Scorecard Functional Areas

Each Functional Area Document outlines a number of functional entities required to support the functional area being described, and for each entity related groupings of Programmatic Operations, that would ideally be supported through Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) of a candidate system, and a list of Attributes that are minimally required for entities acted upon through the Programmatic Operations.

It is not expected that a candidate system will be strictly designed around these entities.  As part of evaluating products or technologies, an organization will need to map these entities, and associated operations and attributes, to the data models, functionality, programmatic access and attributes of the candidate systems.  

A Next Generation Ready system will provide APIs that can fulfill the operations outlined for programmatically accessing underlying data and functionality.  Alternatively, but less desirable, is for the system to support direct access to the underlying persistence technology (typically a database) and document the underlying schemas to allow a developer to directly access and manipulate information related to the defined entities, and to define APIs as needed.

An organization utilizing these documents as an instrument for evaluating products or technologies can identify which operations are required for a particular application and may define and apply a score-system for each.  For example:

0: No programmatic support

1: Underlying persistence technology documented and developer support provided

2: Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) documented and supported

3: All  applications use the API

In addition to operational functionality, this section also lists the expected attributes required for each functional entity.  An organization utilizing this document as an instrument for evaluating candidate products or technologies can evaluate these attributes for applicability to the required solutions and determine if additional elements are required.

A system that can support the entity operations through supported APIs is considered to be Next Generation Ready if all its user-facing applications utilize the supported APIs, and only the supported APIs, in its own system design.

The Assessment Functional Area Scorecard defines the means to create, access, and take assessments. An Assessment may represent a quiz, survey, or other evaluation that includes assessment Items. Assessment Items are extensible objects to capture various types of questions, such as a multiple-choice or an asset submission.

This functionality is commonly found in learning management systems, MOOC platforms, and many other educational products which manage and deliver assessments.

This Functional Area outlines Operations and Attributes for the following entities:  

Items – An Item is an individual assessment item such as a question to be included in a test.  Items always included Question parts and may also include one or more Answers.

Assessments – An Assessment is a sequence of assessment items.

Offered Assessments – An AssessmentOffered is an Assessment available for taking.  Usually includes information about when the assessment can be taken and additional rules like when an Assessment can be taken, its duration, whether Items can be shuffled, etc.

Taken Assessments – An AssessmentTaken is an AssessmentOffered that has been completed or in progress by a Taker (typically a student).

Assessment Banks – An AssessmentBank is a directory or another kind of organizational construct for managing the entities of the Assessment Functional Area and related Functional Areas.

The Chronicle Functional Area Scorecard defines operations for examining the Academic Record. The entries in the academic record provide summary information for students in Programs and Courses as well as any Credentials, Awards, or standardized Assessment scores the student may have received.

This functionality is commonly found in student information systems.

This Functional Area outlines Operations and Attributes for the following entities:

Program Entry – A ProgramEntry represents an academic record entry for a Program for a student.  The fields in the ProgramEntry may be for the entire enrollment through the academic career or specific to an academic Term.

Course Entry – A CourseEntry represents an academic record entry for a course for a student. A CourseEntry represents an academic record entry for a course for a student. The fields in the Course Entry are specific to a Term.

Credential Entry – A CredentialEntry represents an academic record entry for a credential or degree for a student.

Assessment Entry – An AssessmentEntry represents an academic record entry for an assessment for a student. It is intended to record standardized tests and other major assessments associated with an academic record.

Award Entry – An AwardEntry represents an academic record entry for recognition for a student.

The Contact Functional Area Scorecard relates contact information to entities in other functional areas, including Persons and Organizations.

This functionality is commonly found in the student information system, alumni systems, customer management systems, etc.

This Functional Area outlines Operations and Attributes for the following entities:

Contact – A Contact is a relationship between an Address and a reference. Contacts are time-variant which allow Addresses to become effective based on schedules

Address – An Address represents the address of a Resource. Specific breakdowns of an Address may be additionally defined but and the Address exposes a text representation.

AddressBook – A directory or other kind of organization for Addresses. Such a grouping serves to separate Addresses in various ways as required and to scope searches.

The Course Functional Area Scorecard defines course management services for educational offerings or other learning units related to an event or curriculum.

Courses may be used to model a class, conference tutorial session, or even a meetup group.  

Courses and ActivityUnits represent canonical curriculum.

Canonical Courses and ActivityUnits includes the description of the curriculum, requirements, and learning objectives independent of any offers.

CourseOfferings and Activities are offerings of a canonical unit related to a Term.

The Course Plan Functional Area Scorecard maps syllabi defined in a Syllabus to scheduled Activities to manage the logistics of following a lesson plan during an offering of a course.

This Course Plan Functional Area outlines Operations and Attributes for the following entities:

Plan – A Plan relates a Syllabus to a CourseOffering to form a lesson plan. All or a selected set of Modules within a Syllabus may be included in the Plan.

Lesson – A Lesson maps a Plan to a Docet in a Syllabus. A Lesson has a time duration covering one or more Activities and may be checked off or skipped during the execution of the course.

The Hold Functional Area Scorecard provides a means for managing blocks and holds. This functionality may be found as part of an authorization implementation to override authorization functions or as part of a rules system to define managed checks in a business process.

This functionality is commonly found in student information systems, etc.

This Functional Area outlines Operations and Attributes for the following entities:

Block – Issues are mapped to Blocks. The Block is the entity that is checked by an external evaluator. A person is “blocked” if they have any Holds related to Issues mapped to the Block. The separation of a Block and an Issue allows for one party to maintain their set of Issues that impacts the business process of another party that authors the Blocks. An example is a registrar of a university that blocks registration for students who have not returned their library books.

Issue – An Issue represents a problem. A problem might be the lack of payment, overdue library books, or a criminal offense.

Hold – A Hold is a relationship between a resource and an Issue. A Hold could say that a person has not made their payment or has some problem identified by the related Issue.

The Learning Functional Area Scorecard defines learning objectives, outcomes, competencies, and similar entities. A learning Objective describes measurable learning goals.

This functionality is commonly found in competency-based learning systems.

This Functional Area outlines Operations and Attributes for the following entities:

Objectives – An Objective Describes a measurable learning goal. These are referenced in another functional group such as managing courses, authoring assessments, and analyzing student success

Activities – An Activity describes what a student can do to achieve an objective and includes references to assets (documents, videos, etc), assessments, and courses

Proficiencies – Proficiency measures a person’s mastery of an Objective

The Messaging Functional Area Scorecard defines sending and receiving messages.

This functionality is commonly found in any system that deals with communication between users.

This Functional Area outlines Operations and Attributes for the following entities:

Message – Messages are structures that include a sender, recipients, and a timestamp. The text of the Message is displayable as text and may include a specific structure defined through additional attributes, and may be edited as a draft until sent.

Receipt – Once a Message has been received by a receiving agent, a Receipt is be generated to include the time received and the receiving agent. A Receipt can be used to store additional data related to the received Message.

Mailbox – A directory or other kind of organizational construct for managing Messaging related entities

The Ontology Functional Area Scorecard is used to define subject matter that can be related to other entities in a system. Ontologies are an alternative to tagging where structure, restricted vocabulary, or localization of topic names are desired.

This Functional Area outlines Operations and Attributes for the following entities:

Subject – Subjects are used to represent a topic and can be organized in a hierarchy to form an ontology.

Relevancies – Subjects are related to reference entities through Relevancies.

Ontology – A directory or other kind of organizational construct for managing Ontology related entities.  Such a grouping serves to separate Subjects managed by different organizations or around different topic areas, and to scope searches.

The Personnel Functional Area Scorecard defines people and organizations.

This functionality is commonly found in customer management systems and human resource systems, but also in any system that deals with Person data including student information systems, and learning systems.

This Functional Area outlines Operations and Attributes for the following entities:

Persons – A Person is a people. Persons define identification information such as names and institutional identifiers

Organizations – An  Organization is a hierarchical structure of organizational units. For this Functional Area, it is assumed that every Catalog contains one Organization hierarchy

Positions – A Position is a job description performed in the context of an Organization. A Position has a job level represented using a Grade, optional salary range, as well as a set of learning Objectives used to convey the desired qualifications for the position

Appointments – An Appointment is a relationship between a Person and a Position. The effective dates of an Appointment may be used to indicate the term of employment

The Program Functional Area Scorecard defines course management services for programs/majors.

This functionality is commonly found in student information systems and curriculum management systems, but can also be found elsewhere, like learning management systems or MOOC platforms.

This Functional Area outlines Operations and Attributes for the following entities:

Program – A Program is a canonical learning unit describing the overall content of a program, completion requirements, and earned credentials.

Program Offering – A ProgramOffering is a canonical Program offered for a Term. ProgramOffering replicates some of the data managed in the Program in the case it is refined or tweaked. Defines the Term in which students may enroll in a Program. Many systems do not make a model-level distinction between canonical and offered programs.

Credential – A Credential is something awarded to the student at the completion of a Program.

Enrollment – Enrollment defines a relationship between a student and a ProgramOffering. For multi-term Programs, the Enrollment may continue beyond the Term of the ProgramOffering since the Term indicates what requirements are applied to the student.

The Recognition Functional Area Scorecard defines Conferral of Awards to People.

This Functional Area outlines Operations and Attributes for the following entities:

Conferral – A Conferral is an Award conferred to a Recipient for something. Often, an award is conferred for a body of work. The body of work may be represented by another entity in a system, such as an Asset or an Assessment may be related using an Id

Award – An Award is something that can be conferred.

Convocation – A Convocation is a set of Awards to be conferred.

The Course Registration Functional Area Scorecard defines course registration services.

This functionality is commonly found in student information systems, but can also be found in other systems, like learning management systems or MOOC environments.

This Functional Area outlines Operations and Attributes for the following entities:

Activity Bundle – An ActivityBundle is a set of activities within a CourseOffering in which a student can register. A CourseOffering may have a variety of activity offerings and the activity bundle groups sets of these offerings together. For example, each section of a class may have a lecture and a lab but multiple labs may be offered.

Registration – A Registration is a Relationship between a student and an ActivityBundle

Activity Registration – An ActivityRegistration is a Relationship between a Student and an Activity. ActivityRegistrations permit hanging data off of each Activity. ActivityRegistrations may be implicitly created upon the creation of a Registration.

The Repository Functional Area Scorecard defines operations for finding, managing and composing digital assets.

This functionality is commonly found in content management systems, learning management systems, and many other systems that manage digital contents.

This Functional Area outlines Operations and Attributes for the following entities:

Asset – An Asset represents a unit of content, whether it be an image, a video, an application document or some text. The Asset defines a core set of definitions applicable to digital content, such as copyright and publisher.  AssetContent, such as a document, is defined such that there may be multiple formats contained with the same Asset

Composition – A Composition is a group of Assets and compositions may be structured into a hierarchy for the purpose of “building” larger content. A content management system may make use of this interface to construct a web page

The Requisite Functional Area Scorecard provides services for authoring and inspecting completion requirements for Courses, Programs, and other elements to be evaluated

This functionality is commonly found in student information systems and systems designed for defining and evaluating completion, like degree audit systems.

This Functional Area outlines Operations and Attributes for the following entities:

Requisite – A Requisite represents a requirement. A Requisite has 8 terms for evaluation that must all be true for this Requisite to be satisfied. Additional terms may be defined.

CourseRequirement – A CourseRequirement defines a rule for a Course to be satisfied. The Course may be required to be taken in the past for a prerequisite, in the present for a co-requisite, or completed at some point in the future. The CourseRequirement may also require a minimum grade or credits earned.

ProgramRequirement – A ProgramRequirement defines a rule for a Program to be satisfied. The Program may be required to be taken in the past for a prerequisite, in the present for a co-requisite, or completed at some point in the future. The ProgramRequirement may also require a minimum GPA or credits earned.

CredentialRequirement – A CredentialRequirement is a rule that represents a requirement based on a Credential

LearningObjectiveRequirement – A LearningObjectiveRequirement is a rule that represents a requirement based on a Learning Objective.

AssessmentRequirement – An AssessmentRequirement is a rule that represents a requirement based on an Assessment.

AwardRequirement – An AwardRequirement is a rule that represents a requirement based on an Award.

The Resourcing Functional Area Scorecard defines resourcing of work. The Resourcing Functional Area works in conjunction with the Workflow Functional Area, Learning Functional Area, and Tracking Functional Area to manage the assignment of Resources to Work as part of an overall work management system.

This Functional Area outlines Operations and Attributes for the following entities:

Job – A Job is a collection of Work that is performed on an ongoing basis such as a project, process, or work order. The distinction between a Job and Work is that Work is a specific instance of a task while the Job represents the overall goal and may be perpetual.

Work – Work is an abstract concept that represents a task that needs to be performed by workers. Workers may require a Competency in order to perform the work.

Competency – A Competency is described as a set of Learning Objectives. A worker meets the requirements of Work if the worker has a Proficiency for the related learning Objectives, as defined in the Learning Functional Area.

Availability – Availability indicates the resources, typically people, available to assign to Work in a Job. An Availability is a relationship between a Resource and a Job qualified by a set of Competencies.

Commission – A Commission is the assignment of a Resource to Work. A Commission is a relationship between a resource, typically a person, and Work qualified by the Competency used.

Effort – Effort tracks the effort expended by a Resource on Work. The effort is a relationship between a Resource and a Commission.

The Syllabus Functional Area Scorecard manages the curriculum within a Course and relating the material to learning Objectives to create lesson plans. It may be defined very broadly or at a fine-grained level to facilitate the production of Plans in the Course Plan functional area. 

This Functional Area outlines Operations and Attributes for the following entities:

Syllabus – A Syllabus represents the <canonical?> content of a Course. A Course may have multiple syllabi

Module – A Module is a major division of a Syllabus. Modules may be toggled for inclusion in an overall Syllabus. Modules are subdivided into Docets

Docet – A Docet serves as a piece of content within a Module.  A Docet relates to one or more learning objectives. The learning Objectives visible through a Course may be built up using the Objectives defined in the Syllabus

The Tracking Functional Area Scorecard provides a means for tracking Issues. The Tracking Functional Area is part of a functional cluster that includes the Resourcing Functional Area, Ontology Functional Area, Workflow Functional Area, and Process Functional Area. Each of these areas defines a set of operations that define the overall work management system.

This Functional Area outlines Operations and Attributes for the following entities:

Issue – Issues are relationships between a customer and a Queue. The effective dates of the Issue represent the opening and closing of the Issue. An Issue defines some built-in states indicating if the Issue is resolved, waiting for a response, or blocked on another Issue. Additional states can be modeled within a system orchestrating the Process Functional Area or through the Workflow Functional Area.

LogEntry – Issues can have logs to provide a record of actions and comments.

Queue – A Queue governs the constraints and processing of a set of Issues. All Issues belong to one Queue.

The Workflow Functional Area Scorecard provides a means for managing the flow of work. This is part of a service cluster that includes the Resourcing, Tracking, and Process Functional Areas. The workflow defines an overall view of the flow of work through a process.

This Functional Area outlines Operations and Attributes for the following entities:

Process – A Process is a set of steps in a workflow. Work entering a Process is assigned an initial Step and an initial State as defined by the Process.

Step – A Step is the primary component of a workflow process in which work is performed. A Step may have required input conditions (or states) that permit Work to enter a Step. When the Work is completed at a Step, the Step defines the State transition of the Work. The valid next Steps in a Process is determined by the accepted input States of the other Steps.

Work – Work is an abstract concept that indicates something to be worked on by Resources (workers) in a workflow Process.

WorkflowEvent – Work moving through a Process can be examined using WorkflowEvents. Monitoring at a finer-grained level can be performed by orchestrating within a system supporting the Tracking Functional Area where a Step is a Queue and the Work is an Issue.