D2.3: Models

 

Competences

Description

Competency relates to all the capabilities of the person. It includes both the official competences that have been certified by a certifying institution (e.g. school, university, governmental bodies, etc.) such as a diploma, the competences that are testified by a certain amount of experiences in an area (job, life, etc.), and competences that are more implicit (for instance deriving from the interest of the person to a particular topic). 

Examples of attributes

 

1. Certified competences 

   1. Driving licences 

   2. Diplomas 

2. Skills and know-how 

3. Experiences 

   1. Job 

   2. Life 

 

Application domains

The two main application domains that deal with competency information are education and work. In the first case, educational systems (e-learning systems) need to track and record the evolution of competence of the students. In particular, LMS (Learning Management Systems) usually maintain a model of the student that includes the different abilities of the students, as well as the different grades that these students obtained in different disciplines. More intelligent e-learning systems have also tried to exploit this information in order to provide more customised interaction (note: the more advanced systems not only try to use competency or preference information, but also cognitive characteristics such as learning style).  

In the second case, Enterprise management systems (and in particular Human Management Systems, or Knowledge Management Systems) are interested in managing people competency information for different companies’ processes, such as recruitment (some competences may be desirable or even required to be certified by a diploma), career management, and the management of the intellectual capital of the organisation (used for instance in the cartography of competence of organisations). 

Competence may also be managed in other application domains. For instance, a person may have to justify a driving license in order to drive a car, a bus or a truck. 

Relevant standards

The domain of e-learning has defined with IMS/LIP (Learner Information Package) a series of specification for the representation of the learner information. Two different slots are used to represent competency, the ‘Competency’ slot, which is used to represent skills, knowledge, and abilities acquired in the cognitive, affective, and/or psychomotor domains and the ‘QCL’ slot (Certifications and Licenses) which is used to represent qualifications, certifications and licenses granted by recognised authorities. 

HR-XML defines a schema for specifying the competency (measurable characteristics) of the employee. The competencies schema allows the capture of information regarding the evidence used to substantiate a competency and ratings and weights that can be used to rank, compare, and otherwise evaluate the sufficiency or desirability of a competency. 

 

 

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