As part of the European Qualifications Framework for lifelong learning (EQF), countries are invited to link information on their national qualifications to the European portal "Learning Opportunities and Qualifications in Europe" (LOQ) and to the ESCO portal. The aim is to enhance understanding of individual qualifications. The ISA² Action 'Promoting semantic interoperability amongst the European Union Member States (SEMIC) supported ESCO and LOQ in piloting their Qualification Metadata Schema, allowing the integration of information published on the two portals.
The Member States have different education and training systems. The European Commission and the European Qualification Framework Advisory Group (EQF AG) aim for a better comparability and transparency of qualification systems and qualifications across Europe. Making it easier to access and reuse information on qualifications on the web, as well as on other search and delivery platforms, contributes to this goal.
Information can only be comparable throughout Europe if all Member States and other actors have a common view on metadata that are specific for qualifications, such as: title, awarding body (AB), EQF level and relations to knowledge, skills and competences. Everyone who publishes information on qualifications needs to make sure that users can easily find what they are searching for.
This common understanding or common language helps describe the semantics. One part of the common language in question is an agreed “qualification metadata schema” (QMS). Such a schema tells IT systems, search engines and web portals, such as the LOQ portal or the ESCO portal, how to search for information and what kind of information to look for on qualifications. Using a schema for qualifications makes it easier to integrate information with classifications like ESCO. It also enables qualifications to be linked and integrated easily with other structured metadata published on the web.
The main objectives of this pilot were to:
- Test the Qualification Metadata Schema and its different format publishing options;
- Show that qualification information published in a decentralised way can be retrieved and represented in a harmonized way, in the portals developed by the Commission, namely ESCO and LOQ.