T3 Open Competencies Network

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T3N² Open Competency Framework Collab

OCF Collab Network Description

The talent ecosystem is vastly improved when skills and competencies (i.e., statements of knowledge, skills, dispositions, abilities and habits of mind or practice) are utilized and aligned for learning, communicating individual achievements, career pathways, and hiring. The OCFC Network is focused on solving three overarching challenges in the skills and competencies ecosystem: (1) existing skills and competencies are held captive in legacy encoding schemes (e.g., PDF, Microsoft Word, CSV (spreadsheets), etc.); (2) skills and competencies are neither accessible to people nor machine actionable; and (3) skills and competencies are not shared via open licenses.

The OCFC Network focuses on the organizational and technical infrastructure to improve the use of skills and competencies to power the talent ecosystem at scale. OCFC Network membership is open to individuals interested in participating with national and international efforts and infrastructure projects to improve the talent ecosystem through open, shared skills and competencies. This includes: advocates for open, shared data, and use of data standards; organizations that maintain sources of skills and competencies (e.g., libraries, registries, repositories-hereafter sources); and skill and competency data creators, users, or consumers.

The OCFC aims to make skills and competencies readily available to humans and machines by developing a membership trust network (Trust) of open registries holding one or more competency frameworks and by enabling search and retrieval of those frameworks and their competencies from any registry node in the network. The OCF Collab broadly defines the concept of a competency to include any attribute required to perform a work role including knowledge, skills, abilities, habits of mind or practice and tasks. The Collab defines a competency framework as an instance of a logically related set of competencies based on a specific competency framework model that has been encoded using a recognized metamodel standard such as, but not limited to, IMS Global Learning Consortium’s CASE, Credential Engine’s CTDL-ASN, and University of Washington/D2L's ASN.

Since the OCFC does not require a registry to natively support internally any particular metamodel in encoding its competency frameworks and associated competencies, the Collab relies on a transformation, or interchange service to transform instance data following one metamodel into instance data following a different metamodel. In the T3 OCF Collab instance based on this specification, the transformation service used is Rosetta Lens; by Eduworks. The mappings upon which such translation services rely have been provided through an instance of the OCF Collab’s Data Ecosystem Schema Mapper (DESM) tool that maps property semantics between publicly recognized competency framework metamodels.

OCF Collab Chair

Terrence Ma, PhD

Terence Ma is a trained anatomist and basic scientist. He presently serves as Professor and Chair of Anatomy and Biomedical Sciences at the Kansas College of Osteopathic Medicine at the Kansas Health Science Center where he is developing innovative curricula for the new medical school. He has been a funded research scientist, faculty member, and Assistant and Associate Dean at allopathic (MD) and osteopathic (DO) schools. He has also served as Chief Information Officer at a health sciences university. His career has focused on the intersection between health sciences education and educational technologies, particularly how we use technologies to track students’ progress toward learning goals and program outcomes. He serves as Co-Chair of the Research Alignment Group of MedBiquitous and serves on the Competencies Working Group, the CAP Leadership & Governance Working Group, and CAP Data Standards Working Group. He is a member of the IEEE Standards Association and of the work groups on competency standards (P1484.20.1, P1484.20.2), integrated learner records (P1484.2), and adaptive instructional systems (P2247). He actively participates with the T3 Innovation Network’s pilot projects and with Data Standards United.

OCF Collab Network Facilitators

Jeanne Kitchens, Credential Engine (Email)

Stuart Sutton, Sutton & Associates Consulting (Email)

Useful Pages

On this Wiki

• Workgroups & Chairs
• Use Cases: Current & Future
• Project Plans: Current & Future

In other places

• DESM Github ■ DESM Admin Documentation (draft)
• OCFC Github ■ OCFC Admin Documentation (draft)
• Meeting Schedules
• Running Meeting Agenda: OCF Collab Network (OCFC)
• Running Meeting Agenda: Technical Advisory Group (TAW)
• Running Meeting Agenda: Requirements Workgroup on Skills & Competencies (RWSC)
• Charters
  • OCFC Network Charter
  • Requirements Workgroup in Skills & Competencies Charter
  • Technical Advisory Workgroup Charter
• T3N² Guidelines
• OCFC Search Service Technical Documentation
  • Draft Documentation
    • Chapter 01. Getting Started (Draft)
    • Chapter 02. Glossary (Draft)
    • Chapter 03. Directory Data Model (Draft)
    • Chapter 04. Handling Requests for a Framework (Draft)
    • Chapter 05. Transaction Log & Entry (Draft)
    • Chapter 06. Classes and Properties (Draft)
    • Chapter 07. Descriptions of Included Data Files
    • Chapter 08. Trust Member Policies (Licenses)(Draft)
    • Chapter 09. Descriptions of Included Files (Draft)
    • Chapter 10. Appendices (Draft)
  • Technical Planning & Implementation
  • Prototype Search Service Demonstration Video
• Data Ecosystem Schema Mapper Technical Documentation
  • Technical Documentation
  • Technical Planning and Implementation
  • Prototype DESM Tool Demonstration Video

Communications

In addition to communication mechanisms on the T3 Hub and in Github issues and discussions, members of workgroups hold threaded conversations on a dedicated Google Groups between regularly scheduled meetings:

• OCFC Technical Advisory Workgroup

Join Us!

We invite all interested T3N² members to join one or both workgroups here. Until further notice, each workgroup meets on alternating Wednesdays at 1:00pm ET. The planned meeting schedule can be found here.