EANE iEQF Editorial Rubric

© 2026 European Academy for Nano Education (EANE). The iEQF framework and this editorial rubric are licensed under CC BY 4.0. You are free to reuse, adapt, and redistribute the material with attribution.

Purpose. This document is the working editorial rubric that EANE's editorial team uses to assign an iEQF (indicative European Qualifications Framework) level to every course and Nano-Diploma published on the platform. It is the "how we decide" companion to /iEQF.

Legal boundary. This rubric is aligned with the descriptors set out in Council Recommendation 2017/C 189/03 and follows the "indicate an EQF level" pattern explicitly permitted for stackable micro-credentials under Council Recommendation 2022/C 243/02. iEQF levels are provider-declared indications, not formal awarding-body accreditations. EANE is a non-formal provider and does not currently hold NQF awarding-body status in any EU Member State.

How EANE learning shapes the level. Every EANE module is fully self-directed and asynchronous. There is no classroom, no live instructor, and no supervised setting in the sense the EQF descriptors imagine. Under the EQF's Responsibility & Autonomy axis this places every EANE learner at level 3 or higher by construction, because completing the work at all requires the learner to exercise self-management. In practice this means EANE credentials very rarely sit below iEQF 3, even when the Knowledge and Skills content is basic. The floor is set by the autonomy the learner is demonstrating just by being here. Most EANE content lands between iEQF 3 and iEQF 5.

1. The three EQF descriptor axes

Every iEQF level is derived by scoring a course along the three EQF descriptor axes from Annex II of Recommendation 2017/C 189/03:

Axis	What it measures	Where we look in an EANE course
Knowledge	Facts, principles, theories a learner masters.	Reading material density, technical vocabulary count, scope of the syllabus, referenced literature.
Skills	Cognitive and practical abilities applied to problems.	MCQ question types (recall vs. application vs. synthesis), presence of case studies or scenario prompts, expected task outputs, and the 60-minute assessment cool-off, which forces the learner to retrieve from long-term rather than short-term memory.
Responsibility & Autonomy	Context in which the learner is expected to operate.	Framing of the learning objectives (self-managed, then managerial, then strategic), the target-audience statement, and the scope of the decisions the learner is asked to make. Because EANE learning is always self-directed, this axis starts at level 3 by default (see the "How EANE learning shapes the level" note above).

A course's iEQF level is the level whose descriptors best fit all three axes taken together. If the axes disagree, the editorial team picks the level that matches the two closest axes and records a note in the audit trail.

2. Level-by-level descriptor table

The table below restates the EU descriptors in the compact form EANE editors use during audits. It is a paraphrase for internal use; the authoritative wording is in Annex II of Recommendation 2017/C 189/03.

Level 1: Basic

Knowledge: Basic general knowledge of a subject.
Skills: Basic skills required to carry out simple tasks.
Responsibility & Autonomy: Work or study under direct supervision in a structured context.
Typical EANE fit: Not used in practice. This level implies a supervised setting, which EANE does not provide.

Level 2: Foundational

Knowledge: Basic factual knowledge of a field of work or study.
Skills: Basic cognitive and practical skills required to use relevant information to carry out tasks and solve routine problems using simple rules and tools.
Responsibility & Autonomy: Work or study under supervision, with some autonomy.
Typical EANE fit: Rarely used, for the same autonomy reason as Level 1.

Level 3: Applied Introductory

Knowledge: Knowledge of facts, principles, processes and general concepts in a field of work or study.
Skills: A range of cognitive and practical skills required to accomplish tasks and solve problems by selecting and applying basic methods, tools, materials and information.
Responsibility & Autonomy: Take responsibility for completion of tasks; adapt own behaviour to circumstances in solving problems.
Typical EANE fit: The default level for most EANE awareness and short practical courses. The self-directed nature of EANE learning already satisfies the "take responsibility for completion of tasks" descriptor.

Level 4: Applied Practitioner

Knowledge: Factual and theoretical knowledge in broad contexts within a field of work or study.
Skills: A range of cognitive and practical skills required to generate solutions to specific problems in a field of work or study.
Responsibility & Autonomy: Exercise self-management within the guidelines of work or study contexts that are usually predictable but subject to change; supervise the routine work of others, taking some responsibility for the evaluation and improvement of work or study activities.
Typical EANE fit: Most EANE professional micro-courses that address a working practitioner, for example a lab technician, a project coordinator, or a community worker applying the material in the field.

Level 5: Specialist Practitioner

Knowledge: Comprehensive, specialised, factual and theoretical knowledge within a field of work or study and an awareness of the boundaries of that knowledge.
Skills: A comprehensive range of cognitive and practical skills required to develop creative solutions to abstract problems.
Responsibility & Autonomy: Exercise management and supervision in contexts of work or study activities where there is unpredictable change; review and develop performance of self and others.
Typical EANE fit: Advanced Nano-Diplomas that stack six specialist courses in a single applied discipline. Individual modules rarely reach this level on their own.

Level 6: Advanced (Bachelor-equivalent)

Knowledge: Advanced knowledge of a field of work or study, involving a critical understanding of theories and principles.
Skills: Advanced skills, demonstrating mastery and innovation, required to solve complex and unpredictable problems in a specialised field of work or study.
Responsibility & Autonomy: Manage complex technical or professional activities or projects, taking responsibility for decision-making in unpredictable work or study contexts; take responsibility for managing professional development of individuals and groups.
Typical EANE fit: Rare. Used only when a course explicitly requires a Bachelor-level prior background and the syllabus mirrors an equivalent undergraduate module. Requires editorial sign-off.

Level 7: Highly Specialised (Master-equivalent)

Knowledge: Highly specialised knowledge, some of which is at the forefront of knowledge in a field of work or study, as the basis for original thinking and/or research; critical awareness of knowledge issues in a field and at the interface between different fields.
Skills: Specialised problem-solving skills required in research and/or innovation in order to develop new knowledge and procedures and to integrate knowledge from different fields.
Responsibility & Autonomy: Manage and transform work or study contexts that are complex, unpredictable and require new strategic approaches; take responsibility for contributing to professional knowledge and practice and/or for reviewing the strategic performance of teams.
Typical EANE fit: Not currently used. Reserved for future research-led Nano-Diplomas.

Level 8: Doctoral

Knowledge: Knowledge at the most advanced frontier of a field of work or study and at the interface between fields.
Skills: The most advanced and specialised skills and techniques, including synthesis and evaluation, required to solve critical problems in research and/or innovation and to extend and redefine existing knowledge or professional practice.
Responsibility & Autonomy: Demonstrate substantial authority, innovation, autonomy, scholarly and professional integrity and sustained commitment to the development of new ideas or processes at the forefront of work or study contexts including research.
Typical EANE fit: Not used. EANE does not currently publish content at this level.

3. Editorial workflow

AI first pass. The Quality Audit tool assigns an iEQF_level_ai per module by scoring the three axes against the table in section 2. The score is stored on the module document.
Course-level aggregation. When a certificate PDF is generated, the course's admin-set eqf_level is used if present; otherwise the system falls back to the mean of the constituent module iEQF_level_ai values, rounded to the nearest integer.
Editorial override. The editorial team may set eqf_level on the course document at any time. This value always wins over the AI aggregate.
Audit trail. Every change to eqf_level is logged with the editor's user ID and a short rationale field.

4. When the axes disagree

Situation	Rule
Knowledge is high, skills and responsibility are low	Pick the lower level. A course cannot claim a higher iEQF than the skills it asks the learner to demonstrate.
Skills are high, knowledge is low	Add a "recommended prior learning" note; keep the level at the knowledge floor.
Responsibility is much higher than the other two	Cap at the median. Managerial framing alone cannot lift the level.
The course spans two adjacent levels evenly	Pick the lower level and note the ceiling in the audit trail. Learners should never be over-promised.

Last updated: February 2026. Feedback: editorial@eane.eu.

Licence and attribution

The iEQF framework (the name, the three-axis method, the level-descriptor rubric, and the "How EANE learning shapes the level" logic) is © 2026 European Academy for Nano Education (EANE), licensed under CC BY 4.0.

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Full attribution guidelines and copy-paste snippets: /iEQF/attribution.

iEQF editorial rubric