Blogs
The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) are now available in the ASN. The modeling and representation of the NGSS is supported by ASN Member, TeachEngineering digital library. Here is what was done:
A Framework for K-12 Science Education
Prior to modeling the NGSS standards, the Framework for K-12 Science Education (Framework) was added to the ASN repository as a separate, referenceable document.
DCI View vs. Topic View
The ASN representation/layout of NGSS (via properties hasChild/isChildOf) follows the NGSS Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCI) View but the data accommodates applications wanting to display performance expectations by topic as well. We created a controlled vocabulary consisting of each NGSS topic (which can be downloaded/referenced here), and tagged each NGSS performance expectation with the appropriate topic tag. Applications can then use these tags to create an associated "Topic View" of the NGSS.
Common Core Connections
Each ASN NGSS performance expectation has been aligned to the appropriate Math and ELA Common Core State Standard (CCSS) per the NGSS Common Core Connections section. We’ve opted to align to the official CCSS URI and not to the corresponding ASN CCSS URI. The ASN CCSS data contains the one-to-one mappings to the official CCSS URI’s so chances are, your system has already ingested them.
Three Dimensions
The three dimensions of Science Engineering Practices, Crosscutting Concepts and Disciplinary Core Ideas have been captured in the ASN NGSS. All of these statements while not “Original” to the NGSS are “Derived” from the previously mentioned Framework document. Where known, ASN has linked these “Derived” statements back to the original Framework sections. These “Derived” statements contain a seeAlso reference to the identified PDF pages on the National Academies Press website as well.
While the three dimensions are not related hierarchically to any NGSS performance expectation (no hasChild/isChildOf relationships) they are linked via the ASN property, comprisedOf. comprisedOf states that the standard being described, comprehends or encompass, in whole or in part, the mearing, nature or importance of the standard being referenced. So in the case of NGSS performance expectations, each expectation is comprisedOf the various corresponding dimension statements. This horizontal linking of the dimensions to the performance expectations allows applications to create custom searches and views of the data like that found on the Next Generation State Standards website. An application can choose not to display the dimension statements by simply filtering out the “Derived” statements vs. “Original” statements.
comprisedOf Example
For NGSS performance expectation, K-PS3-2, Use tools and materials provided to design and build a structure that will reduce the warming effect of sunlight on Earth's surface., we can see that it is comprisedOf of three statements (one from each dimension). The metadata for this ASN Statement contains the same three comprisedOf references:
Applications can find other NGSS performance expectations that are comprisedOf the same “Derived” Framework statements as well. For example, the following NGSS performance expectations share the common comprisedOf Framework statement - Sunlight warms Earth's surface.
- K-PS3-1 - Make observations to determine the effect of sunlight on Earth’s surface.
- K-PS3-2 - Use tools and materials to design and build a structure that will reduce the warming effect of sunlight on an area
If you need additional assistance or have further questions about the ASN, send us a message.
We have added a new Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS) resolver to all our schemes. This makes it easier to browse and navigate through our various vocabularies like Education Level or Jurisdiction in a web browser. You can access the RDF for individual concepts by adding the ".rdf" file extension to any concept URI, or access the scheme's entire RDF file by visiting its URI.
Some examples:
ASN Jurisdiction - USA:
http://purl.org/ASN/scheme/ASNJurisdiction/USA
ASN Education Level - Middle School:
http://purl.org/ASN/scheme/ASNEducationLevel/MiddleSchool
ASN Indexing Status - Yes (rdf):
http://purl.org/ASN/scheme/ASNIndexingStatus/Yes.rdf
Here is a drop-in replacement JavaScript file for the Ext JS 4.0 Checkbox tree demo that uses our new ASN CORS enabled files* to make cross-domain requests inside of an application.
You can view a running version of the sample code on JSFiddle.
*CORS support may vary between web browsers
We have enabled Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) for all our ASN files (manifest and full RDF flavors). This allows web browsers to make requests that would otherwise be forbidden due to the same origin policy. For now, if you request _full or _manifest you receive a 303 redirect to where those files are stored in the cloud and you must use that URL for the request.
For example, you can now easily fetch an ASN manifest file directly with jQuery + AJAX:
Not all legacy web browsers support CORS so make sure to check prior to implementing.
We are proud to release ASN Search - a high throughput, low latency search API powered by the ASN open source dataset. This new web service enables free-text and faceted search with the ability to search and sort learning outcomes using any of the fields in the ASN metadata schema. We have taken the built-in power of ASN's "graph of learning outcomes" and wrapped it with an easy to use RESTful JSON API. ASN Search can integrate into any website or application that requires learning outcomes for meta-tagging, content correlation and/or data analysis. Try it out.
