The document discusses frameworks of skills and competencies, including how they can be used by organizations and individuals. It suggests that there are two types of work roles - those focused on using abilities and those focused on learning abilities. There are also two types of organizations - those that use people's abilities, and those that help develop abilities for other roles. The document then provides examples of public frameworks and how they are used for recruitment, training, and individual development. It raises questions around badging all abilities in frameworks and how to determine which are most important. Finally, it discusses practical considerations for building common frameworks and using badges and credentials.

1. Frameworks of skill
and competence:
what, why, when, how?
Crossover Edinburgh conference, 2014-06-05
Simon Grant

2. (some terminology)
● knowledge,
● skills,
● behaviours,
● attitudes,
● competencies,
● etc.
we'll just call "abilities" for simplicity.

3. Work roles in the light of abilities
Maybe there are two kinds of role …
1. Roles in which you mostly use your abilities to perform useful
activities
2. Roles in which you are mostly learning or improving your
abilities for another role
or roles in which you are doing both together
what kind of role do you have?

4. Organisations in the light of abilities
… and two kinds of organisation?
1. The kind that mostly uses people's abilities and delivers
products and services.
2. The kind that exists mostly to help people develop abilities that
will be used elsewhere.
or a bit of a mixture, people work and move on, taking some
abilities with them to transfer to new roles.
what kind of organisation are you involved with?

5. Examples of public “frameworks”
● National Occupational Standards
– "standard" "performance criteria"
"knowledge and understanding"
● The European e-Competence Framework
– "framework" "area" "competence"
"skill" "knowledge"
● Mozilla's Web Literacy Map
– "map", "strand", "competency", "skill"

6. Uses of frameworks
● as organisational “talent management” reference points
(personnel, HR, line management)
● for recruitment (external and internal) and training, checking
that employees have the necessary abilities before they
take up a role in an organisation
● as learning outcomes for course development
● in e-portfolio or related systems
● for individual self-assessment, learning, development,
presentation
● most likely other uses – ideas?

7. Too many to badge?
● Is it feasible, or even desirable, to manage
badges for every ability in every framework?
● If not, which are the important ones that would
be most suited to badges?
● Look at different kinds of ability …

8. (… distinguishing kinds of ability 1)
● Plentiful abilities
– no training, motivating or rewarding needed

9. (… distinguishing kinds of ability 2)
● Innate abilities
– you have them or you don't

10. (… distinguishing kinds of ability 3)
● Job- or role-specific abilities
– can only be learned or acquired on the job

11. (… distinguishing kinds of ability 4)
● Abilities that
– are not plentiful
– can be developed
– transfer substantially from one role to another
● and can be given common definitions across domains

12. How to do frameworks & badges
● Map out abilities relevant to you
– those are your frameworks
● Which ones do you need to help develop?
– motivate using badges as stepping stones
● The badges should fit into the frameworks
● The smaller your organisation, the more point in
using common badges and frameworks
– to help people move in, out and around

13. A quick look at practicalities
● Building common frameworks and badges
needs less paper-style approach, more ICT
– can you imagine useful ICT tools?
– who will develop them?
● Tools to help search, examine, modify, reuse
material from common frameworks
● But as yet only few common frameworks...
– (chicken and egg problem?)

14. What to do meanwhile?
● Build frameworks, reusing what does exist
● Use InLOC as model and format (I can help)
● Publish frameworks, and all their parts, each
with a URL (URI, IRI)
● Work towards consistent use throughout your
organisation

15. See the related blog post for more detail!
● Maybe you can recall and search e.g.
– Simon Grant blog framework
– or just simply asimong
● Find me, discuss with me
– twitter: @asimong
– gmail, SlideShare, Google, Skype: asimong
● Thanks for your attention!