Evita Explained

The EuroHPC Virtual Training Academy (EVITA) aims to provide learners across the EU with high-quality HPC knowledge and skills through innovative training modules and a structured online platform. EVITA delivers quality, certification, and flexible learning pathways while supporting training providers with resources for an impactful education. To do that, EVITA developed a solid foundation based on a Competence and Qualification Framework (CQF) to ensure the quality of education, a certification scheme to allow eyropean-wide recognition, and a Skills – Modules – Courses – Learning Pathway structure that will guarantee a flexible learning pathway adapted to each profile.

Competence and Qualification Framework

The Competence and Qualification Framework (CQF) is built on identified HPC professional profiles defined by competencies and skills. The CQF defines the most relevant knowledge and competencies, including structured learning pathways – from basic to advanced levels, covering critical topics in the HPC domain. Developed by EVITA, the CQF provides a standardized European-wide framework that supports consistent and high-quality HPC education. This framework offers a structured approach to the notions of skills, modules, and courses.

What is a skill?

A skill is a small, clearly defined ability that a learner can demonstrate in practice. It contains only learning objectives, is organised directly within the skill tree. Skills are not certified individually but are assessed indirectly through the modules or courses that include them. Both theoretical and practical versions of a skill may exist, depending on the learning context.

What is a module?

A module is a structured teaching unit that provides learning materials, hands-on activities, and optional assessment questions to help learners acquire one or more skills. While a skill describes what a learner can do, a module delivers how they learn it. Modules typically span around 1–4 hours of guided learning, depending on the content and prerequisites, and may overlap in the skills they cover. They can be combined into larger courses and aligned with credit systems such as ECTS.

What is a course?

A course is a structured learning package made up of one or more modules, ranging from short offerings of 1–4 hours to multi-day or multi-week programmes. Every course includes a dedicated examination that leads to a course certificate, in addition to a certificate of attendance. Course exams draw on the skills covered by the included modules: small courses must assess all skills, medium courses may cover all skills, and larger courses allow instructors to select the most relevant skills and tailor the exam accordingly. Courses can also include integrated questions that connect multiple modules, enabling learners to apply skills in combination.

What is a pathway?

A learning pathway is a personalised progression that combines multiple modules and courses in an order tailored to an individual learner’s goals, background, and skills. It reflects the learner’s unique journey through the training ecosystem and includes all certificates earned along the way.

Individual Learning

The EVITA framework brings together skills, modules, courses, and learning pathways within a coherent structure defined by the Competence and Qualification Framework (CQF). This structure clarifies how individual learning components relate to one another and provides a transparent basis for designing and organising training content across different levels and contexts.

Building on this structured learning framework, EVITA is exploring how these learning elements can be linked to certification concepts in coordination with the HPC Certification Forum (HPC CF). Rather than introducing entirely new certification models, the focus lies on aligning existing approaches and gathering feedback from the HPC community.

Certification

EVITA aims to support the development of a European-wide certification approach to facilitate the cross-border recognition of certificates. Related certification concepts and mechanisms are currently under development and subject to further definition. In this context, EVITA is also investigating the use of micro-credentials for selected courses as a potential means of recognising learning outcomes in a flexible and modular way. Certification-related activities are being explored in coordination with the HPC Certification Forum (HPC CF), which provides established approaches for hosting parts of the certification process, including certificate and examination-related elements. Further details will be made available as this work progresses.