Mapping the European e-Competence Framework on the domain of Information Technology: a comparative study

In the field of IT, many competence frameworks exist. An important framework is the European e-Competence Framework (e-CF) that quite recently has been appointed as a standard by the European Committee for Standardization CEN. In this paper we define quality characteristics for competence frameworks and show how the e-CF has been mapped on descriptions of the IT domain. Our conclusion is that the e-CF does comply almost fully with the formulated quality standards. According to our mappings, the eCF covers the IT domain, albeit on some topics better than on others. To overcome the deficiencies identified, we advise to add to the e-CF a more explicit mentioning of attitude aspects and of the contexts in which the various competences are to be employed.