Learning Resource: Proposal to add properties for textbooks

[jeff-grann]

Ivy Tech plans to add required textbooks to their published courses as part of their compliance with a state legislative requirement. This publishing could be an opportunity to extend Learning Resource (https://credreg.net/ctdl/terms#LearningResource) so that this information can be more readily accessed and referenced, rather than using course descriptions or an identifier, such as,
"COMM 101 required textbook~Public Speaking Handbook~https://www.worldcat.org/isbn/978-0-13-462309-2"

Credential issuers and some potential edtech partners have access to textbook information, which could be usefully referenced via these additional properties.

[stuartasutton]

Before this goes much further, rich models for RDF-based bibliographic descriptions already exist (e.g., BIBFRAME (Bibliographic Framework Initiative), RDA (Resource Description and Access), and DCMI's BIBO (Bibliographic Ontology)) as well as the capability for lighter-weight descriptions (Schema.org). I don't see any real reason for reinventing the wheel within CTDL.

That said, I'd like to point out something that might seem collateral in this issue but is not. Textbooks have a relatively rich US publishing history including how they align with existing competency standards, and how publishers manage the complexity of the emerging competency ecosystem. In the US, it wasn't until the mid- to late-90s, that competency frameworks were pervasive in K-12 (and nearly non-existent in higher education). The earliest users of published competency frameworks in the US were textbook publishers. Before this 1990s period, a textbook publisher would bring together SMEs to assist in creating a textbook that it thought covered the domain. Different publishers published different textbooks using different SMEs leading to significant differences across the available textbooks. School districts (or the state in many cases) checked out the array of available textbooks in an area and purchased the textbook they thought was best.

The competency-driven model in US K-12 after the late 1990's changed this process dramatically. Having adopted content standards, a publisher needed to align its textbook to the state standards—all of the state's standards! Since publishing a textbook is very expensive, the publishers could not create a bespoke textbook for each state. So, many of them created in-house personnel to gather up all of the state standards, cross-walk those standards, and then develop textbooks that best accommodate all of the standards across the states...and then monitor the states for updates year-after-year. Jeanne and Phil, this problem should sound familiar--it describes exactly the kind of problem the DESM is intended to partially address (and where I first started thinking of cross-walking standards).

Now with Ivy Tech. It seems to me that the textbooks it has adopted and has in hand have already been aligned to the state standards; otherwise, they could not be in "compliance with a state legislative requirement". I'd even assume that the publishers looked at the state standards (in the Registry?) and could point to where those standards map throughout the adopted book. This means that alignment for the university could be annotated at the level of the textbook, divisions, chapters, sections...

Anyway, tuck this away. I'll bet that within a year or two there will be a university calling for such a textbook mapping. Maybe even a university RFP to publishers for such a detailed standard-to-textbook mapping...in machine actionable form based on the university's presence in the Registry.

[siuc-nate]

Thank you for the background, Stuart.

Since we don't want to reinvent the wheel, as Stuart said, I think we should start by looking at the existing schemas he listed.

Then we should figure out what should or shouldn't be in-scope for CTDL, and for the Registry, and how much of that belongs in the schema manager.

Additionally, we should decide whether we want to add properties that are generic for any kind of learning resource (and not go overboard with them) or if we should create a more specific textbook class that can be more detailed (potentially related: #922).

My instinct is that we would want to be able to identify (and thus be able to reference) a text book (or other resource) and draw the line at describing one (even if the data is available, it doesn't mean we have to capture it). So name, URL, coded notation, publisher, etc but not cost, location, hasPart, etc. (at least for the high-level ceterms:LearningResource class).

I think getting a look at the existing schemas will hopefully reveal potential pitfalls (such as virtual text books or things that are almost text books but not quite) that we can try to avoid stumbling over.

[jeannekitchens]

@stuartasutton we're also familiar with LRMI https://www.dublincore.org/specifications/lrmi/ and Schema.org. I agree that the intent is NOT to re-invent learning resource descriptions and it is not to include the entire LRMI or Creative work classes. @siuc-nate you spent multiple years working on IOER and, during those years, we were actively involved with the LRMI project. That project also linked competency data, in particular k-12 academic standards.

[philbarker]

As well as the standards for bibliographic data there are many existing "repositories" for it, starting with library and publisher catalogs and including WorldCat (which Jeff links to in his OP).

@jeff-grann what are the minimum data requirements for meeting the state legislative requirements?

[jeff-grann]

The requirements originated from this linked legislation (page 12), and the specific language concerning a "course syllabus or course outline of record" that includes "A list of any required or recommended reading". The Indiana Commission would like to use CTDL and the Registry to help institutions fulfill of these requirements.
Indiana SENATE ENROLLED ACT No. 8

[philbarker]

Thanks @jeff-grann I think that would be fairly easy to accommodate.

I assume the "course syllabus or course outline of record" the Registry record for the course.

For the reading list we would need a property for required/recommended reading. Do we use ceterms:required in this way or create a more specific sub-property? A minimal description of the resource would be name and a subjectWebpage or ceterms:sameAs, which would be enough to display a link to the library/publisher catalogue page. If there is a source of RDF data we could use owl:sameAs to link to that.

I am deliberately ignoring any other issues around how ceterms:LearningResource relates to lrmi:LearningResource, i.e. the question of what is a learning resource, and leaving discussion of how to describe learning resources to other places.