From Microformats

Table of contents

1 Microformats in Education: Course Catalog 1.1 Todo 1.2 Some Microformat use in Education 1.3 Where could there be a need for microformats in education? 1.3.1 Course Catalog 1.3.1.1 Examples 1.3.1.2 Frameworks in Development 1.3.1.2.1 XCRI - eXchanging Course-Related Information 1.3.1.3 Working Draft

Microformats in Education: Course Catalog

Starting a collection of research, examples, and a rationale for a microformat for course catalogs in Higher Education. - Jesse Rodgers (http://webdevblog.uwaterloo.ca)

Todo

• Get more examples from outside of Canada: Australia, United States, UK, other EU, and hopefully some Asian and south American schools.
• Post some schema information from internal course management systems (work with what already exists)
• First idea is posted (this should be easy)

Some Microformat use in Education

Here is a list of edu sites that use microformats:

• Mays Business School at Texas A&M University (http://mays.tamu.edu) in our faculty directory (http://mays.tamu.edu/directory/) choose an individual and they will have an hCard and vcard. For info contact Matt Herzberger (mailto:mherzberger@mays.tamu.edu)
• University of Waterloo Events  (http://calendar.uwevents.uwaterloo.ca) - new events system that uses hCal and iCal
• Pierce College staff/faculty directory (http://www.pierce.ctc.edu/ephone) uses hCard.
• Clinical Science Program at Univ. Colorado Health Sciences Center (https://www2.uchsc.edu/clinicalscience/calendar/clsc_calendar.asp) uses iCal.
• Scottish Schools Online (http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/scottishschoolsonline/index.asp?iPage=15&strSubmit=True&strSearchText=&bSubmit=1&cLetter=&authority=&strTypes=&strAdditionalServices=&strFundingType=&searchstring=) uses hCard.

Where could there be a need for microformats in education?

Course Catalog

A course catalog (sometimes known as a course calendar) is a collection of courses and when they are available as well as fee schedules and course dependencies.

Examples

• University of Waterloo Course Calendar (http://www.ucalendar.uwaterloo.ca/) - current system is set for an upgrade but as you can see the code is very inconsistent.
  • Course information is displayed with:
    • course title
    • course requirements
    • eligibility requirements
    • any notes that are relevant to that course such as any special circumstances
    • (Anthropology Example) (http://www.ucalendar.uwaterloo.ca/ARTS/anthropology.html) - no class or id names present
• University of Guelph undergrad calendar (http://www.uoguelph.ca/undergrad_calendar/) - there is an attempt to assign relevant class names to table elements.

                   tr class="title"
                   a name="ANTH4300" ANTH*4300 Anthropological Issues F (3-0) [0.50]
                   tr class="description"
                   tr class="prereqs"

• Wilfried Laurier undergrad calendar (http://www.wlu.ca/calendars/index.php?cal=1&y=3)
  • Anthropology example (http://www.wlu.ca/calendars/course.php?c=4707&cal=1&d=174&s=57&y=3) - no class or id names present
• University of Toronto - Scarborough Campus (http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/courses/calendar/)
• University of Western Ontario (http://www.westerncalendar.uwo.ca/western/web/2006(new)/index.html)

Frameworks in Development

XCRI - eXchanging Course-Related Information

Brian Kelly (http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ukoln/staff/b.kelly/) (UK Web Focus) has suggested that the XCRI project (http://www.xcri.org) might be a good project to look with regards to an existing standard. The aim of the project is:

To define a vocabulary and appropriate technology bindings (e.g. XML, RDF) for describing course-related information that encompasses course marketing, course quality assurance, enrolment and reporting requirements.

A practical use of this standard is shown in a blog post entitled Mashups from the future: TripPlanner & XCRI (http://www.cetis.ac.uk/members/scott/blogview?entry=20061117160154) by Scott Wilson. Actual XCRI software is available, including an aggregator (http://www.xcri.org/aggregator)

XCRI conducted a detailed survey of 161 course catalogs (http://www.elframework.org/projects/xcri/xcri_research_v0c.doc) as source materials for their specification, which is described on the XCRI wiki (http://www.xcri.org/wiki).

Working Draft

This is a suggestion for a standardized format for displaying course catalog/ program information for educational institutions.

   div class="programDescription"
      h2  class="title"              Biology 
      div class="academicLevel"      Undergraduate Major
      div class="introCopy"          Descriptive copy about the program
      div class="features"           Distinctive features about the program
      div class="career"             Career opportunities for graduates
      div class="courses"            List of course information
      div class="programDirector"    Program Director