eCOTOOL Competence Application Profile adapted to agriculture, refined and optimised

If this element is absent, there may only be one structured definition, and it must be in the default language given in 1.2.

This could be restricted to an agricultural vocabulary, if one were constructed. An unresolved issue is whether to have the short description able to contain plain text directly, or whether it would be better always to have the rest of short description, which would be the whole of the short description if there is no action verb.

If more than one of these structured definitions is given, they must all be in different languages, and one of them must be in the default language given in 1.2. This is then taken as the default structured definition.

This is an alternative to a full description, for cases where the definition is given in the context of a framework or other such structure, but quoted separate from, or outside that structure. One or other must be provided. This is important for short definitions of small granularity, where the complete content may only be a few words. For understanding the meaning of the definition, context needs to be supplied. To avoid ambiguity, only one such context is allowed.

Classifying a definition may serve several purposes, each with their own types of classification scheme.

1. It can be categorised according to its formal type, which may govern the syntax of the short definition, determining for example whether there is an action verb or other components. For example, the formal types given in the EQF are: knowledge; skill; competence.
2. It may be categorised according to its economic sector. This will in turn govern which other classification schemes are relevant.
3. It may be related to any number of relevant classification schemes, for example, subjects, products, occupations.

Because all these classification schemes have similar requirements for structure, they are here given within the same model structure, which is borrowed from Atom [5].

Formal type

Agricultural learning outcomes fall into the normal pattern of abilities (skills or competences, or sometimes known as "performance criteria") and knowledge. It is seen as useful to make this distinction here, as this will determine whether the item has an action verb or not. Another common formal type classification follows the EQF: knowledge; skill; competence. The issue here is that skill and competence do not have different forms, and they may be difficult to distinguish objectively.

Economic sector

For European use, the proposed scheme is the Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community, Rev. 2 (2008), commonly referred to as "NACE". The NACE Rev. 2 classification scheme should be used the economic sector specifically relevant to the particular learning outcome. As NACE has no defined URI, element 3.1.1 should contain the string "NACE2"; element 3.1.2 should conform to the format given in the standard reference – i.e. EITHER a single capital letter OR two digits, optionally followed by a '.' character and more digits. Agriculture covers "A" by itself, and any numeric code starting with "01", "02", or "03". A letter MUST NOT be followed by numbers, as this is not a standard representation. Element 3.1.3 may contain any relevant string, preferably in the default language given in 1.2.

Agricultural classification schemes

The AGROVOC vocabularies may be used to indicate topics connected with a particular learning outcome or competence. If using AGROVOC, element 3.1.1 should contain the string "AGROVOC"; element 3.1.2 should contain the numeric AGROVOC code; and element 3.1.3 should contain any appropriate AGROVOC label, preferably in the default language given in 1.2.

Any other classification scheme may also be used, but for an effective adaptation to agriculture, particular allowed classification schemes should be listed. AGROVOC would be an obvious choice for topics related to a particular competence concept. It may also be agreed, for example, only to use the simple distinction between ability and knowledge for the formal type. These would be a matter of agreement between the stakeholders involved.

The vocabulary for relationships is based on SKOS with a little refinement. See more detailed discussion in the eCOTOOL Competence Model (D1.4), Section 5: "The eCOTOOL Competence Model (Technical)".

The basic relationships for hierarchical structures are skos:broader and skos:narrower, but for greater applicability these need to be supplemented with the information about whether they refer to necessary or optional parts. Therefore four extra sub-properties are introduced here. Optionality is more essential for defining qualification and curriculum structures than pure competence structures, but optionality may also be useful even there, if there is more than one way of achieving a desired outcome.

• skos:narrower
• eloc:hasNecessaryPart
• eloc:hasOptionalPart
• skos:narrowMatch
• skos:broader
• eloc:isNecessaryPartOf
• eloc:isOptionalPartOf
• skos:broadMatch
• skos:closeMatch
• skos:exactMatch
• skos:relatedMatch

for skos:

the URI base is http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core#

for eloc:

the URI base remains to be determined

These are the proposed meanings of the SKOS mapping properties [3]:

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

Within a sector, it is often useful to know how one particular definition of skill or competence relates to other commonly used definitions. The relationships here allow that, as well as enabling the clearly necessary hierarchical relationships within a single framework.

Level attribution is not the same as level definition. It relies on a pre-defined level scheme or framework, and the level scheme cannot be defined within a single competence definition. The attribution associates the competence concept with a level in a scheme. Some sectors have sector-wide level schemes, and specifying which level schemes to use gives a good way of adapting this to a particular area of economic activity.