Wikidata

Wikidata:Requests for comment/How to model curricula and link them to educational resources?

< Wikidata:Requests for comment
An editor has requested the community to provide input on "How to model curricula and link them to educational resources?" via the Requests for comment (RFC) process. This is the discussion page regarding the issue.

If you have an opinion regarding this issue, feel free to comment below. Thank you!


Note: please discuss this on the Discussion page, suggestions will then be integrated.

Background edit

As of the 10th of April 188 countries have completely shut their schools affecting over 1,5 billion learners, which is over 90% of all enrolled learners worldwide. Even before the pandemic there were:

  • 258 million children and youth are out of school.
  • 641 million children in low and middle income countries who do not have access to education in a language they speak.
  • 617 million children attending school who are not learning in the classroom, or have dropped out school

There are many resources available at a wide range of education levels to support these learners however they cannot be used easily because they are not connected to curricula and may not be available in the learner's language.

Wikidata connecting resources and curricula edit

What roles can Wikidata play in this? One way is by helping learners and their parents/guardians find educational resources they need to continue their education at home. However currently no one is consistently and systematically linking curricula (what students need to learn) to the educational resources which are available. Wikidata could fulfill this role.

  • Curricula: Some governments and international bodies have made available their curricula available to let parents know what to teach. We can teach governments how to add their curricular frameworks to Wikidata, once it is set up to include them.
  • Educational resources: Many organisations and governments have begun to release a huge amount of educational material for free e.g 450 free Ivy League courses. Additionally, the recent UNESCO Recommendation on the use of OERs in education creates an enabling environment for educators and education systems to produce, curate and share open educational resources.

Use cases edit

Providing people with ways to easily find and access relevant information is critical. There are likely to be many options for this including:

  • Providing tools for teachers, parents and students to find and make use of open educational resources that are aligned with their curricula
  • Understanding which topics in national curricula have and do not have Wikipedia articles
  • Tools to compare and analyze curricula, leading to an understanding of gaps and places for improvement

Steps edit

Wikidata becoming a connector of curricula and educational resources can be done in four steps:

  1. Step 1: Modelling curricula on Wikidata
  2. Step 2: Linking to relevant educational resources
  3. Step 3: Importing the data into Wikidata systematically
  4. Step 4: Providing ways for people to find and access the information


Step 1: Modelling curricula on Wikidata edit

Mapping which topics are in which curricula at which grade level edit

Mapping which topics are in which curricula at a specific level is needed to map the curricula. This could be done through a statement like 'topic is in X national curriculum at X grade level', we currently have a property proposal here.

Mapping other information edit

It could be important to also map other information e.g subjects, learning outcomes

Example curricula edit

  1. The national curriculum for England is available online here, e.g the national curricula for Computing for Key Stage 1-4 is available here.
  2. The UNESCO International Standard Classification of Education provides a simple international framework for education levels and topics worldwide.

Step 2: Linking to relevant educational resources edit

Linking to relevant educational resources on Wikidata is already happening through linking to Wikimedia project resources on that subject and through External IDs to other databases. However this is insufficient in providing the resources people need. What is the best way to link the educational resources e.g assigned textbooks online, an online course, a video etc? There appear to be two broad options to do this, but both have costs and benefits in recording the relevant level of detail and fitting within Wikidata's notability policy.

A. Linking from a subject to a resource edit

These resources are available on this topic at X grade level

Property Qualifiers Value
Educational resource available (property to be defined) Grade level/s, languages etc Link to resource

B. Creating a Wikidata item for each resource edit

The second option is creating an item for each resource which would allow more information to be recorded. However would it fall within Wikidata's notability policy? E.g Should each Khan Academy lesson on algebra get its own Wikidata item?

Step 3: Importing the data into Wikidata systematically edit

An existing or new Wikiproject could organise the information about which curricula are available and which have been imported into Wikidata. We could use the model used for FindingGLAMs, both crowdsourcing and importing datasets.

Curricula edit

Many governments are making their curricula available online as well as NGOs and other bodies which create curricula

  1. Identifying curricula in each country and recording that they exist in Wikidata, showing that they have been imported. This could be done in collaboration with governments and other educational bodies e.g UNESCO to ensure the data is up to date and complete.
  2. Use Wikidata import hub to record curricula available and if the topics in the curricula have been imported.

Resources edit

There are many many resources available, which we could import into Wikidata both through importing datasets (eg Khan Academy list of lessons) through crowdsourcing the information. Wikidata could use existing work done to compile resources e.g the Hewlett Foundation research database.

Step 4: Providing ways for people to find and access the information edit

Providing people with ways to easily find and access the information is critical. There are likely to be many options for this including:

  • Wikipedia is used by 500 million people each month so making this information available through Wikipedia would reach a large audience.
    • Example: Creating Wikipedia articles for lists of topics in national curricula.
    • Example: Using Wikidata to understand which of the topics in a curriculum have Wikipedia articles.

Main questions edit

Use cases edit

  • Which additional use cases are there within and external to Wikimedia projects?
  • Which audiences could this data be useful to?

Inclusiveness edit

  • How to include educational material providers in discussions about contribution and reuse?
  • How to make this a usable and useful resource for the people with the knowledge on resources available, e.g teachers
  • How to make it useful content producers to map their work to e.g Khan Academy

Structural issues in Wikidata edit

  • How to encourage consistent modelling of data to make it more usable? e.g clear schemas and Wikidata:Tours
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