning opportunity classes that had been discussed in previous calls for C-IDs was not appropriate because of the different nature and properties of the Program of Study / Course Model; for example
  • specifying a competency versus teaching it
  • being the basis for accreditation rather than being accredited
• we need a new class for the Program of Study / Course Model entities, which are analogous to Credential Types
• we do need a property to link the locally offered learning opportunity to the specification/model and/or vice-versa

Therefore I:

• changed the title of this issue to include Course Models
• suggest a solution similar to that in my comment of Jul 15 but updated to be more general and thus encompass other learning opportunities:

The Baking and Pastry Arts data would then look like:

[philbarker]

The California Course Models used to define C-IDs would work similarly to the Program of Study example above.

The image below shows the information in C-ID Course Descriptor, based on the information at https://data-c-idsystem.org/descriptors/final/show/239

I have used elm:Notes for a couple of items, we can discuss whether they should have their own property (existing or new), but we pretty much have it covered.

The other part of the use case is to show the approved college courses against each C-ID Course Descriptor, e.g. American River College ACCT 481 Honors Financial Accounting (see the approved courses at https://data-c-idsystem.org/approved-courses ), shown below with some idea of the QA Action and Process Profile: