Some thoughts on the possible benefits of using VirLaBoK for GI teaching design and GI course finding

06 July 2016, Frans I. Rip

Triggers for the ‘thoughts’?

Triggers GI-N2K wp1 results (supply vs. demand of GI teaching):

● Un-harmonized GI course descriptions (supply side) and learning needs (demand side)

● Little awareness of GI Body of Knowledge BoKOnto version of GI Body of Knowledge created in US Looking for a course about Linked Data basics: not easy

Data Quality, fitness-for-use perspective: tell me what I need to know Existence of Booking.com for hotel accommodation:

applicable to teaching offers?

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My objective

Make it easier to find GI teaching offers Promote the use of a standard to describe GI-teaching to

improve comparability Promote a tool for that: the Curriculum Design Tool

Support the EU objective to look abroad for learning

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Idea: GI course portal website

If: Wide use of Curriculum Design Tool Then: Many harmonized GI course descriptions

If also mentioned for each course: ● Language(s) of instruction ● E-learning available ( e.g. MOOC) ● Organisational details (e.g. ECTS, EQF, fee, timetable) Then: Teaching offers might attract participants from

abroad All this could be presented on a portal website

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Example

Good enough?

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Questions

Example good enough? • Organisational aspects: present • Course content description: No use of GI BoK concepts • Completeness: limited (focus seems to be on oil

exploration domain, Salzburg GI teaching not mentioned)

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So: Example is not yet perfect for the GI domain. Assuming the query was OK, the data must be the problem

Course names from 2014 survey selection from 230 entries: less informative names

Community Expert program Cursd Expert Universitarien SIG Curso de Postgrado Aplicacindelos SIG en Arqueologa Einfuhrung in GIS Experto GIS ArcGIs gv SIGQGIS Geoweb nouveaux enjeux nouveaux usages GERI2 GIS und Geodatenbanken Grundlagen der Geoinformatik Ingénieur Agronome specialisation agrogéomatique

Methods and Techniques Basic Advanced Midden kader functionaris Landmeten nbmb

Ruimtelijke informatiekunde 1 data en cartografie

SIG AVANZADO

SISGEO-INFO

Techniki Pozyskiwania Danych Obrazowych

TSSIG Technicien Supérieur en SIG

Umwelt-und Geoinformations systeme

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Better data

Which details of any teaching offer does GI need? 2 reference models are relevant: • For organisational aspects: Metadata for Learning

Opportunities • For GI domain content: GI-BoK, latest version

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Organisational Reference: Metadata for Learning Opportunities

ftp://ftp.cenorm.be/PUBLIC/CWAs/e-Europe/WS-LT/CWA15903-00-2008-Dec.pdf

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Missing: teaching type (online, instructor led) ......

Content Reference 1

American development: BoKOnto H http://gistbok.org/bokwiki/index.html

DiBiase et al., 2006 Ahearn & Skupin, 2015

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Content Reference 2

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European development H GI-N2K prj: Virtual Lab for the BoK

DiBiase et al., 2006 Hossain, 2014

Based on Am. developments

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The GI-N2K VirLaBoK work produced the

Curriculum Design Tool

Version: June 14, 2016

Search and result

If descriptions of GI teaching offers were based on the mentioned data models, looking for GI courses might be like this:

Search for a GI course Found GI courses: Filter on these values:

Subject GI-BoK tags 1. Course title + description

Teaching Level EQF level GI-BoK tags EQF level ECTS size

Study load ECTS credits Org. name Language tag(s) Teaching Place

Teaching Org. Type Univ., Coll., SME Timetable Dist. Learning Y/N Course fee

Teaching Language Language code

Fee € range class 2. Course title + description

Starting Date Month / Year GI-BoK tags EQF level ECTS size

Teaching Type Class / Online Org. name Language tag(s) Teaching Place

Timetable Dist. Learning Y/N Course fee

3. Course title + description

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Portal website

Ideal: Each course provider publishes course data, in accordance with the ref. models for org. and content, on a website. At least in CSV-format ( open data) Better: as Linked Data in a SPARQL db on URI ( )

The course data is not in one big central db, but stays at the home website.

The Portal website facilitates to query all course provider web sites and show all results found at those websites.

Fictional data link example: <http://x.org/2016#Edu> <http://MLO.org/def#offer> <http://MLO.org/LO#GIScourse>

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Happy course seeker

!

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