2020-03-25 - Virtual Events and other COVID-19 proposals

Summary

Given the urgency of the topic in light of the UK-wide 'lockdown', we aimed to finalise approval on all topics on the agenda in the course of the call.

Virtual Locations (#224)

• After discussion about the merits of supporting multiple broadcast platforms, the consensus was to keep beta:virtualLocation as a singular not array, as multiple broadcast platforms are likely an edgecase in this sector. We agreed to re-evaluate this before moving the property out of beta.

VideoObjects and/or OnDemandEvents (#228)

• Use OnDemandEvent, to easily make use of all the existing properties of Events.

• Use workFeatured to embed any video or other media (e.g. a VideoObject)

Describing required equipment (#229)

• There was a proposal that this should be triple-valued (roughly required, optional, none) - to account for events where equipment is optional (an alternative is provided for those without). Consensus was that context would indicate the meaning of the attribute, with additional guidance being provided in attendeeInstructions if required.

Describing participantInteraction (#230)

• Use beta:isInteractivityPreferred boolean for now, as interaction being strictly “Required” is probably an edge case

• Consider repurposing https://schema.org/interactivityType for this in future

• attendeeInstruction should be used to provide further detail if required.

eventAttendanceMode (#225)

• No changes

maximumVirtualAttendeeCapacity and related properties (#226)

• This has the potential to create a large amount of complexity and confusion, especially given the maximumAttendeeCapacity property still exists and is used widely, and remainingAttendeeCapacity is used heavily by the Open Booking API.

• For now just add beta:maximumVirtualAttendeeCapacity to VirtualLocation, so as not confuse any logic around booking (keeping booking separate for now, and readdressing this with any additions to Open Booking API to handle virtual classes in future)

• Note that this is the capacity of the specific VirtualLocation (e.g. that specific Zoom room), not the entire event.

EventMovedOnline Event status (#227)

• Add a new property beta:affiliatedLocation was proposed for the original locations of an online-only event, to ensure that the existing data users’ implementations would be intentionally broken by the lack of a location field in all cases, and hence they would not misrepresent virtual classes as physical ones.

• This replaces the need for EventMovedOnline, which can therefore be removed.

• Hence, for virtual events where eventAttendanceMode is set to https://schema.org/OnlineEventAttendanceMode, location MUST NOT be included.

Guidance (#231)

• Put beta:maximumVirtualAttendeeCapacity into VirtualLocation as a beta field, but keep this RECOMMENDED

• Offer is required either in SessionSeries or in ScheduledSession update to match current spec

• beta:affiliatedLocation is RECOMMENDED

• workFeatured is RECOMMENDED

Levels (#82)

• Standardise only the string “Beginner” for now, as a short term solution to save trying to solve the larger levels problem.

Slides

Video