One of the most important parts of any course guide is the breakdown of what students will learn — or learn to do — into competences, learning objectives and learning outcomes. However, although the Bologna Process and its framework of qualifications for the European Higher Education Area called for “generic descriptors for each cycle based on learning outcomes and competences” (Communiqué of the Conference of European Ministers Responsible for Higher Education, Bergen, 19–20 May 2005, p. 2 ) and higher education systems across Europe have become more comparable, there are still discrepancies in the way different institutions and countries interpret and use terms such as “competences”, “competencies”, “learning objectives” and “learning outcomes”. The subsections below define these key terms and suggest how they can be most consistently used.