Lesson 3.1: QCP Architecture and Components

Description: This lesson provides an overview of the QCP’s centralised architecture, including the relationship between national qualification databases and the continental platform.

By the end of this Lesson, you will be able to:

• Understand the QCP’s centralised architecture, its relationship with national databases and the purpose of virtual country spaces in the QCP as quasi national databases.
• Explain the rationale and implications of using a centralised model, including its benefits for adoption
• Identify the main user roles and permissions within the QCP and how role-based access supports accountability and effective data management.

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Why the Architecture Matters

The QCP is not just a database, it is an infrastructure supporting ACQF implementation. Understanding the QCP architecture empowers countries to utilise the QCP effectively and take clear and informed decisions on how to best use the QCP. Furthermore, it also rationalises some of the decisions on the design of the QCP, particularly the centralisation of the platform into a single centralises structure.

Core Architecture Model: Centralised + Virtual Spaces

The QCP uses a centralised architecture with dedicated virtual spaces per country.

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National-level actors such as Qualification Authorities can input structured data via:

(a) API or Bulk-upload

(b) Manually via the Curator Interface.

This makes sure the QCP supports countries with or without their own databases.

The clear advantages of such an architecture are the low onboarding barrier, more rapid adoption and the ability to learn from peers on how to use the platform more easily.

While opting for a centralised architecture opposed to a decentralised one also comes with some drawbacks, such as data sovereignty considerations and the single visual identity of the platform, such an architecture is necessary to cater for the large variety of realities on how countries work with Qualifications Data.

Given the large number of African countries which do not yet have a comprehensive National Qualifications Database (NQD), this centralised approach with dedicated virtual spaces enables countries to swiftly adapt and use the QCP as their quasi national database. At the same time, enabling the connection via API and bulk-upload of existing data enhances the QCP also for countries with more advances NQDs.

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Roles and Permissions (User Management Model)

The QCP has 5 user groups:

• General Public,
• Data Users,
• Qualification Curators,
• Virtual Space Admins,
• QCP Admins

Depending on your role, you will have access to different QCP features. Such Role-based access (RBAC) ensures control and accountability.

The general public and data users do not need to login to the platform but can access all published qualifications data – current and depreciated.

The specialised roles for QCP countries are the following:

• Curators – those users can manage qualifications via the (a) Curator Interface or (b) Bulk import Qualifications ready for publication
• Virtual Space Admins are assigned by ACQF Countries at the highest level and have additional rights, such as adding new Qualification Curators and thus managing the users for their specific Virtual Spaces.

The ETF and the QCP Team, as well as the ACQF Network Leadership have the role of QCP Admins, meaning they can see all Virtual spaces, manage Virtual Space Admins and have thus an elevated role in administering the QCP.

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Section of the User Interface

1. Curator user interface: Provides an interface for curating and editing individual qualifications directly within visual forms.
2. General Public user interface: Enables the general public to view and explore qualifications.
3. Import Service user interface: Facilitates the bulk import of qualifications from existing databases

Data Model – Simplified

The following simplified Data Model showcases how different qualifications data is connected. Each piece of data will naturally have a sub-set of data e.g. Credits will have several values such as Points indicating the number of credits provided, as well as Framework which indicated what type of framework is used for the particular value of credits.

Familiarising yourself with this simplified data model will ensure that you understand how Qualifications are represented in the QCP. You might notice that there is data that you do not yet store on national level or that you store data not reflected in the QCP data model. We can understand this model as a common denominator between countries and will talk more about Data, Data Mapping and the African Learning Model in the following Lessons and Modules (particularly Module 5 – Practical Implementation).