GMEOW Expertise Module

• IRI: https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/slices/expertise
• Tier: core
• Group: core

What This Slice Covers

This slice owns 20 terms and contributes 22 mapping or projection rows. Use it when its terms match the native fact you want to preserve; use the linkage tables to see how those facts leave GMEOW for consumer vocabularies.

Dependencies

• gmeow:slices/cognition
• gmeow:slices/entities
• gmeow:slices/kernel
• gmeow:slices/organization
• gmeow:slices/temporal

Consumers

• Cross-cutting proficiency claims (promoted core, slice-dependency doctrine): skills, credentials, language proficiency.

Local Map

Examples

Skill Proficiency

• Source: slices/core/expertise/examples/skill-proficiency.ttl
• GMEOW terms: gmeow:Attestation, gmeow:Credential, gmeow:Occupation, gmeow:Organization, gmeow:Person, gmeow:ProficiencyLevel, gmeow:ProficiencyScale, gmeow:Skill, gmeow:SkillProficiency, gmeow:attestationType
• External prefixes: xsd

# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2026 Blackcat Informatics® Inc. <paudley@blackcatinformatics.ca>
# SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-4.0
#
# Worked example: skill, proficiency, and credentials. A flat gmeow:hasSkill
# says an agent HAS a skill; the reified gmeow:SkillProficiency says HOW WELL, and
# crucially on WHICH SCALE — a proficiency level is meaningless without the scale
# it is read against (P11 in spirit: a value carries its frame). A gmeow:Credential
# is a separate, independently-issued attestation OF a skill, by an issuer — having
# a credential and being proficient are distinct facts. ProficiencyLevel, scale,
# Skill and Occupation are open vocabularies, minted as needed.
@prefix gmeow: <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/> .
@prefix ex:    <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/examples/expertise/> .
@prefix rdfs:  <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .
@prefix xsd:   <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#> .

ex:dana a gmeow:Person ;
    gmeow:name           "Dana Reyes"@en ;
    gmeow:hasSkill       ex:python ;
    gmeow:hasOccupation  ex:engineer ;
    gmeow:holdsCredential ex:cert .

ex:python   a gmeow:Skill ; rdfs:label "Python programming"@en .
ex:engineer a gmeow:Occupation ;
    rdfs:label "Software Engineer"@en ;
    gmeow:occupationClassification "SOC 15-1252" .

# --- Proficiency: HOW WELL, read against an explicit named SCALE.
ex:proficiency a gmeow:SkillProficiency ;
    gmeow:skillProficiencyAgent ex:dana ;
    gmeow:skillProficiencyOf    ex:python ;
    gmeow:skillProficiencyLevel ex:expert ;
    gmeow:skillProficiencyScale ex:dreyfus .

ex:dreyfus a gmeow:ProficiencyScale ; rdfs:label "Dreyfus model of skill acquisition"@en .
ex:expert  a gmeow:ProficiencyLevel ; rdfs:label "expert"@en .

# --- A credential: an independent attestation OF the skill, by an issuer. A
#     verifiable credential references a gmeow:Attestation that signs it (the
#     expertise↔attestation seam): the credential is a CLAIM, the attestation
#     makes it checkable.
ex:cert a gmeow:Credential ;
    gmeow:credentialFor    ex:python ;
    gmeow:credentialIssuer ex:psf ;
    gmeow:hasAttestation   ex:certAttestation .

ex:certAttestation a gmeow:Attestation ;
    gmeow:attester        ex:psf ;
    gmeow:attestedSubject ex:cert ;
    gmeow:attestationType gmeow:attestationTypeVerifiableCredential ;
    gmeow:issuedAt        "2025-09-01T00:00:00Z"^^xsd:dateTime .

ex:psf a gmeow:Organization ; gmeow:name "Python Software Foundation"@en .

Terms

Classes

Properties

Individuals

Linkages

• Rows: 22
• Projection profiles: schema-org
• External vocabularies: ceterms, esco, schema, wd

Guide

Expertise mapping doctrine

This note records the design contract for the GMEOW expertise module (ontology/modules/expertise.ttl) and its relationship to the language proficiency machinery, employment, attestation, and surface vocabularies.

Core model

• Skill, Occupation, and Credential are gufo:Kind individuals.
• SkillProficiency is a gufo:Relator binding {agent} × {skill} × {level} × {scale} × {interval}.
• gmeow:hasSkill is the flat shortcut for the common case; promote to SkillProficiency when level, scale, temporal scope, provenance, or standpoint matter.

Reuse, not parallel mechanisms

• The rating vocabulary classes (ProficiencyScale, ProficiencyLevel, ProficiencyModality) live in the kernel slice — relocated there by to break a latent expertise ↔ cognition dependency cycle (Principle 6/16). They are domain-neutral; CEFR/ILR/ACTFL remain language scales, Dreyfus/NIH/Assessed are skill scales, and cognition's KnowledgeProficiency reuses the same classes. SkillProficiency and LanguageProficiency consume the same value individuals unchanged (same IRIs).
• Temporal scope reuses validFrom/validUntil (lightweight) and TimeInterval / hasCreationEvent (heavyweight) from temporal.ttl and lifecycle.ttl.
• Standpoint and confidence reuse the cross-cutting accordingTo / confidence annotation properties from standpoint.ttl.

Endorsement and credential verification

• A third-party skill endorsement is an Attestation whose attestedSubject is the SkillProficiency.
• Self-asserted, assessed, and endorsed proficiency levels coexist as standpoint-indexed claims (CONSTITUTION Principle 9); none is privileged.
• Credential verification is routed through attestation.ttl, which is already aligned to vc:VerifiableCredential. A verifiable credential is a Credential whose authenticity is borne by an Attestation. The expertise module supplies content; attestation supplies the signed envelope.

Occupation classification

• occupationClassification carries ESCO, SOC, O*NET, ISCO, or NOC codes as literal values.
• Classification resolution and scheme identification are solver-side concerns (CONSTITUTION Principle 12); the ontology only records the code.

Surface-vocabulary bridging (by reference)

• schema.org — Skill/SkillProficiency flatten to schema:knowsAbout / schema:skills; holdsCredential maps to schema:hasCredential; credentialFor to schema:competencyRequired; credentialIssuer to schema:recognizedBy / schema:sourceOrganization.
• ESCO — Skill → esco:Skill; Occupation → esco:Occupation.
• CTDL / Credential Engine — Credential → ceterms:Credential; credentialIssuer → ceterms:ownedBy.
• Open Badges 3.0 / W3C VC — no new terms in the expertise module; verification semantics are inherited from the attestation layer.

SHACL

• shapes/expertise-shapes.ttl enforces closed-world well-formedness:
• A SkillProficiency must reference exactly one Skill and carry exactly one ProficiencyLevel.
• The level's levelScale should match the relator's skillProficiencyScale (warning).
• A Credential intended to be verifiable should reference an Attestation (warning).
• A Credential's issuer must be an Organization.

Terms

gmeow:Skill · gmeow:Credential

A gufo:Kind competency or ability an agent can apply to a task, aligned to esco:Skill by reference; and a degree, certification, badge, or license that qualifies an agent — its issuer is gmeow:credentialIssuer, its subject matter gmeow:credentialFor, and its verification is borne by a gmeow:Attestation (Principle 4).

gmeow:SkillProficiency · gmeow:skillProficiencyAgent · gmeow:skillProficiencyOf · gmeow:skillProficiencyLevel · gmeow:skillProficiencyScale · gmeow:skillProficiencyInterval

The reified gufo:Relator binding {agent} × {skill} × {level on a scale} × {interval}, mirroring languages' LanguageProficiency. Its functional roles fix the agent, the rated skill, the attained level, and the scale that level is read against; skillProficiencyInterval bounds the span the level held. Contested levels coexist as separate standpoint-indexed relators (Principle 9).

gmeow:hasSkill · gmeow:hasOccupation · gmeow:holdsCredential

The flat 80 % shortcuts: an agent possesses a skill (hasSkill, a sub-property of knowsAbout touching the can-do rung); a person holds an occupation or job role over time (hasOccupation); an agent holds a credential, many-to-many (holdsCredential). Promote to the reified forms when level, scale, temporal scope, or standpoint must become first-class.

gmeow:credentialIssuer · gmeow:credentialFor · gmeow:occupationClassification

A credential's single issuing Organization (functional — a different issuer is a different credential); what it certifies (a Skill, an Occupation, or both, the union range a SHACL shape); and the raw external classification codes (ESCO, SOC, O*NET, ISCO, NOC) carried on an occupation, scheme resolution being solver-side (Principle 12).

gmeow:ProficiencyScale · gmeow:ProficiencyLevel · gmeow:ProficiencyModality

The domain-neutral rating machinery generalized from languages: a ProficiencyScale is the rating framework (CEFR, ILR, ACTFL, Dreyfus, NIH, assessed, self-reported); a ProficiencyLevel is an attained rung on a scale (tied to it by levelScale), meaningless without naming its scale; a ProficiencyModality is the channel a language proficiency rates (speaking, listening, reading, writing). All are value individuals, never subclasses (Principle 9).