Wikidata:Property proposal/academic calendar type
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academic calendar type[edit]
Originally proposed at Wikidata:Property proposal/Generic
| Description | academic calendar type |
|---|---|
| Represents | instance of unit of time (Q1790144) or academic term (Q2269240) |
| Data type | Item |
| Domain | item, instance or subclass of educational organization (Q5341295) |
| Example 1 | Amherst College (Q49165) → semester (Q3955006)[1] |
| Example 2 | University of California, Los Angeles (Q174710) → academic quarter (Q19310187)[2] |
| Example 3 | University of Sydney (Q487556) → semester (Q3955006)[3] |
| Wikidata project | Higher education |
Motivation[edit]
The type of academic calendar used by an educational institution is an important piece of information about it that we ought to try to represent on Wikidata. I'm not precisely sure if this is the best way to do so, and for some more unusual calendar types (e.g. the 4-1-4 system used by Williams College (Q49166)) I don't think we have items yet, but we should find some way. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 22:38, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
Discussion[edit]
Notified participants of WikiProject Higher education. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 22:38, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
Support, an important property for education.--Arbnos (talk) 15:23, 24 May 2021 (UTC)- @Sdkb: Do you have a source reference for this info? I very much doubt that any university actually uses a 6-month "semester", even if they call it a semester. ArthurPSmith (talk) 17:38, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
- @ArthurPSmith: I added URLs as references for the three examples. For entities that collect the information on a larger scale, the U.S. News profiles have it, but I'm not sure where they get it from. You're right that a "semester" isn't typically equal to precisely 6 months, so we may have to either redefine semester (Q3955006) or create a new item. It's also true that "semester" isn't precisely equal to "semester system", which might be a better way to express this. Overall, I'm anticipating that we'll have to build out a fair amount of the infrastructure, so to speak, and that we'll run into some edge cases. But ultimately, we have to try to find a way if we want to comprehensively describe educational institutions on this project. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 06:13, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
- @Sdkb: Your link for Amherst doesn't really use the word "semester". Maybe the values should be simply detailed academic term sessions, at least by month? I.e. have an item for each possible combination of academic terms, for example January-April, May-June, July-August, September-December would be one scheme that's not quite the standard "academic quarter"? Or September-December, January, February-May, June-August which is roughly what Stony Brook does (even though they call it semesters)? ArthurPSmith (talk) 17:05, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
- @ArthurPSmith: Hmm, it might be possible to have something like that, but exact term dates often differ by year, which can land them in different months if they're at the beginning/end of the month. There will always be small differences, but I hope we're safe grouping together any schools where you take two sets of classes per year as operating under a semester system. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 17:55, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
- So how would you classify the Stony Brook case or similar ones? I think it boils down to 2 main "semesters" ("Fall" and "Spring"), plus 2 or 3 "sessions" (Winter, Summer I and Summer II from the recent calendar). ArthurPSmith (talk) 19:22, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
- Looking it up, I'd still go with semester for Stony Brook, since their winter session looks (I think) from this like an optional thing in between their normal semesters; U.S. News has just "semester" for them. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 22:19, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
- If we want to use US News classifications as the main source for this then maybe the property should be called "US News academic calendar type"? But here's a report on European academic calendars (although the data entries seem a little confused and inconsistent). It does seem like we should have a property like this, I'm just not sure how we can cleanly model it so that it's useful and clear how to assign (i.e. 90% of universities classed as "semester" would probably not be helpful - and the 4-1-4/semester distinction seems obscure or debatable as with the Stony Brook case). ArthurPSmith (talk) 17:20, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
- "data entries seem a little confused and inconsistent" -- funny way to put it. "Interval" does have some odd entries. --- Jura 07:40, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
- So how would you classify the Stony Brook case or similar ones? I think it boils down to 2 main "semesters" ("Fall" and "Spring"), plus 2 or 3 "sessions" (Winter, Summer I and Summer II from the recent calendar). ArthurPSmith (talk) 19:22, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
- @ArthurPSmith: Hmm, it might be possible to have something like that, but exact term dates often differ by year, which can land them in different months if they're at the beginning/end of the month. There will always be small differences, but I hope we're safe grouping together any schools where you take two sets of classes per year as operating under a semester system. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 17:55, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
- @Sdkb: Your link for Amherst doesn't really use the word "semester". Maybe the values should be simply detailed academic term sessions, at least by month? I.e. have an item for each possible combination of academic terms, for example January-April, May-June, July-August, September-December would be one scheme that's not quite the standard "academic quarter"? Or September-December, January, February-May, June-August which is roughly what Stony Brook does (even though they call it semesters)? ArthurPSmith (talk) 17:05, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
- @ArthurPSmith: I added URLs as references for the three examples. For entities that collect the information on a larger scale, the U.S. News profiles have it, but I'm not sure where they get it from. You're right that a "semester" isn't typically equal to precisely 6 months, so we may have to either redefine semester (Q3955006) or create a new item. It's also true that "semester" isn't precisely equal to "semester system", which might be a better way to express this. Overall, I'm anticipating that we'll have to build out a fair amount of the infrastructure, so to speak, and that we'll run into some edge cases. But ultimately, we have to try to find a way if we want to comprehensively describe educational institutions on this project. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 06:13, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
Comment what's the effect of Bologna Process (Q187073) on this? --- Jura 20:45, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
- I just glanced over its WP page, but I'm not otherwise familiar with it or how it relates to academic calendars, so I can't say. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 22:22, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
- From the report Arthur found, it seems that while not explicitly requiring it, the process leads universities to what the report calls "Interval = 2". --- Jura 11:35, 29 May 2021 (UTC)
- I just glanced over its WP page, but I'm not otherwise familiar with it or how it relates to academic calendars, so I can't say. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 22:22, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
- Support but this is pretty complex. At my institution, the University of Washington, we use quarters (autumn, winter, spring, and summer), but then in the summer quarter there is a full quarter but also separate A and B sessions: https://www.washington.edu/students/reg/2021cal.html. At my alma mater, when I was there we had autumn, spring, and summer semesters. UWashPrincipalCataloger (talk) 06:31, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
- Comment wouldn't it be nice to show the respective start and end time of a semester. Some universities summer semester starts in February, March or April in Europe. Germartin1 (talk) 10:28, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
- The concern is that these vary by year, including sometimes the month. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 19:39, 11 November 2021 (UTC)
- @Sdkb, Arbnos, ArthurPSmith, Germartin1, Jura1: Notified participants of WikiProject Higher education
Done as academic calendar type (P10588).UWashPrincipalCataloger (talk) 15:23, 7 April 2022 (UTC)
