OCN: Competency Explorer

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The Open Competencies Network (OCN) Competency Explorer, aims to make competency descriptions readily available to humans and machines by developing a membership trust network 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 regardless of the technical standard used to express the competency data.

The OCN broadly takes the concept of a competency to include any attribute required to perform a work role including knowledge, skills, abilities, dispositions, tasks, and habits of mind. The Network understands a competency framework (Asset) 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, 1edTech’s (IMS) CASE, Credential Engine’s CTDL-ASN, and University of Washington’s ASN. Since the Competency Explorer standard does not require a registry to natively use any particular metamodel, it relies on a transformation, or interchange service to transform instance data following one metamodel into instance data following a different metamodel. In the Competency Explorer instance based on this specification, the transformation service used is Rosetta Lenssm by Eduworkstm.

The Network infrastructure has formal mechanisms of trust that protect the integrity and rights of registry owners and competency framework contributors by promoting practices that honor constraints on access, use and retention of retrieved competency frameworks and competencies.

Competency Explorer Enhancement Project

  • Competency Explorer Enhancement Project Final Report (April 27, 2023): describing the enhancements implemented during the project and suggesting a pilot project to demonstrate the use of the Competency Explorer.
  • OCN Competency Explorer: Technical Instructions for Data Providers (April 2022): This document is intended for organizations who may provide data for the OCN Competency Explorer and contains technical details about what doing so entails.  It is intended to be read in conjunction with the documentation of the Network Architecture, Protocol and Data Model specification that was created at the beginning of the  Competency Explorer project (which was then called the Open Competency Framework Collaborative Search Service). It should be noted that not all of that specification has been implemented, and the Competency Explorer project will be extending the data model. This document will indicate where the specification documents are to be updated.
  • Framework for Competency Explorer: Practices, Policies and Governance Recommendations (February 23, 2023): This draft framework outlines the Open Competency Network's Advancing Open Competencies Workgroup and Technical Advisory Workgroup recommendations for practices, policies, and governance to ensure proper use of the CE and its sustainability.  
  • Competency Explorer Use Case Analysis: Use cases from requirements working group (RWSC) analysed to elicit the technical features that would be required for each use case.
  • Competency Explorer Feature Analysis: The features required for all the use cases listed with details such as which use cases they fulfil.
  • Competency Explorer Project Plan (Project Plan Number: OCFC: PP-002) describes the project analyse and implement where possible the features required for the proposed use cases.
  • Search technology demonstrator https://tool.ocf-collab.org/ - This is a staging server used during the development project, that means it is used for testing and is not "production quality". In particular it does not have a full complement of data and its functionality will vary and occasionally fail. As it is a technology demonstrator less attention has been paid to user interface and user experience than would be necessary in production-level search and exploration node; it demonstrates the data that is available and the searches that can be built on that data, the architecture of the Competency Explorer is such that each node would be able to implement user interfaces that met their own requirements.
  • OCFC Github RepoOCFC Search & Retrieval Admin Documentation (draft)
  • 2020-21 Search Service Agenda & Notes

TAW Meeting Decks Covering the Competency Explorer

For more information on TAW activities related to the Competency Explorer see the TAW Meetings wiki. The Competency Explorer was formerly called the OCFC Search Service and that is reflected in the older presentations.

July 19, 2023: T3 Mid-year Meeting

March 29, 2023: Open Competencies Network Meeting

March 2023: T3 Leadership Call

June 22, 2022 meeting topics: Continue to build out use case requirements via the TAW Use Case wiki.

June 8, 2022 meeting topics: Continue to build out use case requirements via the TAW Use Case wiki.

May 25, 2022 meeting topics: Continue to build out use case requirements via the TAW Use Case wiki.

May 11, 2022 meeting topics: Continue to build out use case requirements via the TAW Use Case wiki.

April 13, 2022 meeting topics: Technical Requirements Arising from Initial OCFC Search Service Use Cases

February 2, 2022 meeting topics: Initial OCFC Search Service Use Cases and RWSC Use Cases for Search Service

January 12, 2022 meeting topics: Discussion: Decentralizing the Metamodel Interchange and Initial OCFC Search Service Use Cases

December 8, 2021 meeting topics: Completing the OCF Collab Search Service - Updating the Transaction Log Infrastructure and Decentralizing the Metamodel Interchanger

November 10, 2021 meeting topic: OCF Collab Search Service Status

October 13, 2021 meeting topic: OCF Collab Service - Conceptual Model & Its Components

September 29, 2021 meeting topic: OCF Collab Service - Pan-Ecosystem Search of Competencies & Skills

Network architecture, protocols and data model design

Draft specifications for the Competency Explorer from the design phase (October 2019–April 2020) are set out below. This documentation uses the old name: Open Competency Framework Collaborative Search Service.

Technical Planning and Implementation