There are many terms used by organizations that collect occupation-related data to refer to what job-seekers can do, including: skill, ability, capability, knowledge, and competence. These terms are often poorly defined and used interchangeably or inconsistently. In this study, we have identified and ontologically defined these and other related terms for inclusion into the Occupation Ontology (OccO), a reference ontology scoped to the broad domain of occupations and nearby phenomena. Our research provides a systematic account of disposition classes related to occupations, thereby supporting occupation data modeling and integration of disparate data structures.
Many states, federal governments, and non-governmental institutions are invested in matching potential
workers to jobs they are well-equipped to succeed in. For example, the US Department of Labor manages
O*NET as a database for occupational information [
CEUR Workshop
ISSN1613-0073
work on the Occupational Ontology (OccO) [
In 2022 researchers began developing OccO in the interest of connecting existing English-language
occupational standards (e.g., the US Bureau of Labor Statistics Standard Occupational Classification [
Formally described ontologies like OccO have multiple purposes [16, 17]. The defined terminologies in ontologies can help to resolve confusion over meanings by precisely defining terms relevant to some domain. Also, they aid in the integration of disparate data by ofering a core, common structure that these diferent data sources can be mapped to. By ofering this common semantic framework, they can support federated querying across heterogeneous datasets. A single SPARQL query can make use of the semantics provided by the ontology, allowing it to be translated into source-specific queries for each of the distinct datasets [18]. This works by mapping each of the heterogeneous data source schemas to a common ontology, and using the axioms of the ontology, a SPARQL query made to the ontology can be rewritten as, say, multiple SQL queries tailored to each of the data sources. Given the terminological uncertainty and data interoperability problems in the occupation domain, an ontology is useful here for all of the above reasons.
This paper improves upon OccO by modeling terms related to occupational dispositions, including competence, skill, ability, and capability. These terms are critical for collecting data about what activities potential occupation-holders can successfully perform, which is crucial for making informed hiring decisions. We ofer a precisely defined terminology which can provide guidance on how these terms relate to each other. We also discuss how OccO can aid in data integration despite widespread disagreement over the use of these terms. OccO does this by serving as a common framework which data sources using difering terminologies can be uniquely mapped to.
Because OccO is built as an extension of Basic Formal Ontology, every class in OccO fits within BFO’s class hierarchy. BFO’s primary division is between ‘occurrents’ and ‘continuants’ [15]. Occurrents are extended over time and have temporal parts, such as the process of walking or the temporal region during which you walk from point a to point b. ‘Process’ and ‘temporal region’ are thus both subclasses of occurrent. Occurrents can be thought of as things that happen or take place in time, whereas continuants exist in time fully present whenever they exist. At any given moment in which you are walking, the walking process does not exist in full as it is spread across time. By contrast, you did not merely partially exist when you were 1 year old, this was you in your entirety, which makes you a continuant rather than an occurrent. Under continuants one finds ‘independent continuants’, which do not depend for their existence on anything else. Independent continuants include ‘material entities’, such as people, houses, planets, etc. These independent continuants are bearers of dependent entities, either ‘generically dependent continuants’ or ‘specifically dependent continuants’. These difer according to whether they can only exist in some specific bearer or can exist across multiple copies of the same bearer. A novel’s story would be an example of a generically dependent continuant, since the same story depends for its existence on many copies of the same book. Specifically dependent continuants can be either ‘qualities’ or ‘realizable entities’. Realizable entities require some process to realize them, while qualities are present fully without need to be realized. The hardness of an object would be an example of a quality. An important division in realizable entities is between ‘disposition’ and ‘role’. If a realizable entity is a role, it is present because of some context that is external to the bearer of the role. One’s citizenship to a country is an example of a role; whether you are a citizen relies on legal facts independent of the internal, physical make-up of the citizen. By contrast, fragility is a classic example of a disposition. For a vase to no longer be fragile, its internal, physical composition would have to be altered such that it is no longer inclined to shatter if struck. Importantly, realizable entities do not have to be realized in order to exist. A fragile vase is fragile even if it is not actively shattering.
The preceding resources from BFO provide a foundation for OccO, and in doing so provide a foundation for our extension of OccO. In Table 1, we define various terms in OccO related to occupational competence.
Capability that must be realized4 to successfully perform some occupation activity which realizes an occupation role or occupation disposition possessed by the person the occupational capability inheres in. Capabilities count as occupational capabilities if they are important to performing work relevant to their occupation. Capability that is the result of some specialized experience or training.
Skill that must be realized to successfully perform some occupation activity which realizes an occupation role or occupation disposition possessed by the person the occupational skill inheres in. Capability that is either innate or arises as part of an organism’s healthy biological development. natural occupational capability ability occupational ability knowledge occupational knowledge competence occupational competence competence assessment
Capability that persists for a prolonged period of time.
Ability that must be realized to successfully perform some occupation activity which realizes an occupation role or occupation disposition possessed by the person the occupational ability inheres in.
Belief5 where the believed proposition is true and the believer has a strong epistemic basis for believing it.
Knowledge the possession of which is necessary for the successful performance of some occupation activity which realizes an occupation role or occupation disposition possessed by the person the occupational knowledge inheres in.
Capability6 for employing some set of dispositions to succeed in some domain, such as in an occupation.
Competence for employing dispositions to succeed in an occupation7.
Act of Appraisal8 which evaluates the presence of some competence in an individual.
A notable term we are making use of in OccO is capability. ‘Capability’ is not presently a class in BFO. However, it has been defined by [ 19] for potential inclusion into BFO. They define capability as a disposition in whose realization some organism or group of organisms has or had an interest. On their account, one has an interest in something if it contributes to their survival, reproduction, or goals. Tools used for matching people to jobs they are adept in are centrally concerned with what those individuals are capable of doing. A capability is a feature of a person that inheres in them even if they are not actively performing the relevant action. For example, someone can be capable of playing a piano without actively playing a piano. For this reason, capabilities are treated as BFO realizable entities. They are also internally grounded, rather than externally grounded, so they are more specifically BFO dispositions rather than roles.9 If one were to gain or lose a capability, there would need to be some material change to that individual. 1Defined in [ 19]. The Mental Functioning Ontology [20] also has a definition for ‘Capability’: “A bodily disposition whose realization ordinarily brings benefits to an organism or group of organisms, where ”ordinarily” means within a typical range or context,” though their definition does not align precisely with the one we use. 2‘Aptitudes’ are often understood as acquired or natural abilities for behavior one has an interest in [ 21], including skills and abilities, and therefore can be understood as synonymous with capabilities. 3‘Occupational’ capabilities imply the existence of non-occupational capabilities. Although these surely exist, we do not cover them in much detail, due to OccO’s scope being restricted to occupation-related entities. We briefly discuss non-occupational capabilities in Section 3. 4Terms such as ‘realized’ and ‘inheres’ are derived from BFO. 5‘Belief’ is pulled from the Mental Functioning Ontology. 6Capabilities may or may not utilize other dispositions and are not necessarily for success in a clearly defined domain. 7The realization of occupational competences is necessary to fulfill occupation roles. 8‘Act of Appraisal’ is pulled from the Common Core Ontologies. 9One might reasonably object that, because realizable entities only count as capabilities if some organism has an interest in its realization, they are actually externally grounded like roles rather than internally grounded. However, to distinguish between roles and dispositions in BFO, we should analyze whether the realizable entity would cease to exist only if there is some underlying physical change to the bearer. Suppose that some organism has an interest in the realization of a disposition x. Due to this interest, x is counted as a capability. Now supposing this interest were lost without any physical change to the
Many of the terms we are here defining are types of capabilities, including competence, ability, and skill, as displayed in Figure 1.
Terms like ‘skill’ and ‘ability’ are frequently used interchangeably, but some groups collecting data
about occupational capabilities mark a distinction between them. Still, the precise distinctions they
intend for these terms is often unclear. An example of a source that treats these as largely overlapping is
O*NET. They allow users to browse by ability, describing them as “enduring attributes of the individual
that influence performance” [
Based on the definitions of skill and ability from O*NET, it appears that skills and abilities are not
mutually exclusive classes. Indeed, many terms in O*NET listed as skills either overlap significantly
with O*NET abilities or appear to be identical to them. For example, ‘Reading Comprehension’ is a type
of Basic Skill, defined as “Understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work-related documents”
[22], whereas ‘Written Comprehension’ is an Ability defined as “The ability to read and understand
information and ideas presented in writing” [
Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) can be helpful for ordering these groups. Minimally, these terms are all referring to realizable abilities. Someone can have an ability for mathematical reasoning even when bearer of x, even if it was therefore granted that x is no longer a capability, it would not follow that x thereby ceases to exist. The underlying realizable entity would still be present, even if it is no longer characterized as a capability. Additionally, Beverley et al. [19] argue that capabilities maintain their status as capabilities even when any interest in them is lost. 10Object properties in Figure 1 (and in all subsequent figures) express that any instance of the domain class bears this relation to some instance of the range class. they are not actively choosing the right mathematical method or formula to solve a problem, and they can have a skill for reading comprehension, even when they are not actively understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work-related documents. Further, choosing those methods or formulas would realize the ability for mathematical reasoning, and understanding those written documents would realize the skill for reading comprehension.
We can also further classify these as dispositions rather than roles. For you to lose any of these skills or abilities, something internal to you would need to change. This is unlike, for instance, having an employee role, which depends on the external fact of whether you are employed by some organization. And lastly, we can place all of these as types of capability. All of the skill and ability terms in O*NET refer to dispositions the realization of which someone has an interest in. Workers have an interest in these skills and abilities in that they make themselves marketable, and businesses have an interest in that they add value to themselves.
As the reading and mathematics examples illustrate, there is not a clear division between O*NET skills and abilities, but they can both be confidently represented as various sorts of capability. Given the domain O*NET is concerned with, instances of ability and skill they discuss are likely to be what we refer to as Occupational Capabilities, a defined class of capabilities that must be realized to successfully perform some occupation activity which realizes an occupation role or occupation disposition possessed by the person the occupational capability inheres in. We include many other classes for capabilities that are particularly related to occupations, including Occupational Skill, Occupational Ability, and Occupational Competence11. Because ‘Occupational Capability’ is a defined class, we can infer these classes as being subclasses of occupational capability without them being explicitly asserted as subclasses of it, as illustrated by Figure 2.
Our definition of occupational capability is designed to make it contextual whether a particular capability is an occupational capability. For example, an instance of driving capability could be an occupational capability, say if this capability inheres in someone who works as a truck driver and consequently needs this capability for their job. But if this individual were to retire, their driving capability would thereby become detached from any occupation role or occupation disposition and consequently would cease to be an occupational capability.
In representing capabilities, we can move from more general to more specific. For example, many capabilities related to speech, writing, and gestures would count as communication capabilities. Many of 11We give our account of competence in section 5. these are natural language communication capabilities, such as speaking or writing English or Spanish. But communication capabilities can also include more specialized languages, such as programming languages, from general purpose languages like Python to more niche languages like SQL.
Many accounts of skill treat these as being definitionally the result of some experience, training, or
study. For example, the job search company Indeed describes skills as being “developed through life
and work experiences and they can also be learned through study” [25]. One definition of skill from
Merriam Webster presents it as “learned power of doing something competently : a developed aptitude
or ability” [26], and a definition from Britannica Dictionary makes it “the ability to do something that
comes from training, experience, or practice” [27]. The Canadian Occupational Classification defines
skills as “developed capabilities that an individual must have to be efective in a job, role, function,
task, or duty” [28]. O*NET reflects this by referring to skills as being ‘developed’ [ 22, 23, 24]. Further,
in supplementary documentation, O*NET defines skills as “proficiencies that are developed through
training or experience” [
We adopt O*NET’s conception of abilities as “enduring” attributes that influence performance [
Like ‘Skill’, stakeholders are not universally in agreement on how to define ability. Some definitions will treat abilities as ‘generally’ innate or even mandate them to be innate. For instance, Indeed explained that “While most abilities are inherent, it is possible to develop them through training” [29]. Elsewhere, Indeed defines abilities as “talents that are naturally occurring”, which are contrasted from learned skills [30].
In order to respect the terminological uncertainty surrounding ability, we ofer an alternative label for the ability class: ‘Enduring Capability’. Crucially, Skill and Ability are not disjoint classes on our account. A learned capability can at the same time be enduring, though this is not always the case, as in a short-lived capability to perform well on an exam that results from cramming the night before. Skills also tend to be more work-related than abilities, since capabilities that are the result of specialized training are likely to be developed for success in some occupation, whereas Abilities can be more general and widely applicable.
We additionally include a class we refer to as Natural Capability, these being capabilities that are either innate or arise as part of an organism’s healthy biological development. Organizations which distinguish skills and abilities on the basis of trained vs. skill can map their skill classes to ‘Natural Capability’. Notably, there are very few capabilities which could be characterized as truly ‘innate’, either because they are not literally present at birth or because they are cultivated with some level of training or practice, as in the case of speech or walking capabilities. We therefore allow natural capabilities to also include those that naturally occur as part of an organism’s healthy development. This excludes capabilities that are the result of some specialized training, such as a coding capability, but includes ones attributable to a canonical member of a species, such as speech in humans.
Like skill, natural capabilities can overlap with abilities. In fact, capabilities that arise from birth are likely to be abilities, since they have endured for so long. This strong overlap likely contributes to the confusion over these two classes.
It should also be noted that ‘ability’ is used interchangeably with ‘power’ or ‘skill’ and treated as a simple capability to do something [31, 32]. This usage of ‘ability’ maps straightforwardly to our ‘capability’ class.
Another trait that is relevant to success or failure at an occupational role is knowledge. In order to be capable at a job, there is some set of information that must be known. A common distinction in the literature about knowledge is between propositional knowledge (‘knowledge that’), procedural knowledge (‘knowledge how’), and acquaintance knowledge (‘knowledge who’) [33, 34]. Propositional knowledge involves the knower comprehending some fact or set of facts, such as having knowledge about biology, procedural knowledge involves being able to perform some action, such as being able to ride a bike, and acquaintance knowledge involves being familiar with an individual, such as being acquainted with your neighbor. Procedural knowledge is well-handled in OccO with ‘Capability’. Propositional knowledge, on the other hand, needs further treatment since it is also important for occupation holders to perform occupational activities, and credentials are generally understood to be signifiers of propositional knowledge.
Defining knowledge precisely is a notoriously dificult philosophical task which is beyond the scope of an occupation ontology. For example, there is no firm consensus on whether the JTB (Justified True Belief) account of knowledge is critically flawed and needs to be abandoned, despite Gettier’s criticisms [35], and litigating this issue is too expansive of a task for our purposes. Because JTB and its variations remain the predominant accounts of knowledge, and because they succeed in the overwhelming majority of standard cases which are likely to be relevant to our domain, we are comfortable adhering to JTB for OccO.12 For our purposes, we focus on where knowledge should be placed in a BFO-hierarchy.
Knowledge should be understood as a realizable entity. Some piece of information can be known even when it is not present to mind, and it is realized through recalling and assenting to this information. It is further a disposition, in that whether some information is known depends on facts about the knower, not about the context the knower finds themself in. In order to cease knowing some information, it would have to be forgotten or rejected by the knower.
In keeping with the traditional JTB definition of knowledge, and without venturing too far into murky philosophical waters, we define knowledge as “Belief where the believed proposition is true and the believer has a strong epistemic basis for believing it.” We do not take a stance on whether this epistemic basis must be having evidence for the belief or the belief being formed in the right manner. Importantly, possessing knowledge implies the presence of at least one capability, this being a capability to recall the information that is known.
The Mental Functioning Ontology has its own class for Belief. They treat belief as a type of mental disposition, specifically “A mental disposition to represent a proposition to be true” [ 20]. This coheres well with our treatment of knowledge as a sort of disposition, so we adopt it as a parent class for knowledge. We further place both belief and knowledge as subclasses of capability, due to this class being so widely applicable.
Instead of referring to knowledge as a disposition inhering in an individual, users may instead intend to refer to some information that is known. This usage coheres with usage of the term ‘knowledge’ to mean some set of facts. This can easily be accomplished with an object property, ‘knows’, between a person and some information, this information being a generically dependent continuant. 12There is also significant discussion regarding whether the justification component of knowledge requires having evidence or a belief that is formed in an epistemically reliable manner [36]. Regarding this dispute, we do not decide what counts as a ‘strong epistemic basis’. This might come in the form of justifying evidence for the belief, or alternatively this might involve the belief having been formed in the epistemically correct way.
One more term that is relevant to occupational capabilities is ‘Competence’. Organizations that collect
data about what potential job holders can do frequently refer to competences. There is substantial
confusion over the meaning of occupation-related terms, including about competence. Some groups
make ‘competence’ a grab-bag for any disposition that might be relevant to succeeding as an occupation
holder. For instance, the Credential Engine defines Competence as “Measurable or observable knowledge,
skill, or ability necessary to successful performance of a person” [
The Alabama Talent Triad defines competence as “the capability to apply or use a set of knowledge,
skills, and intellectual behaviors to thrive in a defined field or career setting” [
We agree with classifying competence as a capability. A competence is a characteristic that inheres in an individual that is present even when unrealized and is internally rather than externally grounded, so it is properly understood as a type of disposition. It is also a disposition which an individual has an interest in its realization. We therefore model competence in OccO as it is defined by Alabama and ESCO.
In-line with the above treatment of competence, we define Competence as a “capability for employing some set of dispositions to succeed in some domain, such as in an occupation.” An Occupational Competence is then a “competence for employing dispositions to succeed in an occupation”. Not all competences are oriented toward occupational domains. For example, one might have a competence for employing various dispositions to participate in a hobby or game. A particular capability might be relevant to occupations, as well as to hobbies, games, and other domains, but meaningful distinctions between these categories can nonetheless be recognized.
Competences are distinguishable from other capabilities. Where most capabilities enable an individual to perform some task, such as a foreign language skill, competences enable success in a relevant domain like a career. A user of OccO might usefully refer to a customer service competence, which implies the presence of a suite of diferent dispositions, including possessing a communication skill, a conflict resolution skill, and a friendly attitude. Someone might more specifically have a retail customer service competence, which would further imply the presence of knowledge relevant to customer service in a retail context. Figure 3 illustrates how competences depend13 for their existence on the presence of other related dispositions.
Hiring groups have a strong interest in checking whether a worker is competent at performing occupational activities for a role that they need to fill. This is done through hiring interviews and performance evaluations. These activities assess one’s competence. A Competence Assessment is an “Act of Appraisal which evaluates the presence of some competence in an individual”. ‘Act of Appraisal’ is a term we draw from the Common Core Ontologies (CCO), a suite of mid-level ontologies extending from BFO [39]. It is “An Act of Measuring that involves evaluating, assessing, estimating, or judging the nature, value, importance, condition, or quality of something or someone”.
Another feature of competences is that they can serve as qualifications for performing occupational 13Presently, BFO lacks a depends on relation. Recently, Rabenberg et al. have described dependence grounding relations for realizable entities, including ‘internally’ and ‘externally’ grounded [38]. However, these are relations between realizable entities and qualities, whereas the dependence relation we intend is between two realizable entities. In future work, it needs to be decided what the precise nature of this dependence relation is, apart from merely expressing that one entity requires another entity to be present. activities and holding certain occupational roles. Credentials operate as evidence of various characteristics of an individual, such as their having completed some training program or, more relevantly, their being the bearers of skills, abilities, competences, and other dispositions that make them qualified to do some work.
For those who conceive of competences, not as capabilities to utilize various dispositions, but instead as the dispositions themselves which are relevant to some domain, this would map onto defined classes of capabilities.14 In particular, if occupational competences are conceived of as any capabilities which are necessary to succeed in some occupation, this meaning would directly map onto OccO ‘Occupational Capability’. This ofers an avenue for groups such as the Credential Engine to link up to OccO even if they do not adopt our definition of ‘Competence’.
OccO is informed by the expertise of occupation domain experts, but there is significant disagreement among experts over the appropriate use of key terminology in this domain. One benefit of OccO is that it ofers a coherent taxonomy that can help bring consistency amongst occupation researchers. However, even if the precise terminology of OccO is not adopted or agreed upon by some stakeholder in the occupation domain, OccO can still aid them in integrating data. Users of OccO can map their meanings into the ontology, allowing for translation of data, without being required to reinvent their taxonomies. A user might disagree, for instance, with making skills definitionally the result of some specialized training. When they use this term, they might instead have a meaning that corresponds with how we define capability itself. By mapping diverse taxonomies to a common data model, data can be integrated even where there is significant dispute over the meaning of terms.
Users of OccO may have their own terms which encompass multiple other dispositions. For example, ‘knowledge, skills, and abilities’ (KSAs) is often used as a term of its own [ 40]. Defined classes are classes with a set of necessary and suficient conditions, which allows instances to be inferred on the basis of equivalence axioms included to the ontology [41]. These can be used to account for such terms. 14Users are also welcome to use alternative labels for any classes in OccO. We ofer alternative labels where intuitive ones are available, such as ‘learned capability’ being a replacement for skill. A potential alternative label for competence as we have defined it might be ‘proficiency’.
A defined class for KSA, for instance, would be any capability that is an instance of knowledge, skill, or ability. Similarly, rather than second-order capabilities, competences are frequently conceived of as various dispositions including KSAs. Here again, a defined class would cover the use of ‘competence’ in this manner.
OccO’s applicability despite widespread terminological dispute is highlighted in the use-case of federated queries. Once multiple heterogeneous data sources are mapped to OccO, a single SPARQL query can generate SQL queries tailored to the diferent taxonomies of each data source. In future work, we intend to expand on this use of OccO by mapping the ontology to diferent data sources and construct tools that will aid users in performing these federated queries. We intend to explicitly express how the hierarchy of OccO relates to the hierarchies expressed in alternative resources, making querying between them substantially easier.
It is crucial for the Occupation Ontology to be able to represent what potential occupation holders are able to do and how they are disposed to behave. Using BFO as our upper-level structure, OccO can provide a clean framework for representing skills, abilities, capabilities, competences, knowledge, and other dispositions related to the occupation domain. The use of these terms by stakeholder organizations can be murky and inconsistent, but OccO can serve as a precisely defined common framework that difering occupation taxonomies can link up to, allowing easy translation of data from diferent sources.
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