The talent ecosystem is vastly improved when 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 competencies ecosystem: (1) existing competencies are held captive in legacy encoding schemes (e.g., PDF, Microsoft Word, CSV (spreadsheets), etc.); (2) competencies are neither accessible to people nor machine actionable; and (3) competencies are not shared via open licenses.
The OCFC Network focuses on the organizational and technical infrastructure to improve the use of 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 competencies. This includes: advocates for open, shared data, and use of data standards; organizations that maintain sources of competencies (e.g., libraries, registries, repositories-hereafter sources); and skill and competency data creators, users, or consumers.
The OCFC aims to make ccompetencies 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: Terence Ma, CEO and Consultant, PlaceNets Consulting
Terence Ma, PhD Terence Ma is a trained anatomist and medical educator. He has developed innovative curricula for the medical schools utilizing technology tools that help students develop effective competencies that they will use as future physicians. 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 several other working groups. He is a member of the IEEE Standards Association and of the work groups on competency standards.
This OCFC Network Wiki is the source for plans, meetings, materials, recordings, technical documentation and more. In addition, members can visit the T3 Hub and all workgroup follow up is distributed to members via Google groups linked below.
The OCFC Network Charter identifies technologies this Network is further Developing:
Data Ecosystem Schema Mapper Tool - The Data Ecosystem Schema Mapper (DESM) is a powerful tool for creating data schema crosswalks that can be used by the OCF Collab member nodes in transposing schemas and by others for other purposes. The DESM is being developed via an open license.
Competency Explorer - The Competency Explorer search service provides and index and for multiple competency data sources and returns competency data based on mapped competency schemas (DESM) and utilizing a Metamodel Interchange. The OCFC is being developed via an open license
Metamodel Interchange - API for returning competency frameworks based on mapped competency schemas.
OCFC Network and Workgroups Decision Making
The OCFC Network and Workgroups follow this decision making process adapted from the T3 Guidelines Updated March 2022. The process is public information via the OCFC Network Consensus Decision Making Wiki page https://wiki.t3networkhub.org/wiki/OCF_Collab_Network:consensus
OCFC Network Charter and Meetings
All meeting agendas, notes, materials, and recordings are available via the OCFC Network wiki page.
AOC: C3 Connecting Competency Communities Webinar Series
The C3 Webinar Series aims to improve communications between those involved with creating, maintaining, discovering, distributing, and using competency data.
We invite all interested T3N2 members to join the OCF Collab Network and one or both of the Workgroups. Use this T3 Hub formto put your name onto the attendance roster. The master meeting schedule for the OCF Collab Network and the workgroups can be found here.
