Need a way to indicate the education subject (Math, ELA, Science)

[paranoicsan]

According to a content model there is a course object which usually is described as grade and subject (Grade 4 Mathematics). But sometimes we need to show the clear subject like ELA or Math.

[science]

@philbarker -- Alexander and I have been talking about this a bit. It makes sense that as a general/internationalized matter, we would want to represent subjects using alignmentObjects because "Subject: Math" for Russia, the UK, and the US would potentially mean somewhat different things.

However, some downstream standards, in this case NIMAS, want a simple subject identifier. And it's not at all obvious to me how we would machine-convert a complex alignmentObject statement about subject into a simple subject statement for this standard.

Therefore, I believe we need BOTH an alignmentObject statement of subject, and alongside it, a simple summary statement? Perhaps we could extend the alignmentObject itself to add "subject" or "about" to it, so that there's a summary baked right into the complex statement? (This would enable us to force the use of alignmentObject, to keep people from taking they easy way out?)

Thoughts?

[philbarker]

[just to recap discussion with @paranoicsan ] about is already there as a property of most entity types for the "subject matter of the content"; educationalAlignment can be added to OCX to describe the broader "field of study" or "discipline" if used with a suitable alignmentType (i.e. educationalSubject). [end of recap]

There is lots of argument either way about whether they are different, but a library cataloguer wouldn't mind using about to say the subject of a book was "Math".

You can use about with anything you want (it's range is schema:Thing), so you could use it with a defined term:

"about": {
   "@type": "DefinedTerm",
   "name": "Mathematics",
   "termCode": "510",
   "inDefinedTermSet": "Dewey Decmal Classification"
   "sameAs": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q395"
}

Alternatively, just use the code as an identifier for Math as an Intangible thing:

"about": {
   "@type": "Intangible",
   "name": "Mathematics",
   "identifier":  {
      "@type": "PropertyValue",
      "propertyID": "Dewey Decimal Class",
      "value": "510",
      "sameAs": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q395"
   }
}

If you prefer the AlignmentObject, there were conventions for using targetName and targetDescription drawn up for the dot-notation identifier from Common Core which you might be able to adapt.

Finally, if you do want to add something to the AlignmentObject, make sure that it is the targetSomething (e.g. targetCode) because it is a property of the target in the framework to which you are aligning, not the alignment itself.