The European labor market cannot function effectively and smoothly without a European framework to stand as a common reference for the recognition of qualifications. It is a matter which has also significant implications for every member of society and society itself: equal opportunities on the European labor market and the development of European citizenship also depend on the extent to which the people of Europe will really be able to have their diplomas and certificates recognized everywhere in the European Union.
A framework of this kind in Europe must naturally be based on the national frameworks which themselves must be coherent and cover the various levels of initial and continuing training. The necessary mutual trust can only stem from quality assurance instruments which are appropriately compatible and credible so that they can be mutually validated. In this connection, the "common framework" for the development of quality vocational training (as part of the follow-up to the Copenhagen Declaration) and the creation of a platform for quality assurance or accreditation in higher education (in conjunction with the Bologna process), should be top priorities for Europe. The Commission appears determined to make all necessary efforts to achieve this by 2005 and expects the Member States to do likewise.
This proposed layer establishes a "perpetual" relation between an accredited academic certification authority and the individual, which may apply even through the early years of his academic education. Several benefits are served via this approach, including a cohesive, lifelong link between academy, individual and employment. In this respect, the academic institution (or its appointed proxies, such as CDOs -Career Development Offices) provides a lifelong service to the individual by optimally serving as both, a career monitoring and sustained advisory service, as well as a mediator for candidate industrial placement. The aim is to signify and establish a distinct roadmap for an ascending "educational ladder" potential benefit for the individual, where the thread of his/her progress becomes adaptable to his occasional capacity. These educational, certification/accreditation jurisdictional services offered by the academic institution(s), are also complemented by commensurate mediation services in employment opportunities. In this respect, the traditionally rigid relation between supply and demand in conventional labor models, is converted into a highly adaptive process customized as to suit the individual's competency potential. Key principle here is the adjacent placement of services and communal procedural management between career rehabilitation, skill accreditation and lifelong education.
The envisaged curriculum database environment to implement this service should allow an open structure, configurable environment where formal (accredited) data would be committed by the institution, in addition to externally submitted career assessment evaluations, as well as free career-related curriculum and open personal data that could be maintained by the user himself. A structural "penchant monitoring" service is also required in such an environment, as to retrieve and classify regularly incoming census, statistical and other highly tuned career-related data, at the user's portfolio. The database should also allow a registered service to monitor employment offers by either national, international, private or public vendors, followed by an embedded notification service to the users. A forward looking future service, would generate employment seeking search agents, able to match the user's competence profile to employment providers' databases.
Effectively, such an environment could be divided into two synergistic entities, a "vertical" action comprising the assembly of inter-networked databases of the accreditation institutions, and, a "horizontal" action comprising the integration activities of the respective vertical databases -among other concerted actions, into a unifying superset database scheme, offering a publicly accessible facility. The apparent operations include subscription-based services for all operational actors, including graduates (employment seeking), industrial partners (employment provision) and State Servants. Collaborating incentives and interfacing access is also provided for active content (i.e. legislation) providers, and, either private or public jurisdictional authorities, that could regularly update particular sections of monitored public sectors of information. This parallel service is systematized and contextually formatted, prior to availability and circulation to all registered parties of the horizontal activity, on a variety of notification options or rich context formats. In the case of the graduate subscribers -f.e.-, as they are also members in one of the vertical databases, the circulated content could automatically update their personal portfolio section, which is an important feature offered to them as part of their database membership. The subscription mechanism for admission and access to a service, besides formal aspects, will also serve the purposes of detailed audit-trail and logging of activities for all engaged parties, so as to process and offer valuable (anonymous) statistical data and trends, being an essential dynamic service offered by the horizontal action to all subscribers. In all, an open environment for life-through promotion of an individual's full accredited curriculum is proposed, designed for implementation as a full on-line, browser accessed service, implemented under the JAVA language. The candidate database engine used for this highly distributed application, could now be a publicly available open source environment, such as MySQL.
The selection for an inherently open and operating system independent environment, further fortifies the scope and span of the applications, making it also an ideal environment for direct internal support by academic institutions. Further to being a fully feasible application, the proposed endeavor may readily combine with existing institutional structure and legislation. Although it is beyond scope of this report to comment on the legislation framework required to endorse this inter-institutional service, it is -nevertheless- stressed that the apparent necessity to maintain it as a public service and benefit supported by the State, should not become negotiable.
Conceptual Diagram of the EUEDOS Grid
Above figure, presents a simplified version of the above described relations between major actors, in the form of a conceptual "Grid" of interactions. This process is progressively leading to a highly "tuned relation" between workforce and employment, as well as among statutory -or European- policy makers and Career Development Offices -or other consultancy and career planning mechanisms.
Operational diagram of the relation between "vertical" and "horizontal" activities
in formal institutional accreditation and curriculum registration databases,
for promotion of synergy between employment actors in academy and industry
Above figure, demonstrates the detailed relations between "vertical" and "horizontal" activities and databases. It should be also noted that the environment is fully adept for accepting external accreditation for any particular user record (individual) as well, thereafter recorded and appended to his/her respective curriculum in a vertical database. This facility provides a complete accreditation & registration cycle mechanism, where life through acquired professional dexterities, experience and supplementary academic education, may be officially moderated, rated and promoted to ameliorate employment and career opportunity. Among many side merits, this mechanism also acts as an incentive to the individual, where a tangible motive for developing his profile becomes apparent -implicitly under his private discretion and consent in what is concerning the horizontal activities. This last observation should be emphasized, as a notion of paramount importance for individual rights. In this respect, the offered services are not compulsory to the individual, further than maintaining his minimal institutional record. The choice for the individual to derive obvious benefits from a scalable range of services, is entirely entrusted to the individual's discretion. Nevertheless, the apparent corollary should also apply on fact that, acceptance of a series of formally offered career mediation public services to the individual, should also imply his/her acceptance of a minimum agenda of accreditation for the information -either of private nature or otherwise- that would become available to designated third parties.
Flow diagram of the relation between vertical and horizontal activities in formal institutional accreditation and
curriculum registration databases, along with major policy cycles served
Above figure further demonstrates the basic flow diagram of this synergistic relation between vertical and horizontal activities, between institutional accreditation and curriculum registration databases, as well as the major trend policies that are eventually served by the long term operation of this model. Indeed, fostering of -at least- 3 major socio-educational motives should progressively evolve, namely: sustain awareness and employment dynamics evolution, maintain active employment promotion and mediation services, create and motivate towards an interleave opportunity between employment and education. The apparent complexity of the sought social services, justifies the requirement for the highly synergistic grid suggested in fig. 21a.
Designing an integral system for employment rehabilitation, will inevitably have to satisfy both, long standing policy requirements along with technical challenges. However, the immense latent potential lays with the social perspective. An issue that should receive an exclusive consideration by itself, is the overall evaluation and consent cycle required to establish such a public credification system. This postulation is based on the mere observation that the true hindering factor for its implementation so far, has not been the absence of a technology framework able to deliver such an ambitious service. The core prohibits remain in non-exact factors and obstinately retained localized policies of Institutions blended with political constrains. However, the international status per se, can no longer postpone the devolvement to a system of certifiable values and actions, towards the new model of life-through education and scalar employment opportunity.
A framework of this kind in Europe must naturally be based on the national frameworks which themselves must be coherent and cover the various levels of initial and continuing training. The necessary mutual trust can only stem from quality assurance instruments which are appropriately compatible and credible so that they can be mutually validated. In this connection, the "common framework" for the development of quality vocational training (as part of the follow-up to the Copenhagen Declaration) and the creation of a platform for quality assurance or accreditation in higher education (in conjunction with the Bologna process), should be top priorities for Europe. The Commission appears determined to make all necessary efforts to achieve this by 2005 and expects the Member States to do likewise.
This proposed layer establishes a "perpetual" relation between an accredited academic certification authority and the individual, which may apply even through the early years of his academic education. Several benefits are served via this approach, including a cohesive, lifelong link between academy, individual and employment. In this respect, the academic institution (or its appointed proxies, such as CDOs -Career Development Offices) provides a lifelong service to the individual by optimally serving as both, a career monitoring and sustained advisory service, as well as a mediator for candidate industrial placement. The aim is to signify and establish a distinct roadmap for an ascending "educational ladder" potential benefit for the individual, where the thread of his/her progress becomes adaptable to his occasional capacity. These educational, certification/accreditation jurisdictional services offered by the academic institution(s), are also complemented by commensurate mediation services in employment opportunities. In this respect, the traditionally rigid relation between supply and demand in conventional labor models, is converted into a highly adaptive process customized as to suit the individual's competency potential. Key principle here is the adjacent placement of services and communal procedural management between career rehabilitation, skill accreditation and lifelong education.
The envisaged curriculum database environment to implement this service should allow an open structure, configurable environment where formal (accredited) data would be committed by the institution, in addition to externally submitted career assessment evaluations, as well as free career-related curriculum and open personal data that could be maintained by the user himself. A structural "penchant monitoring" service is also required in such an environment, as to retrieve and classify regularly incoming census, statistical and other highly tuned career-related data, at the user's portfolio. The database should also allow a registered service to monitor employment offers by either national, international, private or public vendors, followed by an embedded notification service to the users. A forward looking future service, would generate employment seeking search agents, able to match the user's competence profile to employment providers' databases.
Effectively, such an environment could be divided into two synergistic entities, a "vertical" action comprising the assembly of inter-networked databases of the accreditation institutions, and, a "horizontal" action comprising the integration activities of the respective vertical databases -among other concerted actions, into a unifying superset database scheme, offering a publicly accessible facility. The apparent operations include subscription-based services for all operational actors, including graduates (employment seeking), industrial partners (employment provision) and State Servants. Collaborating incentives and interfacing access is also provided for active content (i.e. legislation) providers, and, either private or public jurisdictional authorities, that could regularly update particular sections of monitored public sectors of information. This parallel service is systematized and contextually formatted, prior to availability and circulation to all registered parties of the horizontal activity, on a variety of notification options or rich context formats. In the case of the graduate subscribers -f.e.-, as they are also members in one of the vertical databases, the circulated content could automatically update their personal portfolio section, which is an important feature offered to them as part of their database membership. The subscription mechanism for admission and access to a service, besides formal aspects, will also serve the purposes of detailed audit-trail and logging of activities for all engaged parties, so as to process and offer valuable (anonymous) statistical data and trends, being an essential dynamic service offered by the horizontal action to all subscribers. In all, an open environment for life-through promotion of an individual's full accredited curriculum is proposed, designed for implementation as a full on-line, browser accessed service, implemented under the JAVA language. The candidate database engine used for this highly distributed application, could now be a publicly available open source environment, such as MySQL.
The selection for an inherently open and operating system independent environment, further fortifies the scope and span of the applications, making it also an ideal environment for direct internal support by academic institutions. Further to being a fully feasible application, the proposed endeavor may readily combine with existing institutional structure and legislation. Although it is beyond scope of this report to comment on the legislation framework required to endorse this inter-institutional service, it is -nevertheless- stressed that the apparent necessity to maintain it as a public service and benefit supported by the State, should not become negotiable.
)
Conceptual Diagram of the EUEDOS Grid
)
Operational diagram of the relation between "vertical" and "horizontal" activities
in formal institutional accreditation and curriculum registration databases,
for promotion of synergy between employment actors in academy and industry
)
Flow diagram of the relation between vertical and horizontal activities in formal institutional accreditation and
curriculum registration databases, along with major policy cycles served
Designing an integral system for employment rehabilitation, will inevitably have to satisfy both, long standing policy requirements along with technical challenges. However, the immense latent potential lays with the social perspective. An issue that should receive an exclusive consideration by itself, is the overall evaluation and consent cycle required to establish such a public credification system. This postulation is based on the mere observation that the true hindering factor for its implementation so far, has not been the absence of a technology framework able to deliver such an ambitious service. The core prohibits remain in non-exact factors and obstinately retained localized policies of Institutions blended with political constrains. However, the international status per se, can no longer postpone the devolvement to a system of certifiable values and actions, towards the new model of life-through education and scalar employment opportunity.