eCOTOOL Europass CS Application Profile Main Table

Note that "Profile of skills and competences" is the official title of this section of the ECS.

3.1 above is designed particularly for use where Section 3 does not properly split into individual "lines". This is an alternative to the structured version below.

The term "learning outcome" is taken directly from the EQF, where learning outcomes "are defined in terms of knowledge, skills and competence". Learning outcomes range across work as well as education and training. There is no distinction between the concept of a learning outcome and a competency: both are completely general. Current practice is not restricted to having only one action verb for a learning outcome, so this is simply a list of any lines that can occur in the ECS Section 3.

• recommend to all relevant bodies that competence, knowledge, learning outcome, skill, etc. definitions should be given a stable URI
• invent some temporary ones for purposes of demonstration
• detail the structure of a learning outcome as part of the "eCOTOOL competence model".

The point about the 4.2.2 structure is that the same occupation will be classified differently in different systems, so there needs to be provision for more than one, even if a typical user interface chooses just the one that appears to be most appropriate.

Examples of existing occupation classification systems:

• ISCO (website includes the ISCO-88, ISCO-08 and other schemes)
• France - Répertoire opérationnel des métiers et des emplois
• Spain - Clasificación Nacional de Ocupaciones 1994
• UK - Standard Occupational Classification 2010

Ideally, for cross-European use, a classification should provide translations into various European languages. An example of this approach is EURES (based on ISCO-88). See the SEMIC page on the EURES taxonomy and this page for more general codes used in Europe.

ESCO (European Skills, Competencies and Occupations taxonomy) is only at an early stage of development, but looks good for future reference. Here is a link to an announcement on ESCO.

In 5.1.2 and 5.2.2 we have the address element value marked as xml CDATA, so that any arbitrary XML can be included without invalidating the XML. Any variant of vCard might be used, for example, either with a line-oriented or an XML format. Examples of pages discussing address formats include:

• European Address Formats – an overview
• FRANK'S COMPULSIVE GUIDE TO POSTAL ADDRESSES

The "Other unstructured level information" field should only be used where the information to be provided cannot be structured in terms of framework and level.

This section 5.3 is given to record the level(s) of the CS as a whole. It complements information which may be given elsewhere (3.2) about the levels of the individual learning outcomes appearing in the profile of skills and competences (3).

Examples of frameworks with levels include

• ISCED levels 0 to 6
• EQF levels 1 to 8
• NQF of England Wales and Northern Ireland Entry and levels 1 to 8
• SCQF levels 1 to 12

• skos:exactMatch → this qualification recognised as equivalent to the other one
• skos:broadMatch → this qualification covers a subset of the other one
• skos:narrowMatch → this qualification covers a superset of the other one
• skos:closeMatch → this qualification overlaps with and is similar to the other one
• skos:relatedMatch → this qualification is related to the other one in a looser or different way

This section could be interpreted in various ways. It may be given in order to list the potentially diverse learning opportunities that may lead to the award of a qualification with this ECS. It may also be given to indicate the kind of course and/or assessment structure envisaged (or required).

A real problem here is that the information suggested for this in the Guidelines looks more appropriate to a course than to a certificate. Different training providers could presumably fulfil the same certificate requirements (skill, competence) in different ways. Why would anyone want to define constraints on the proportion of the study that was work-based? What happens to those proportions if APL [5] is allowed?

A service that could be offered to learners would be to be able to search a database to find learning opportunities that lead to this certificate, and the details of how that learning opportunity is structured would be detailed using MLO [6], rather than in a spec drafted within eCOTOOL.

Even if used in MLO, the patterns for structuring this suggested in the Guidelines look too vague for any automatic processing. Useful might be the maximum and minimum percentages of ECVET credit given for each component, and any of three types of time quantity:

1. the maximum and minimum elapsed time for the whole or a part
2. the "engaged" time for the whole or a part (like total hours spent on course-related activity)
3. the maximum and minimum intensity of engagement, if constrained, perhaps in hours per week or hours per other period.

This needs further discussion.

• a CS or other qualification (with URI if available)
• a competence definition (ideally with URI)
• another quality or characteristic

There is much various information placed in these final sections of the ECS. They are here given numbers 7 to 9, but though they are referred to as their own "Box", no number is given in the official guidelines. The layout may suggest that at least some of this information is part of "Box 6". The section names come from the guidelines, where the "National reference point" box is not marked as optional, and is therefore assumed to be mandatory. Existing CS practice requires the possibility of these sections simply being formatted text. The question is whether eCOTOOL can reuse some existing structures, e.g. from MLO, which might add some good practice through useful additional structure.