Publishing and copyright information

The BSI copyright notice displayed in this document indicates when the document was last issued.

The following BSI references relate to the work on this standard:

Committee reference IST/43
Draft for comment 12/30259241 DC

Publication history

First (present) edition October 2012

Foreword

Publishing information

This British Standard is published by BSI Standards Limited, under licence from The British Standards Institution, and came into effect on 31 October 2012. It was prepared by Panel IST/43/-/8, UK adoption and of EN 15981 (EuroLMAI), EN 15943 (CEF) and EN 15982 (MLO), under the authority of Technical Committee IST/43, Information technology for learning, education and training. A list of organizations represented on this committee can be obtained on request to its secretary.

Relationship with other publications

BS 8581‑2 provides guidance and recommendations on how and when the elements and attributes described in BS 8581‑1 are to be used.

BS 8581‑1 describes the structure of an XCRI-CAP1.2 XML document that conforms to BS EN 15982.

Presentational conventions

The provisions of this standard are presented in roman (i.e. upright) type. Its requirements are expressed in sentences in which the principal auxiliary verb is “shall”.

Commentary, explanation and general informative material is presented in smaller italic type, and does not constitute a normative element.

Contractual and legal considerations

This publication does not purport to include all the necessary provisions of a contract. Users are responsible for its correct application.

Compliance with a British Standard cannot confer immunity from legal obligations.

0 Introduction

The Exchanging Course Related Information (XCRI) Course Advertising Profile (XCRI-CAP) provides an XML description that enables the interoperability of course descriptions or learning opportunities between the course provider and any number of aggregators.

XCRI-CAP documents provide an XML format based on BS EN 15982, which means documents that conform to this British Standard have the same underlying semantics as those produced to other bindings of BS EN 15982.

XCRI-CAP documents typically consist of a top-level <catalog> element, encapsulating <provider> elements, for the entities providing courses and <course> elements for the descriptions for the courses offered. Each course has descriptive information available, e.g. topic, syllabus, obtainable qualification, career options. The course is also divided into any number of <presentation>s, which are the “instances” or “offerings” of the course that a prospective student applies for, which have specific start and end dates, locations, etc., that can vary in location and mode of study, e.g. a full time and part time presentation, with different durations and start dates. Figure 1 details the main elements of this British Standard.

1 Scope

This British Standard specifies requirements for applications that produce and aggregate XCRI-CAP documents.

It is intended for use by producers and aggregators in the dissemination of course information to prospective students.

This British Standard specifies requirements for:

policy-makers prescribing a consistent approach for product advertisement that conforms to BS EN 15982 to learning opportunity providers;
decision-makers specifying or procuring software for advertising or aggregating information about learning opportunities in a format that conforms to BS EN 15982; and
software developers writing code for advertising or aggregating information about learning opportunities in a format that conforms to BS EN 15982.

2 Normative references

3 Terms and definitions

4 Conformance

5 XCRI-CAP documents

6 Namespace

7 Core elements

7.1 <catalog> element

7.2 <provider> element

7.3 <course> element

7.4 <presentation> element

8 Common elements

8.1 General

8.2 <hasPart> element

8.3 <isPartOf> element

8.4 <contributor> element

8.5 <date> element

8.6 <description> element

8.7 <identifier> element

8.8 <title> element

8.9 <subject> element

8.10 <type> element

8.11 <url> element

8.12 <image> element

9 Common descriptive elements

9.1 General

9.2 <abstract> element

9.3 <applicationProcedure> element

9.4 <assessment> element

9.5 <learningOutcome> element

9.6 <objective> element

9.7 <prerequisite> element

9.8 <regulations> element

10 Elements used in the provider element: the <location> element

11 Elements used in the course element

11.1 <qualification> element

11.2 <credit> element

12 Elements used in the qualification element

12.1 <abbr> element

12.2 <educationLevel> element

12.3 <awardedBy> element

12.4 <accreditedBy> element

13 Elements used in the presentation element

13.1 <start> element

13.2 <end> element

13.3 <duration> element

13.4 <applyFrom> element

13.5 <applyUntil> element

13.6 <applyTo> element

13.7 <engagement> element

13.8 <studyMode> element

13.9 <attendanceMode> element

13.10 <attendancePattern> element

13.11 <languageOfInstruction> element

13.12 <languageOfAssessment> element

13.13 <places> element

13.14 <cost> element

13.15 <age> element

13.16 <venue> element

14 Processing XCRI-CAP XML documents

14.1 Descriptive text elements

14.2 Temporal elements

14.3 Inheritable elements

Bibliography

BS 8581-1:2012

Exchanging course related information - Course advertising profile. Specification

Current

Published:

31 Oct 2012