LEAP classes

Part of LEAP 2.0, together with LEAP predicates

This page serves to provide URIs for and basic details of LEAP classes. LEAP classes are used with LEAP predicates in LEAP triples. Examples and further explanations of each class are to be found in the separate pages for each class.

The class of a LEAP item is given by a triple, where:
 * the subject is the item URL
 * the predicate is rdf:type (URI: http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type)
 * the object is one of the URIs specified on this page

=Index of classes=

=Class definitions=

For each specified LEAP class (or type), these tables specify: See the predicate definitions to check the possible classes or types of the other resource.
 * the URI which should be used as the rdf:type of subject resources which are instances of this class
 * the superclass from which predicates are inherited
 * predicates specified for this class are those which have the class specified as a possible domain; in addition the class can take any inherited predicate
 * Where an instance of a class must have a certain number of triples with a given predicate, this may be marked in round brackets (parenthesis)
 * Limitations on the number of triples with the same subject and predicate are normally given with the predicate information, and only with the class information if that is different

Predicates in parenthesis (like this) are those which are primarily related somewhere else on this page, but are repeated in this place for emphasis.

Future additions
Currently envisaged is
 * a permission class
 * a (quasi blank node) class for ordered parts

=Underlying concepts=

Record
The idea of a record is of something that is recorded or intended to be communicated. That means it isn't just noise, or a set of accidental marks on a rock. Everything entered into a portfolio system is a record, on that basis. But it also covers all communications, all expressions. Anything called an "information resource" is essentially a record.

One can easily compare this with blogs. A blog system invites people to write anything about anything. The metadata that are associated with blog entries are now quite familiar and widespread. Each entry may to have: Blogs, as well as portfolio records, commonly refer both to other entries and to external resources. So to this list we can add
 * creator or author
 * title or heading
 * content
 * summary or abstract
 * refers to

Records may have a purpose or intent, or they may not: I may want to blog about how I feel today, without any particular aim in mind; I may want to take a photograph just to record the occasion, not because I have any particular plans to show it to anyone, or to compose it artistically.

Because everything in a portfolio is a record, we need to look at what else the record is doing for a further classification. In LEAP 2.0, it is the record concept that underlies the basic class,, which is a superclass to all other classes. The record without any other explicit connections is then called an.

The issue of relating text etc. to these various concepts is discussed in the page LEAP describing things.

Agent
We're thinking of human agents here - ones that can be addressed, can express things, and can have intentions and beliefs - both individuals and organizations. Because these are things that matter in our social, political and economic world, agents need to be communicated with, and that is perhaps why address and contact details are so important.

Apart from those contact details, agents have significant relationships with many other kinds of things. Agents can create records, be authors of all kinds of expressions, and do all the things that require intent or purpose.

Of course, in our real world, agents are embodied.

For LEAP purposes, the class is a superclass to  and.

Intent
Intent means the purpose, goal, or reason that an agent has for doing anything or the reason for something's existence. It is about how things in the world relate to the agent's goals. So, in the context of portfolio records, it is primarily to do with what the records refer to, rather than the records themselves. In portfolio terms, activities often have intent - to reach some goal or to conform with some pattern. Goals are sometimes of the highest kind, but more often they are sub-goals, and their intent is to further the greater goal. In this light, achievements can also have intent, in that they resulted from goals that had intent. "Why did you want to achieve that?" is very often a meaningful question.

When people express themselves, rather than just reacting to things, commonly there is some kind of reason, motivation, or purpose in their expression. The LEAP classes reflecting these expressions do not have to refer to anything "out there".

Embodiment
The majority of things that are written about in the average CV are, at least supposedly, factual. They are about things that have taken place, and about people and organizations that exist. These factual things are essential, because we use these facts as evidence of things that need evidence - say our ability to do something, or our suitability for some activity or role.

For all of these factual things, one can ask meaningful questions,
 * when?
 * where?
 * who?
 * what was it, or what happened
 * how was it?
 * why was it?

Some of these have to be answered verbally, for instance accounts of what it was, or what took place, and the answer to the question "why?", which naturally fits in with intent, and has a LEAP predicate intent.

But time and space constitute our coordinate system, and we use that coordinate system when we specify, give evidence for, or verify the existence of what is claimed. This being able to say where and when something is or was marks out this concept of embodiment as covering the things that actually belong to the real world. This is in sharp contrast to the idea of a pattern. A pattern is something that is by its nature not tied to any one place or time, but can be repeated, or applied many times.

References to embodiments do, or do not, refer to the very same thing. It is perfectly legitimate to relate two identifiers for embodiments by "owl:sameAs". But you cannot do that for patterns.

The counterpart to time and place of what has existed or happened is planned time and place for future things. We naturally plan, and our planning uses almost the same terms as our accounts of what has happened. Future things are not yet embodied, but we conceive them as sharing patterns with things that are already embodied.

A record of an or  refers to an embodiment related to particular times, while a records of an ( or ) refers to an embodiment that endures through time. A record of a may refer to something that endures through time, but may also just be an information resource, whose reference is not an essential part of a portfolio.

Pattern
What is there apart from the particular concrete facts of the present and past embodied world of things that are and things that have happened? Fundamentally, it is the patterns and concepts which we use in perceiving the real world, that we use to describe the real world, and which we use to understand and predict the real world. The concepts, the patterns, not tied to particular occurrences, but general, are what is meant here by pattern. The essence of a pattern is to be repeatable - to be able to be embodied or demonstrated in many different instances. That repeatability is one of the hallmarks of pattern.

Whereas the embodied world is the actual world, the world of patterns and concepts is the world of the mind, of perception, of conception. The human mind is so incredibly fertile in seeing, registering and creating patterns, that even starting to describe categories of pattern would be a daunting task. All communication, including communication about the embodied world, depends on the use of patterns and concepts. The embodied world cannot be referred to, cannot be described, otherwise.

This duality between embodiment and pattern is central to the view of the world which is being set out here. Embodiments embody or demonstrate patterns; patterns pattern embodiments. The relationship can be named either way. Thus Embodiments are patterned by patterns; patterns are embodied or demonstrated by embodiments. Because the term "pattern" is somewhat more common and familiar than "embody", it is the patterning terms which are used as predicates.

Patterns and concepts that are used for communication (rather than purely private ones) tend to be the subjects of many attempts at definition. It is not normally up to us as individuals to define the terms used for public communication, and we should not expect our portfolios to do that. Rather, it is better for portfolio information to refer to public definitions.

In the context of e-portfolios, one thing this is particularly important for is abilities: knowledge, skill, competence, etc. Because abilities are what makes the world work, employers are particularly keen on knowing and tracking the abilities of recruits and employees. So portfolios need, as CVs need, to display evidence against required abilities. Learning, education and training also need to take these required abilities into account.

Equally, and relatedly, organized assessment is done by pattern, rather than by individual personal judgement. There is a process, a method to the assessment, though typically, for many qualifications, that assessment pattern is complex.

When it comes to interests rather than work-related abilities, there is less pressure, and fewer resources, to provide public definitions. Instead, people tend to use their own terms, based on what friends and acquaintances use when their interests seem to coincide. Tags work like that as well. Using single word or short phrase tags has many pitfalls, but people do it because it is quick, with their photos, their blog entries, etc. A tag is trying to point at a pattern - indeed there is always at least a vague pattern of the things that are connected by the same tag.

Another kind of pattern of relevance to life are patterns of personality. We all have characteristic behaviour patterns, but these are by no means static - they change between different situations. Quite possibly, personalities are most usefully seen as patterns of patterns. A personality does not directly have embodiments, but refers to behaviour patterns, which are themselves embodied in actual events, and which appear widely in imagined events.

The main thing that a pattern needs to do is simply to serve as a kind of tag, which can be used as a reference point, to join up different aspects of one's own experience, recorded in portfolio tools perhaps, and to be able to cross-refer between one's own life and the life of one's friends, employers, and others.

Patterns, by their very nature, cannot be related as "same as". They can only be related by some kind of equivalence. This is because a pattern is not an individual.

For our purposes, there is a class which reflects these ideas.

Claim
Having discussed embodiment and pattern, the next important concept is remarkably clear. A claim - an assertion, a statement, or whatever one wants to call it - is an expression relating real things to patterns. At simplest, and most obvious for portfolio and CV use, the claim that I am good at programming puts together me, now with the concept or pattern of being able to program. This is not simply the description of embodied reality. I am an embodied reality; episodes of my programming were embodied events, which can act as evidence. But these do not in themselves amount to a claim.

In terms of portfolio records, we have the class to represent claims explicitly, but also any often can be seen to include an implicit claim that the portfolio holder exhibits the pattern of the ability needed to achieve the achievement.

Composite
The above ideas serve to give basic illumination to what individual items of portfolio information are. But that is not all - very often we come across selections, compositions of things that are relevant to personal or professional development, the world of work, the world of education, and more generally.

One of these is the CV or r&eacute;sum&eacute;. As a whole, a CV is some kind of record, but it is largely made up out of representations of other records. Then there is the action plan. An action plan is (hopefully) a coherent unit, but it is made up out of individual actions that can be represented separately. A third example might be a reading list.

For our purposes, the class related to this is.

=LEAP ontology= The intention here is to provide a link to a textual description of the ontology of LEAP classes and predicates, with a link to an OWL ontology in the fullness of time.