Towards competence-related interoperability

Abstract

This paper outlines a distributed top-level approach to\rrepresenting relationships between competence-related definitions, when\rheld by several parties. The suggested approach is to use existing\rspecifications to represent the competence definitions themselves, and\rSemantic Web technology to represent the relationships between these\rcompetences. Five concepts are suggested for these relationships:\requivalence; non-equivalence; satisfaction; contribution; and overlap. This\rwill allow much greater automatic processing of competence-related\rinformation while avoiding the pitfalls of a centralised approach. It is\rstressed that theoretical perfection is here less important than laying the\rfoundations of a practical solution acceptable to existing competence\rauthorities as well as developers.