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Mapping the European e-Competence Frameworkon the domain of Information Technology: acomparative studyHenk PlessiusHU University of Applied Sciences, Utrecht, the Netherlands, henk.plessius@hu.nl

Pascal RavesteynHU University of Applied Sciences, Utrecht, the Netherlands, pascal.ravesteijn@hu.nl

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Recommended CitationPlessius, Henk and Ravesteyn, Pascal, "Mapping the European e-Competence Framework on the domain of Information Technology:a comparative study" (2016). BLED 2016 Proceedings. 15.http://aisel.aisnet.org/bled2016/15

29th Bled eConference Digital Economy

June 19 - 22, 2016; Bled, Slovenia

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

studyHenk Plessius

HU University of Applied Sciences, Utrecht, the Netherlands henk.plessius@hu.nl

Pascal Ravesteyn HU University of Applied Sciences, Utrecht, the Netherlands

pascal.ravesteijn@hu.nl

Abstract Inthefieldof IT,manycompetenceframeworksexist.AnimportantframeworkistheEuropeane-CompetenceFramework(e-CF)thatquiterecentlyhasbeenappointedasastandardbytheEuropeanCommitteeforStandardizationCEN.Inthispaperwedefinequality characteristics for competence frameworks and showhow the e-CF has beenmappedondescriptionsoftheITdomain.Ourconclusionisthatthee-CFdoescomplyalmostfullywiththeformulatedqualitystandards.Accordingtoourmappings,thee-CFcoverstheITdomain,albeitonsometopicsbetterthanonothers.Toovercomethedeficiencies identified, we advise to add to the e-CF a more explicit mentioning ofattitude aspects and of the contexts in which the various competences are to beemployed.

Keywords: IT competence framework, IT domain, Mapping of competenceframeworks,Europeane-competenceframework

1 IntroductionThefamousexpressionπάνταχωρεῖκαὶοὐδὲνμένει(Everythingchangesandnothingstands still) - attributed to the Greek philosopher Heraclitos 1 - seems very apt todescribe the fieldof InformationTechnology (IT)wherenewareasofexpertisearisealmosteveryyearandoldareasaregetting less importantorevendisappear totally(Benamati&Lederer,2001).TheimplicationisthatforacareerinIT,itisofparamountimportancetokeepup-to-datewithcurrenttechnologyanditsusageinbusinessandsociety(Rong&Grover,2009).Stateddifferently: IT-professionalsmustdeveloptheirIT-competencescontinuallytobeabletocopewiththechallengesofmodernIT.

Toexpressone’scompetencesinthefieldofIT,variouscompetenceframeworkshavebeen developed. Some widespread examples are the Information TechnologyCompetency Model (ITCM, 2012), the European e-Competence Framework (e-CF,

1)AsquotedbyPlatoinhisdialogueCratylos.

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2014)andtheSkillsFrameworkfortheInformationAge(SFIA,2015),butmanymoreframeworks (withanationalor international scope)exist. Ferrari (2012) forexamplegivesanoverviewof15 frameworksused inGreatBritainalone. Inouropinion, thismultitudeof frameworks justifies theneed forameta-frameworkof ITcompetencesonwhichotherframeworkscanbemapped.

In the long run this study is concerned with the establishment of such a meta-framework,eitherbyusingoneof theexisting frameworksorbyconstructinganewone. In this researchwehavechosen thee-CFasa foundationbecause it is the firstsector-specific implementation of the European Qualifications Framework (EQF).Furthermore, as of January 2016 the e-CF is approved as standard by the EuropeanCommittee for Standardization (CEN, 2016), which means that it has to beimplemented by all EUmember states. The e-CF, as expressed by CEN (CEN, 2016)“providesacommon languageforcompetences,skillsandproficiency levels thatcanbeunderstoodacrossEurope”.For these reasonswehavestartedour researchwithdeterminingifthee-CFcanfunctionasameta-frameworkforITcompetences.

Anecessary(butnotsufficient)conditionforthee-CFtobeabletofunctionasameta-frameworkisthatthedomainofITshouldbecoveredwhollybythee-CF.Thispaperreports the results of our research on this topic where the research questionunderlyingourworkis:Towhatextentdoesthee-CFcoverthedomainofIT?

The paper is structured as follows: in the next section we discuss the theoreticalbackgroundofourresearchquestionanddiscussdefinitionsofthemainconceptslikecompetence,competenceframeworkand IT-domainaswellasthequalityaspectsofmappings. This discussion is followed in section 3 with an outline of our researchmethodandanoverviewofthemappingitselfinsection4.Insection5,wediscussourfindingsandcompareourresultswiththoseofotherauthorsandgivesuggestionsforfurtherresearch.

2 TheoreticalBackground

2.1 Competence‘Competence’ is an abstract concept, created to represent something that is notdirectlyapparentintheworld.Thisis,accordingtoLundqvist,Baker&Williams(2011),the reason that no uniform definition exists of the term. In most definitions, acompetenceconsistsof“acombinationofknowledge,skillsandattitudethatresultsinsuccessful behavior in a specific context” (Dochy & Nickmans, 2005). Based on thisdefinitionitcanbedeductedthattodescribeacompetence,atleastfourelementsarenecessary: the knowledge base that can be called upon, the skills and the attitudecharacteristicsnecessarytoperformandthecontextinwhichtoperform.

However,inpracticemanyspecificationsofcompetencesfocusontheknowledgeandskillspartanddonotexplicitlystatetheattitudepartand/orthecontext.Forexample,in the e-CF a competence is defined as: “Competence is a demonstrated ability toapplyknowledge,skillsandattitudesforachievingobservableresults”(e-CF,2014)andnomentionismadeofthecontext.

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An attempt at handling the issues of behavioral and context specific aspects ofcompetences can be found in an earlier research by Ravesteyn, Bosman & Mens(2015).AnotherrouteischosenintheITCMframeworkwhereattitudeandcontextarerepresented as different competences that canbe combinedwith IT knowledge andskills(ITCM,2012).Inthisapproachprofessionalcompetences,personaleffectivenessandcontextualskillsareseparateclassesofcompetences.

2.2 CompetenceFrameworksA coherent set of competences is called a competence framework. A competenceframework offers “generic and theoretical solutions for comparing and harmonizingcompetencies”(Lundqvist,Baker&Williams,2011).Acompetenceframeworkusuallyhas a scope, e.g. to make the distinction between functions in an organization, todevelop courses, etcetera. In some frameworks this scope is quite broad: TheEuropean/International Computer Driving License (ECDL/ICDL, 2007) for example istargeted at raising computer literacy for every citizen. Other frameworks are morespecific, e.g. the e-CF (2014) provides “a tool to supportmutual understanding andprovide transparency of language through the articulation of competences requiredanddeployedbyICTprofessionals(includingbothpractitionersandmanagers)”.

Acompetenceframeworkisessentiallyaclassificationofcompetences(Markowitsch,& Plaimauer, 2009) along one or more axes or dimensions. Competences in acompetence framework are at least ordered along a domain axis: a (structured orunstructured) list of competences,whereeach competence-classmaybe subdividedfurther (Markowitsch, & Plaimauer, 2009). Quite often we see a second axis withproficiency levels. The e-CF for example uses five proficiency levels ranging fromassociate to principal (e-CF, 2014). Examples of other classification dimensions areknowledge and skills versus attitude and context (ITCM, 2012) and threshold versusperformancecompetences(Eschenbrenner&Nah,2014).

Following the observations abovewe call a classification scheme like a competenceframeworksimplewhen it existsof a setof (competence-)classesonly. If thereexistrelationsbetweentheclassesaswell(oftenexpressedinotherdimensions)wecalltheschemecomplex.

Foracompetence framework tobeameaningfulandbroadlyapplicablestandard, itshould at least complywith two general classification requirements (Cobbold et al.,2002):

• Completeness,i.e.everycompetenceinthedomaintargetedbytheframeworkcanbemappedontheframework.

• Unambiguous,i.e.acompetenceinthedomaintargetedbytheframeworkcanbemappedontheframeworkinonlyoneway.

Foracomplexframeworkathirdrequirementisnecessary:

• Orthogonality, i.e. every dimension of the framework has a meaningindependentoftheotherdimensions.

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Togethertheserequirementsguaranteethateverycombinationofdimensions intheframeworkhasoneandonlyonemeaning.

2.3 Thee-CFAs stated in the Introduction, we have chosen to use the e-CF as the competenceframework underlying our research because of its increasing importance in theEuropeanUnion.Thee-CFcanbeconsideredasacomplexframeworkwithtwoaxes:thecompetence-classificationaxisandtheproficiency-levelaxis.

In thedescriptionof thestructureofe-CF (e-CF,2014) fourso-calleddimensionsaredistinguished(notethattheworddimensionhasaslightlydifferentmeaninginthee-CFtheninouruseoftheterminthepreviousparagraph):

“These dimensions reflect different levels of business and human resource planningrequirements in addition to job/work proficiency guidelines and are specified asfollows:

• Dimension 1:Five e-Competence areas, derived from the ICT businessprocessesPLAN–BUILD–RUN–ENABLE–MANAGE

• Dimension2:Asetofreferencee-Competencesforeacharea,withagenericdescriptionforeachcompetence.Currently40competencesareidentifiedthattogetherprovidetheEuropeangenericreferencedefinitionsofthee-CF3.0.

• Dimension 3:Proficiency levels of each e-Competence provide Europeanreference level specifications on e-Competence levels e-1 to e-5, which arerelatedtotheEQFlevels3to8.

• Dimension 4:Samples of knowledge and skills relate to e-Competences indimension2.Theyareprovidedtoaddvalueandcontextandarenotintendedtobeexhaustive.”(e-CF,2014)

e-CFdimension2and3definethetwoaxesoftheframework,wheredimension1isanoverallclassificationtorelatetheframeworktothebusinessprocessofIT.Dimension4describesinmoredetailtheknowledgeandskillselementsconstitutingthevariouscompetences.Theattitudeaspectiskeptquiteimplicitinalldimensions.

2.4 TheITDomainJust like competences and competence frameworks, no universally accepteddescriptionoftheITdomainexists.Severalorganizationshavepublishedclassificationsof the IT-domain and by doing so, marked out the territory of the IT domain. ThelargestandprobablybestknownoftheseorganizationsistheACM,theAssociationforComputingMachinerythathaspublishedataxonomyofITterms(ACM-1,2012).Quiterecently,afirstversionoftheEuropeanfoundationalICTbodyofknowledgehasbeenpublishedaswell(ICTBOK,2015)bytheEuropeanUnion.

The IT-domain is implicitly outlined in IT curricula as well. So a second source ofdescriptionsof the ITdomain canbe found in IT curricula; a veryextensiveexamplecan be found in the description given by the Association of Computing Machinery(ACM-2,2013).

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Professionalswho are confrontedwith questions around classification on an almostdaily base are librarians. Library classifications have been used and adapted to thestate-of-the-art for many centuries. Examples of such classifications are the DeweyDecimal Classification (DDC, 2012) and the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC,2012). Most countries have their own system(s), for example in our country the‘NederlandseBasisclassificatie’2(NBC,2004)isusedbymostscientificlibraries.

Other sources that in some way demarcate the IT domain are frameworks thatstructuretheworldofITinrelationtotheenterprise.Thebestknownexamplehereisthe Zachman framework for enterprise architecture (Zachman, 2006). In thisframework six different aspect systems in an organization can be modeled on fiveabstraction levels, ranging from the context of the organization to a detaileddescriptionofitstechnology.

All descriptions of the IT domain have in common that they classify the IT domainalongitscontent.Itfollowsthattheseclassificationschemesaresimple,usingonlyoneaxis.

2.5 MappingsBecausetherearemanydifferentcompetenceframeworksavailableitisoftenneededfor mutual comparisons to map frameworks onto each other. When mapping oneframeworkuponanother,itisdesirabletobeascompleteaspossible,meaningfirstofallthatallclassesofthesourceframeworkaremappedonclassesofthedestinationframework. Secondly, when the source framework is complex, all relations of thesourceframeworkshould(wherepossible)bemappedonrelationsinthedestinationframeworkaswell.

Soamappingofoneframeworkuponanotherframeworkconsistsof:

• Amapping of the classes of each dimension of the framework upon classes(possiblyfrommoredimensions)intheotherframework.

• When the framework is complex: a mapping of the relations between theclassesintheframeworkupontherelationsintheotherframework.

With the plethora of IT competence frameworks, many efforts have beenmade tocompare competence frameworks and relate the included competence-classes. Asdiscussed in the preceding paragraphs, there is ample discussionon themeaningofcompetences and competence frameworks are developed from very differentperspectives. So the mapping from one framework upon another is not verystraightforwardandinpracticeisusuallydonebyexpertsinthefieldandvalidatedbyother experts (e-CF, 2014). To the best of our knowledge only Lundqvist, Baker &Williams (2011)havebuilda limitedprototypeofa systemformappingcompetenceframeworks, applyingontologiesandontology toolsets,but their approach seems tohavehadnocontinuation.

2) Dutchbasicclassification

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SincedescriptionsoftheITdomainareessentiallysimpleclassifications,amappingofacomplexcompetenceframework likethee-CF isreducedtomappingtheclassesofthe e-CF on the classes as discerned in the descriptions of the IT domain, therebylosingtheinformationdescribedintheproficiencylevels.

3 ResearchApproachOurresearchquestionhasledustouseanevaluativeresearchapproach.Evaluationisdefined by Mertens (2014, p.48) as: “Evaluation is an applied inquiry process forcollectingandsynthesizingevidencethatculminatesinconclusionsaboutthestateofaffairs, value, merit, worth, significance or quality of a program, product, person,policy,proposalorplan…”

The research process started with an initial literature study (summarized in theprecedingsection)inordertodefinetheconceptsusedandtoembedourresearchinexisting theories. The literature study was followed by a mapping of the 40competenciesasdistinguishedindimension2ofthee-CF(e-CF,2014)onfivedifferentdescriptionsoftheITdomain.TheresultofthisworkwasafirstimpressionofthewayinwhichtheITdomainiscoveredbythee-CF.

To getmoredetail,wedecided to refineoneof themappings. This refinementwasperformedbytwoteamsoftwoITstudentsfromouruniversity,theHUUniversityofApplied Sciences with the teams working independently of each other. For therefinement,the(435)knowledgeandskillselementsthatconstitutethe4thdimensionof the e-CF (2014) have been used. By using two independently working researchteams,wewereabletoanalyzethedifferences inmappingsbetweentheteamsandfromthereinferhowreliablethemappingshavebeendone.

Theresearchapproachchosenisdepictedinfigure1.

Literaturestudy

DescriptionofITdomain

1stimpressionofcoverage

e-CF

ChosendescriptionofITdomain

2independentteam

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Figure1:Researchprocess

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4 Mappingthee-CFonthedomainofIT

4.1 InitialMappingsInsection2.4wehavearguedthatdescriptionsoftheITdomaincanbeobtainedfromdifferentsources.Forourfirstmappingsofthee-CFonthedomainofIT,wehaveuseda well-known example from the various sources mentioned in section 2.4,supplemented with the recently published description of the IT domain by theEuropeanUnion(ICTBOK,2015);

1. TaxonomyofITterms(ACM-1,2012).2. IT2013Curriculum(ACM-2,2013).3. NederlandseBasisclassificatie(NBC,2004).4. ZachmanFramework(Zachman,2006).5. ICTbodyofknowledge(ICTBOK,2015).

Forthefirstfourdescriptionsabove,themappinghasbeendonebytheauthorsofthispaper. Themapping of e-CF on 5) the ICT Body of Knowledge has been done by itsauthors(ICTBOK,2015).

Fromthesemappings,thefollowingpreliminaryconclusionsweredrawn:

• Thee-CFbasicallycoverstheITdomain–albeitonsometopicsbetterthanonothers. Moreover, it covers topics from other domains as well, for examplebusinessadministrationandmarketing.

• IT fundamentals and mathematical background are implicitly covered in thecompetencesofthee-CF.Thisissomethingtokeepinmindwhene-CFisusedas foundation toassessments (e.g.of ITprofessionalsor students)where theriskisthatthesetopicsmaybeinadequatelytested.

• Due to the lack of domain knowledge in the e-CF, some topics have a verybroad range.Anexample is competenceB1:ApplicationDevelopment,whichcovers awide range from very technical systems to games to administrativesystems,etcetera.

• Competence class C (RUN) consists of (only) four competences. This seemsrather restricted and competences around security for example are not verycomprehensivelydefined.

FromthepreliminaryresearchwealsolearntthatsomedescriptionsoftheIT-domainweremoreuseful forourpurpose thanothers. TheZachman frameworkprovednotvery suitable as it lacks detail and the various categories are not well-defined. TheNederlandseBasisclassificatie (datingfrom2004)was lacking indetailaswellandonseveraltopicsoutdated.TheIT2013curriculumturnedouttobequiteusable,butverymuchtunedtoeducation.So,forourpurpose,thebestdescriptionsoftheIT-domainwere given by ACM’s taxonomy of IT terms from 2012 and by the ICT Body ofKnowledgedating from2015.Wehave chosen to useACM’s taxonomy in themoredetailedresearchastheICTBodyofKnowledgestemsfromthesamesourceasthee-CFitself,theEuropeanUnion,andabiastowardsthewayofthinkingunderlyingthee-CFmaybepresentinthisdescription.

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4.2 DetailedMappingInthee-CF,adetaileddescriptionofeverycompetenceisgivenindimension4whereknowledge and skills that relate to the competences, are provided. The 40competences of dimension 2 are subdivided in 435 knowledge/skills-descriptions indimension4.ThesewerecomparedwiththeclassificationofACM’staxonomy(ACM-1,2012), consisting of 12 classes on the first level and 82 (sub)classes on the secondlevel.Moredetailed subdivisionsof the taxonomywereused to clarifymeaningsonthissecondlevel.

Asstatedbefore,thedetailedmappinghasbeendonebytwoteamsoftwoIT-studentseachgroupworkingindependentlyofoneanother.Forthemappingsweusedathree-phaseapproach.Inthefirstphaseeveryteamwasaskedtomaponecompetenceofe-CF to the second-level subclasses of ACM’s taxonomy. The teams neededapproximatelytwohoursandtheresultswereextensivelydiscussedwithbothgroupstogethertounderstandtheprocessandcreateacommonunderstandingofboththee-CFandtheACMterminology.

Inthesecondphasetheother39e-CFcompetencesweremappedonthetaxonomybybothresearchteamsindependently.Forthemappingtheresearchteamswereaskedtorelateeveryknowledge/skillelementofthee-CFtothetermsinthesecondlevelofACM’staxonomy,usinga3-pointscale:

0–norelationpresent

1–sometimes,insomedomains,related

2–overallclearlyrelated.

Afterthemappingsofbothgroupswerecompletelyfinished(ittooktheteamsaround40hourseach)weorganizedthethirdphase:asessiontocomparethedifferencesinthemappingsfromthetworesearchteams.Fromthemorethan35,000comparisons,initially only 4% differed. The different scores were typically found in clusters in acombination of an e-CF competence and an ACM class. These clusters weresubsequentlydiscussedtodeterminethecauseof thedifferentmappingratings.Wefound that thedifferences couldbe explainedby slightly different interpretationsofthevarioustermsinthetaxonomy.

Theresultsofthefinalcomparisonaresummarizedinfigure2.Inthisfigure(withe-CFcompetences as rows and the first level terms of ACM’s taxonomy in the columns)every cell reflects the total score of all knowledge/skills elements from thecorresponding competence and from the sub-terms of the corresponding first leveltermofthetaxonomy.Becausethenumberofknowledge/skillselements inthee-CFdiffersbetweencompetencesasdoesthenumberofsub-termsofeachfirstleveltermin the taxonomy, these scoreswere classified in four categories and color coded asexplainedinfigure3.

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A1.ISandBusinessStrategyAlignment 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1A2.ServiceLevelManagement 1 1 2 1 2 1 3 1 1 1 1A3.BusinessPlanDevelopment 1 1 1 1 1A4.Product/ServicePlanning 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1A5.ArchitectureDesign 1 2 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 1 1A6.ApplicationDesign 1 1 2 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1A7.TechnologyTrendMonitoring 1 1 1 2 1 1 2 1A8.SustainableDevelopment 1 1 1 1 1A9.Innovating 2 1 1 1 1 1 2 1B1.ApplicationDevelopment 2 1 1 3 1 1 1 1 1 1 1B2.ComponentIntegration 2 1 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 1 1 1B3.Testing 2 1 1 1 1 1 2 1B4.SolutionDeployment 1 1 1 2 1 2 1 2 1B5.DocumentationProduction 1 1 2 1 3B6.SystemsEngineering 2 1 1 3 1 1 1 1 1 1C1.UserSupport 1 1 1 2 1 3 1 2 1C2.ChangeSupport 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 1 1C3.ServiceDelivery 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 1 2C4.ProblemManagement 2 1 2 2 1 1 1 1D1.InformationSecurityStrategyDevelopment 1 1 1 1 1 2 3 1 2 1D2.ICTQualityStrategyDevelopment 1 1 1 1 1 1D3.EducationandTrainingProvision 1 1 1 3 1D4.Purchasing 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1D5.SalesProposalDevelopment 1 1 1 1 2 3 1D6.ChannelManagement 1 2 2D7.Salesmanagement 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1D8.ContractManagement 1 1 1 1 2 1D9.PersonnelDevelopment 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1D10.InformationandKnowledgeManagement 2 1 2 1 1 1 3 3 1 1 2 1D11.NeedsIdentification 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 2D12.DigitalMarketing 1 1 3 1 1 2E1.ForecastDevelopment 1 1 2 2 2 1E2.ProjectandPortfolioManagement 1 1 1 1 2E3.RiskManagement 2 2 1 1E4.RelationshipManagement 1 1 1 1 1 1 1E5.ProcessImprovement 1 1 1 2 2 1E6.ICTQualityManagement 1 1 1 1 1 2 1E7.BusinessChangeManagement 1 1 1 1 2 1E8.InformationSecurityManagement 1 1 1 1 3 1 1 1E9.ISGovernance 1 1 1 2 1

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Figure2:Mappingofe-CFonACM’staxonomy(legendinfigure3)

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white Theknowledge/skillsdescriptionsforthiscompetencecouldnotbematchedtoanyofthetermsinthesecondlevelofACM’staxonomy

lightgrey Theknowledge/skillsdescriptionsforthiscompetencecouldbematchedtosome(i.e.lessthan35%)ofthetermsinthesecondlevelofACM’staxonomy

darkgrey Theknowledge/skillsdescriptionsforthiscompetencecouldbematchedtovarious(i.e.between35%and70%)termsinthesecondlevelofACM’staxonomy

black Theknowledge/skillsdescriptionsforthiscompetencecouldbematchedtomost(i.e.atleast70%)termsinthesecondlevelofACM’staxonomy

Figure3:Thefourclassesandtheircolorcoding

The results of this detailed mapping support our preliminary conclusions: the e-CFmoreorlesscoverstheITdomain,butsomethemesfromtheITdomain(like‘Theoryof computing’, ‘Mathematics of computing’ and ‘Computingmethodologies’) appearonlysuperficially inthee-CF.Remarkable isthelowscoreon‘Socialandprofessionaltopics’ascompetencesinthee-CFaremeanttoincludeattitudeaspectsaswell(e-CF,2014). This result may well be due to the fact that only knowledge and skillsdescriptions are present in dimension 4 of the e-CF and attitude aspects are keptimplicitinthesedescriptions.

5 Discussion,limitationsandfurtherresearchIn the preceding paragraphwehave shownhow the e-CF canbemappedon the ITdomain.Asaresult,wecannowreflectuponhowmeaningfulandapplicablee-CFasastandard is. For this we use the general classification requirements completeness,unambiguousandorthogonalityasdiscussedinsection2.

Basedonthisstudyweconcludethatwhilethee-CFseemscompleteandadequateincovering the IT domain, there are some themes (like ‘Theory of computing’,‘Mathematics of computing’ and ‘Computing methodologies’) that appear onlysuperficially in the e-CF. Furthermore, for the description of the competences of ITprofessionals,someadditionstothee-CFcouldbeworthwhile:

• Amoreexplicitoccurrenceofattitudeaspects,especiallyindimension4ofthee-CF.

• Anewdimensiondescribingvarious ITcontexts. In thiswaydifferences in forexample application development in different contexts (like technical,administrative,games,etcetera),canbemadevisible.

However,wewouldliketostateawordofcautionhere.Whileextensionstothee-CFframework might increase its coverage of the IT domain, it might also cause theframeworktobecomeoverloadedandlessusableinpractice.Asframeworksbecomemorepopularandareusedbymoreorganizationsthereisatendencytoexpandthemand incorporate aspects andwishes of different user groups. Thismay lead to largeanddifficulttounderstandframeworksthatarehardtouseinpractice.Especiallynowthat e-CF is on the road to become a European standard, the maintenance andextensionprocessshouldbecarefullyconsidered.

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Regarding how unambiguous the e-CF is, we find that although there is room forinterpretation on how a competence can be mapped on the ACM taxonomy, inpractice the interpretations don’t really differ that much (as the 4% differences in35.000 comparisons has shown).We conclude that the strength of the e-CF in thisrespectisveryhigh.

Thethirdrequirementstatesthatforacomplexframeworkorthogonality isrequired.Inotherwords, everyaxisof the framework shouldhaveameaning independentoftheotheraxes.Concerning thisaspect,weconclude thate-CF iswell constructedastheproficiencylevelsareindependentofthecompetenceclasses.

Togethertherequirements,asdescribedabove,guaranteethateverycombinationofdimensionsintheframeworkhasoneandonlyonemeaning.Aswehaveseenthereissome room for interpretation but very limited. So while the e-CF might not be aframework inwhicheverycombinationofdimensions intheframeworkhasoneandonlyonemeaning,itcomeshoweverquiteclose.

Looking at the mapping itself, the information present in the proficiency-leveldescriptionshasnotbeenusedinourresearch.Ourmappingwithits3-pointscaleisofaqualitativenatureaswell.However,whenwe lay the threshold in themappingatincluding only the cells where the descriptions at least match various terms of thetaxonomy(darkgreyorblackinthefigure),wefounditquiteinlinewiththemappingofthee-CFontheICTBodyofknowledgedescription(ICTBOK,2015).

Ourresearchdoeshave its limitations.Firstofall,ourmappings–thoughtheyseemquite consistent – rely strongly on the interpretations of various competences andtermsandtheconsistencythereofinthecomparisons.Inthesecondplacetheresultsarenot(yet)validatedbyotherexpertswiththeexceptionofthemappingofe-CFonthe ICTBodyofKnowledge (ICTBOK,2015) thatessentially gives the same results asourmappings.Theresultsassummarizedinfigure2shouldthereforenotbeseenasabsolute,rathertheygiveaqualitativeimageofthedegreetowhichthee-CFcoverstheIT-domain.

Finally, the ACM’s taxonomy is biased towards amore technical definition of the ITdomainanddoesnotdo justice to themorebusiness-orientedscopeof thee-CF.Asstatedintheintroduction,IThasanenormousimpactontraditionalbusinessandtheorientationchosenforthee-CFmaymakeiteasiertoadoptinpractice.Inouropinion,adoption of the e-CF may even be accelerated by stating more explicitly attitudeaspects,asthesoftskillsoftheITprofessionalcanmakethedifferenceinsuccessorfailureofanITproject.

We think the results of our research are encouraging and give a good insight in thestrengths and shortcomings of the e-CF. For future researchwe plan to extend ourmappingtowardsthebusinessaspectsofthee-CFandtrytorelatethee-CFtoothercompetenceframeworksbymakingdirectmappings.

Acknowledgements This research was supported by an EXIN Foundation grant to the research groupProcessInnovation&InformationSystemsattheHUUniversityofAppliedSciences.

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FurthermoretheauthorsliketothankSvenvanDoorn,PreveshSoebedar,MarkSmitsandDaanVosfortheirpatientmappingwork.

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