Curriculum Exchange Format
Introduction
The Curriculum Exchange Format (CEF) is available as a European Standard from standards bodies (EN 15943:2010). The EN includes an example xml binding based on Zthes.
There is also a CEN Workshop Agreement (CWA) available that describes how CEF could be applied to model curricula.
General information
| information to be gathered | details |
|---|---|
| Name / title of source/model and version if applicable | Curriculum Exchange Format (CEF) EN 15943:2010 and CWA 16078 |
| Stakeholder | CEN TC353 and CEN WS-LT |
| URL | ftp://ftp.cen.eu/CEN/Sectors/TCandWorkshops/Workshops/CWA16078.pdf |
| Orientation | |
| Explicit / implicit | |
| Organisational competence | |
| Number of people currently affected | |
| User communities | |
| Significant use cases | European Schoolnet vocabulary bank http://europeanschoolnet-vbe.lexaurus.net/ Kennisnet http://kennisnet.lexaurus.net/ |
| Significant business cases | |
| Sample materials | |
| Key features influencing uptake |
Features
(see the Features page or the separate pages for each feature)
| N | Features | ? | notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 00 | More than one model | 1 | The model describes a way of modelling curricula. It does so have a structure and a "term" within that structure that can have relationships with other terms. Hence the CEF can model a single LOC or a set of them in a structure. |
| 01 | Identifiers | 1 | |
| 02 | Hierarchy (internal) | 1 | Can represent a polyhierarchy. |
| 03 | Internal relationships | 1 | |
| 04 | External relationships | 1 | If an item originates from a different source the source is identified |
| 05 | Conditionality / optionality | 0 | Some properties of terms and CEF instances are optional. It would be of a particular profile of CEF to define conditionality or optionality of a LOC. |
| 06 | Text syntax | 0 | |
| 07 | Structured identifiers | 0 | |
| 08 | Classification | 1 | This is possible. |
| 09 | Level attribution | 1 | |
| 10 | Level definition | 1 | |
| 11 | Context | 1 | This can be described using DC properties. |
| 12 | Evidence and assessment | 0 | |
| 13 | Extensions | 1 | |
| 14 | Profiles | 1 | |
| 15 | Adaptation | 1 | |
| 16 | Definition by example | 1 | |
| 17 | Learning resources | 0 | |
| 18 | Learner records | 0 | |
| 19 | Multilinguality | 1 |
Any other or longer information
CEF Instance
A CEF Instance is similar to LOCstructure in that it is a discrete entity with metadata to describe it and it contains other items and relationships.
| CEF element | CEF definition | InLOC mapping | notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| dc:title | The name of the CEF instance | same | |
| dc:creator | The name of the creator of the CEF instance. | LOCassociation type by | |
| dc:subject | The topic areas covered by the CEF instance. | LOCassociation type topic | |
| dc:description | A description of the CEF instance. | same | |
| dc:publisher | The name of the publisher of the CEF instance. | LOCassociation type by | |
| dc:contributor | The names of contributors to the CEF instance. | LOCassociation type by | |
| dc:date | The publication date. | issued | |
| dc:type | The type of CEF instance. | There is no CEF type vocabulary specified and this is left to implementers. DC defines type as "The nature or genre of the resource." Example values could be curriculum or topic. Could define an InLOC category to suit. | |
| dc:format | The format of the CEF instance. | no map | |
| dc:identifier | The identifier for the CEF instance. | same | |
| dc:source | The source for the CEF instance. | no map | |
| dc:language | The language of the CEF instance (from ISO639). The primary language first. | similar | InLOC puts primary language in the LOCstructure, others as attributes of string elements |
| dc:relation | Items related to the CEF instance. | LOCassociation of type=LOCrel scheme.id=related | |
| dc:coverage | The coverage of the CEF instance. | could be a LOCassociation of type=category | DC defines coverage as "The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant." Examples might be Europe or France. |
| dc:rights | Rights statement governing the usage of the CEF instance. | same | |
| resolver | The resolution service. A uri prefix that provides a resolution url when combined in some way with the identifier of a term. | ||
| thesNote | This can be used for adding information about the CEF instance that is not covered by other elements. The following are reserved labels for thesNotes:
|
|
CEF term
A CEF term is similar to LOCdefinition in that it is an entity with metadata to describe it and may have relationships to other items. Some items may considered to be LOCs and are defined as objectives in CEF but not all items are LOCs.
In the table below some properties of items are described and mapped to InLOC properties but only those that seem relevant.
| IA element | IA definition | InLOC mapping | notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| termId | An opaque string of characters which uniquely identifies the term within a CEF instance. This could be a uri or a local identifier. | id | |
| termName | The name of the term in a form that may be displayed to a user or used as a search term in a target database. The termName may be translated using langString | title | similar treatment of language |
| termCategory | Identifies a term as belonging to a particular topical subset or micro thesaurus. | LOCassociation type=category | |
| termLanguage | The primary language of the term. | language | |
| termType | An indication of the basic type of the term, chosen from the controlled vocabulary PT, ND, NL PT = preferred term ND = non-descriptor (non-preferred term) NL = node label |
LOCassociation type=category | CEF to publish the scheme |
| definition | A definition of the concept represented identified by the termId and labelled by the termName. | description | |
| termVocabulary | The identifier of the vocabulary the term originates from. | ? | Maybe primaryStructure |
| browseRoot | (true, false) Indicates if a term should be displayed as a top term or not. | new LOCassociation type=category | CEF to publish the scheme |
| sortKey | An explicit sort key for the term based on application-specific sorting rules to produce order not attainable through a strict alphanumeric sort. | no map | serialisation order can be taken as sort order, otherwise not mapped |
| termCreatedDate | created | ||
| termCreatedBy | LOCassociation type=by | ||
| termModifiedDate | modified | ||
| termModifiedBy | LOCassociation type=by | ||
| termNote | LOCassociation type | these both support extensions in a similar way | |
| termNote reserved labels | |||
| authority | An approved Authority that created and "owns" the term. Can be used by systems to allocate user permissions. | could extend to new LOCassociation type=by term | |
| CEFType | A label taken from a controlled vocabulary used to indicate the type of term from a curriculum perspective. e.g. objective, topic, action, competency These may vary according to context. |
LOCassociation type=category | CEF to publish any schemes. Could be used to differentiate LOCs form non-LOCs. |
| displayNote | A note associated with a term that may be used for display purposes. Many curricula have information associated with a node in a structure that is not part of the term. | merge in with furtherInformation | |
| level | An indication of the level that the concept applies to taken from an identified controlled vocabulary. For example Year 1 or Year 2. | LOCassociation type=level | |
| longTerm | A term label that is longer than can be easily managed in user interfaces, but needs to be retained for completeness - e.g. parts of a curriculum document. | merge in to furtherInformation | |
| subject | The main subject(s) that a concept belongs to. Similar to Qualifier and Category but from a set of subjects typically used in curricula taken from an identified controlled vocabulary. | LOCassociation type=topic |
Relationships
Relationships in CEF and InLOC are similar but in CEF the model does not specify the binding as skos specifically. A term is modelled as having an optional set of relationship sub-records and with each relationship being of a basic type these are BT, NT, USE, UF Linguistic Equivalent and RT. Additional relationships can be given using an optional extension of the basic types such as extending NT (Narrower Term) by Narrower Term Partitive to indicate the the object is a part of the subject.
When CEF instance is expressed using skos many of the relationship should be expressed in the same way as LOC.
Compound relationships are allowed in CEF (though not aware of implementations).
In CEF a term can be preferred or not, hence it is possible to relate an item to another item, such as to indicate a close or exact match, and choose to have the item included in the structure as a term to be used or not as well as indicate if it originates from the same structure or a different one.
| CEF direct | CEF inverse | InLOC direct | InLOC inverse | notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| type = NT | type = BT | hasLOCpart | isLOCpartOf | |
| typeNote = NTP | typeNote = BTP | isOptionalPartOf | hasOptionalPart | needs a separate indicator that an item is optional. Similarly for necessaryPartOf |
| hasPreRequisite | isPreRequisiteOf | could be expressed as a hierarchy using BT and NT with an extension of prerequisite | ||
| RT | related | symmetric though extensions may not necessarily be | ||
| UF | USE | exactMatch | In this case the object of the USE relationship is a preferred term but the other is not. InLOC doesn't do preferred terms. | |
| closeMatch | the RT relationship could be used with a match extension. | |||
| sortKey | no map | |||
| LE | exactMatch | with different language |
Guidance requirements
Mapping