ISO/IEC 20006-1:2014

INTERNATIONAL ISO/IEC
STANDARD 20006-1
First edition
2014-07-01
Information technology for learning,
education and training — Information
model for competency —
Part 1:
Competency general framework and
information model
Technologies de l’information pour l’apprentissage, l’éducation et la
formation — Modèle d’information pour les compétences —
Partie 1: Cadre général des compétences et modèle d’information
Reference number
ISO/IEC 20006-1:2014(E)
©
ISO/IEC 2014

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ISO/IEC 20006-1:2014(E)

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Contents Page
Foreword .iv
Introduction .v
1 Scope . 1
1.1 General . 1
1.2 Exclusions . 2
1.3 Areas not addressed . 2
2 Conformance . 2
3 Normative references . 3
4 Terms and definitions . 3
5 Symbols and abbreviated terms . 5
6 Competency general framework . 6
6.1 Introduction . 6
6.2 Information architecture view to support the management and exchange of
competency information . 7
6.3 Competency organization . 9
6.4 Elements of competency . 9
6.5 Semantic elements in competency expressions .10
7 Competency Semantic Information .11
7.1 Architecture of competency information .11
7.2 Competency semantic information model .12
7.3 Types of Competency Semantic information - Competency Meaning Information .15
7.4 Types of Competency Semantic Information - Competency Situation Information .20
Annex A (informative) Cases and relationships between ISO/IEC 20006 and ISO/IEC TR 24763 .23
Annex B (informative) Examples for competency information architectures .26
Annex C (informative) Patterns of competency organization by HRMLs .29
Annex D (informative) Previous use case on Japanese National Skills Standard (ETSS) .31
Annex E (informative) Application to Japanese National Skills Standard (ITSS)
.32
Annex F (informative) Application to Canadian Learning Management System Desire2Learn .34
Annex G (informative) Application to Canadian National Occupational Classification
(NOC) and Canadian Nurses Association Canadian Nurse Practitioner Core
Competency Framework.40
Bibliography .43
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ISO/IEC 20006-1:2014(E)

Foreword
ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) and IEC (the International Electrotechnical
Commission) form the specialized system for worldwide standardization. National bodies that are
members of ISO or IEC participate in the development of International Standards through technical
committees established by the respective organization to deal with particular fields of technical
activity. ISO and IEC technical committees collaborate in fields of mutual interest. Other international
organizations, governmental and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO and IEC, also take part in the
work. In the field of information technology, ISO and IEC have established a joint technical committee,
ISO/IEC JTC 1.
The procedures used to develop this document and those intended for its further maintenance are
described in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1. In particular the different approval criteria needed for
the different types of document should be noted. This document was drafted in accordance with the
editorial rules of the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2 (see www.iso.org/directives).
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject
of patent rights. ISO and IEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.
Details of any patent rights identified during the development of the document will be in the Introduction
and/or on the ISO list of patent declarations received (see www.iso.org/patents).
Any trade name used in this document is information given for the convenience of users and does not
constitute an endorsement.
For an explanation on the meaning of ISO specific terms and expressions related to conformity
assessment, as well as information about ISO’s adherence to the WTO principles in the Technical Barriers
to Trade (TBT) see the following URL: Foreword - Supplementary information
The committee responsible for this document is ISO/IEC JTC 1, Information technology, Subcommittee
SC 36, Information technology for learning, education and training.
ISO/IEC 20006 consists of the following parts, under the general title Information technology for learning,
education and training — Information model for competency:
— Part 1: Competency general framework and information model
— Part 2: Proficiency level information model
— Part 3: Guidelines for aggregation of competency information and data
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Introduction
From the late 1990s, some industrial and academic organizations have developed information technology
standards in the skills and competency domain, such as human resources, on a global level to address
the interoperability requirements and environmental complexities of management and sharing of
competency information amongst different organizations. Some examples include work spearheaded by
the following organizations: the IMS Global Learning Consortium Inc., HR-XML Consortium, IEEE-LTSC,
OMG, CEN TC353 and also ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 36 itself. Some typical problems encountered by stakeholders
as well as ITLET systems dedicated to the management and exchange of competency information and
[2]
where these issues may be encountered are provided in examples below:
Example 1: Technical - Competency and associated information cannot always be selected and shared
between different ITLET systems (e.g. learning management, HR, and other related platforms);
Example 2: Organizational - Competency and associated information is not easily used in human
development activities, because skills and competency information may be detailed or expressed
differently in various ITLET systems (e.g. learning management, HR, national occupational classification,
and other related systems);
Example 3: Information exchange - Skills and competency proficiency information, such as individual
status or degrees acquired, cannot be shared easily amongst different ITLET systems (e.g. HR, learning
management, national occupational classification, and other related systems);
Example 4: Individual learner - Individual developmental learning, education, and training paths
cannot easily migrate or be exchanged amongst ITLET systems;
Example 5: Systems perspective (where systems include individuals, organizations, and the
technologies that support them) - Individuals and organizations cannot easily design and integrate
informal and formal learning, education, and training opportunities to support life goals, career
strategies, and career paths using existing common dimensions within ITLET systems;
Example 6: Practical analytics - The ability to access, extract, and analyse competency and associated
information can provide evidence as to whether learning, education and training information needs
are being met in order to analyse lifelong learning, thus where competency information must be drawn
from different systems and where non-interoperable format and definitions are used;
Example 7: Assessment and evaluation - ITLET systems (e.g. acknowledgement and consideration
are needed regarding evaluation biases in human assessment, the use of varying methods and metrics
to evaluate human performance, and the need to conduct accurate skill gap analysis), where ITLET
systems that use different competency digital schema are involved; and,
Example 8: Overarching goals and outcomes - Human assessment and support for the development of
human potential requires ITLET systems that provide a more flexible, holistic integration and exchange of
competency and associated information beyond individual learning opportunities, everyday operation,
and work performance. Competency data must be generated.
Some of these identified problems have been addressed on a limited basis by the standards and
specifications produced by the organizations mentioned above. Not only is it difficult to use these
standards and specifications, however, but also the unsolved problems are still critical. It is still confusing
for stakeholders to implement and use these standards and specifications. Also, various problems
associated with ITLET related systems, which should be solved by or supported with information
technology, still remain.
Currently, organizations, such as schools, universities, institutes, and companies, use different ITLET
systems to support the use of learning content, to enable and enhance various learning activities, and
to provide other services. To meet their mission and goals, such organizations may rely on in-house
developers, others such as ITLET vendors or suppliers, or a combination of both to provide and operate
IT systems to support LET. This means ITLET operations and other organizational systems that deal
with skills and competency information, such as interrelated human resources (HR) information
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systems, need to be interoperable to allow for communication between organizations, their employees,
and outsourcing ITLET providers or suppliers.
The purpose of this multi-part International Standard is to provide a framework, models, system
architecture used for competency and proficiency information, and a way to aggregate competency
information. This standard will provide a general framework and information model to manage and
exchange information about knowledge, skills, ability, attitude, and educational objectives. Especially
this International Standard will focus on extending the concepts contained within ISO/IEC TR 24763 by
providing more detailed information regarding competency information and its information aggregation.
This multi-part standard may be used by software developers and implementers, instructional designers
and test designers, and others to ensure that learning, education and training environments satisfy
learners’ and organizations’ competency needs. In addition, this International Standard will provide
definitions of several types of competency information aggregation, which will provide guidance for
all stakeholders to better understand and support the development of interoperable systems that will
enable competency information exchange.
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INTERNATIONAL STANDARD ISO/IEC 20006-1:2014(E)
Information technology for learning, education and
training — Information model for competency —
Part 1:
Competency general framework and information model
1 Scope
1.1 General
This part of ISO/IEC 20006 provides:
— a general framework for dealing with competency information in information technology for
learning, education, and training (ITLET) contexts;
— a system architecture for managing and exchanging competency information and its related objects;
— an information model for expressing competency and its related objects that includes an introduction
to the composition of competency;
— use cases used to support the development of the general framework and competency information
model.
This standard is for those who design and use learning systems and human resources systems to support
management and exchange of competency information using ITLET systems.
NOTE This International Standard is related to the Conceptual Reference Model developed in ISO/IEC TR 24763.
Information regarding the relationships between the ISO/IEC 20006 and ISO/IEC TR 24763 is provided in this
standard.
This multi-part International Standard also includes the following parts:
ISO/IEC 20006-2:—, Information technology for learning, education and training – Information model for
competency – Part 2: Proficiency level information model, which provides
— information model for expressing semantics of competency proficiency and its levels, and
— use cases used to support the development of the competency proficiency level information model;
ISO/IEC TS 20006-3:—, Information technology for learning, education and training – Information model
for competency – Part 3: Guidelines for aggregation of competency information and data, which provides
— guidelines and a data driven architecture for the development of specific data models managing
aggregation of competency information and related objects,
— ways to aggregate competency information and its related object data, and
— use cases used to support the development of the guidelines for aggregation of competency
1)
information and competency data.
1) The terms competency information and competency data will be defined in ISO/IEC TS 20006-3.
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1.2 Exclusions
The scope of this International Standard does not include an in-depth technical review of issues related
to:
— adaptability to culture, language, and human functions;
— security;
— authentication;
— privacy;
— accessibility.
1.3 Areas not addressed
This International Standard currently does not address the following items:
— e-Profiles, which are a set of records that pertain to an individual (e.g. personnel records, student
information system records);
— evidence information;
— assessment methods and metrics information
— ISO/IEC 20006 has been developed to support competency information and data management and
exchange based on IT systems that are currently in use in Asia, Europe and North America. It is
based on standardization that has occurred at transnational, national and regional levels in IT
systems that are used to support human development including but not limited to:
— university, college, secondary school curricula development;
— learning activities supported by IT systems such as LMSs;
— IT systems that support LET and Human Resources that are based on a National Occupational
Classification system (e.g. learning activity development, job banks, etc.);
— sector specific standardization in the area of IT and embedded skills;
— IT systems that support LET and human resource quality management and development
activities.
Further work may be needed to ensure that these standards support deeper IT integrations across
various sectors and in other regions of the world.
It is anticipated that some or all of these requirements will be addressed in future editions of
ISO/IEC 20006, or in companion International Standards, Technical Specifications and Technical Reports.
2 Conformance
The objective of this part of ISO/IEC 20006 is to support the management and exchange of competency
information in a way that will promote interoperability and integration. To support competency
management and development, competency information needs to be structured and described
consistently to promote understanding, mutual communication and agreement.
The general framework and information model are based on the Conceptual Reference Model for
Competency Information and Related Objects (CRM) (defined by ISO/IEC TR 24763). The CRM provides
a toolkit that can be used to abstract and identify concepts used within IT systems to support the
management and exchange of competency information across different HR, learning and training
contexts. ISO/IEC 20006 builds upon the conceptual and abstract focus of ISO/IEC TR 24763 to
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provide a general framework, information architecture, competency information model and additional
components.
Competency information should be detailed in a way that is semantically robust and extensible. For the
purposes of this standard, competency information is conformant with this International Standard if it
adopts the information model and the element notations specified in this International Standard. (The
element notations are defined in Clauses 6.4 – 6.5 and Clause 7).
A conforming notation may contain descriptions of meaning and context of competency information.
In other words, it is intended to be extensible and may contain additional information elements of
ISO/IEC TR 24763. For conformance to ISO/IEC TR 24763, classes for defining a competency in CRM
competency are indicated with the following notation [En] where n is a number that refers to a class
defined in ISO/IEC TR 24763 to assist with understanding the linkages and relationships between
the CRM and this standard. For example, as noted in ISO/IEC TR 24763, E1 = Action, E2 = Actor,
E3 = Competency, and so on).
3 Normative references
The following documents, in whole or in part, are normatively referenced in this document and are
indispensable for its application. For dated references, only the edition cited applies. For undated
references, the latest edition of the referenced document (including any amendments) applies.
ISO/IEC 2382-36 (E/F), Information technology — Vocabulary — Part 36: Learning, education and training
4 Terms and definitions
For the purposes of this document, the terms and definitions given in ISO/IEC 2382-36 and the following
apply.
4.1
competency
ability of an actor to perform (a) necessary action(s) in (a) given context(s) to achieve (a) specific
outcome(s)
[SOURCE: ISO/IEC TR 24763:2011, 2.2, modified — the words “observable or measurable” were deleted
to allow for more general usage and application.]
4.2
competency aggregation
collection of competency expressions (4.4) that is in any structure
4.3
competency composition
unit and one of aggregation type that consists of definition and/or structured relationships of elements
and attributes used to define contents of competency (4.1) as competency expression (4.4)
Note 1 to entry: For example, this may include information related to competency such as identification, semantics,
context, and supplemental.
4.4
competency expression
any form of digitalized information regarding competency representation (4.7)
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4.5
competency organization
digitized expression or map of aggregation type(s), that defines a designated unit as a set of competencies
(4.1)
Note 1 to entry: This may include structured sub-competencies (e.g. competency information expressed as
parent-child relationships). The form of competency organization structure is formulated as a tree structure or
network structure with competencies.
Note 2 to entry: Competencies may be organized as competency definitions, competency frameworks, maps of
aggregation type(s), and other forms of digitalized competency expressions.
4.6
competency package
standardized way to identify and exchange a set of data regarding competency (4.1) among different
systems or application tools
Note 1 to entry: This standardized way may involve one of many aggregation types such as information regarding
job, task, role and so on, in order to implement into LMS, HRIS, e-Profile, SIS and so on - because a competency may
not only be expressed by competency content in practice, it also may be used with or by other information such
as job, task, or role.
4.7
competency representation
image and idea of competency (4.1) that occurs in a human mind
Note 1 to entry: This is the real-world or portrayal or image or idea of competency as it is perceived by the human
mind; whereas, the competency expression is the actual digital manifestation, notation, statement of competency.
Representations include many different expressions.
4.8
conceptual reference model
common structure and definitions for describing the concepts and relationships within a system
[SOURCE: ISO/IEC TR 24763:2011, 2.8, modified.]
4.9
data model
graphical or lexical representation of data, specifying their properties, structure and inter-relationships
[SOURCE: ISO/IEC 11179-3:2003, 3.2.11, modified.]
4.10
framework
structure composed of related parts that are designed to support something
4.11
information model
expression of concepts, relationships, constraints, rules, and operations to specify data semantics (4.16)
for a chosen domain of discourse
Note 1 to entry: An information model can provide sharable, stable, and organized structure of information
requirements for the domain context.
4.12
information technology for learning, education and training system
ITLET system
set of one or more computers, devices, associated software, peripherals, terminals, human operations,
physical processes, personal needs and preferences profiles, information transfer means, that form an
autonomous whole, capable of performing information processing or information transfer to support
learning, education or training
[SOURCE: ISO/IEC 14662:2010, 3.13, modified.]
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4.13
method for competency assessment
instrument or tool to judge and/or to assess an acquired or demonstrated competency (4.1)
Note 1 to entry: Methods include physical methods and abstract or conceptual methods. There are various types
of methods from the subjects of management science, pedagogy, psychology, engineering, statistics, biology and
others.
Note 2 to entry: “Measurement method” is a generic description of a logical sequence of operations used in a
measurement [ISO/IEC Guide 99:2007].
Note 3 to entry: This definition is associated with ISO/IEC 19796-3 [ISO/IEC 19796-3:2009].
4.14
metrics for competency assessment
material measure used to determine the value of specific aspects or characteristics of competency (4.1)
Note 1 to entry: In other words, it is done as a way of assigning a certain value using methods of measuring or
testing in order to quantify a quality object from the standpoint of quality characteristics, such as scale, criterion,
degree, weight, magnitude, interval, ratio, standard rate, or others.
Note 2 to entry: “Material measure” is defined as device reproducing or supplying, in a permanent manner during
its use, quantities of given kinds, each with an assigned value [ISO/IEC Guide 99:2007].
Note 3 to entry: In ISO/IEC 15939:2002, the metric is defined as “the defined measurement methods and the
measurement scale”. However metric shall be clearly divided between the terms of method and scale to support
implementation for audit assessment and evaluation.
Note 4 to entry: This definition is associated with ISO/IEC 19796-3 [ISO/IEC 19796-3:2009].
4.15
proficiency
level or degree of a competency (4.1) by judgment or measurement
Note 1 to entry: Proficiency can be used to ascertain or to identify progress, advancement or improvement in a
competency, such as skill, knowledge, and other competency-related concepts.
4.16
semantics
branch of linguistic science that deals with the meanings of words
[SOURCE: ISO/IEC 11179-5:2005, 3.13]
5 Symbols and abbreviated terms
CIDA Information Model for Competency – Guidelines for Competency Information and Data
Aggregations
CMS Content Management System
communi. communication
HR Human Resources
HRD Human Resources Development
HRM Human Resources Management
HRIS Human Resources Information System
HRMLs The Society for Human Resource – Markup Language
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HR-XML Human Resources - eXtensible Markup Language
IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.
IMS IMS Global Learning Consortium, Inc.
info Information
IT Information technology
ITLET Information technology for learning, education and training
LET Learning, Education and Training
LMS Learning Management System
MLR Metadata for Learning Resources
PLIM Information Model for Competency – Proficiency Level Information Model
RCD Reusable Competency Definition
RDCEO Reusable Definition of Competency or Educational Objective
SIS Student Information System
6 Competency general framework
6.1 Introduction
This international standard provides a general framework that supports the construction and
management of information architectures, systems and database implementations for ITLET systems
that are used to support the management and exchange competency information. This international
standard enables the management and exchange of competency information by various types ITLET
systems (e.g. learning management systems (LMS) and human resource management (HRM) systems
(also known as personnel management systems), and planning for quality management of ITLET).
There are several aspects for implementation of competency information, this clause focuses on four
aspects as noted below.
a) Information architecture view: There are many different types of information architecture that
are used in these types of systems (see Clause 6.2). As noted in this clause, various information
architectures are used not only in competency management applications, but also in other ITLET
systems (e.g. learning management, HRM systems).
b) Hierarchical and structural view: Compete
...