Simon Grant's presentation at the Mahara UK conference 2013-06-04, Birmingham

1. 1
E-portfolios: with
competence?
a way forward for employment
with the InLOC specification
Simon Grant, CETIS
at the Mahara UK Conference, Birmingham
2013-07-04

2. 2
Outline
 what e-portfolio tools have done well
 the challenge of employment and skills
 example: Totara importing Ofqual frameworks
 how it could all be a lot easier with InLOC
 what needs to be done to make it happen more

3. 3
What e-portfolios are good at
 portfolio of artistic or other works
 with commentary or reflection
 learning logs, with reflection
 self-presentation to appropriate audiences
 including skills and competences
 which may be evidenced by the attached artefacts that have
needed the skill or competence
 which may be explicitly claimed, and then evidenced by video,
testimonial, etc.

4. 4
Portfolios and employment
 not widely used yet
 why not?
 employers can't afford to look through hundreds of e-
portfolios – “not more information!”
 they can't easily use portfolio information to filter through
the kind of candidates that they want
 a short list of candidates' e-portfolios might be looked
through to give a sense of what kind of people they are
 but short lists are not now found through e-portfolios
 does that make sense so far?

5. 5
Ideal solution...
 employers need short lists of people who are suitable for
the positions they have to fill
 to get short list, employers could specify and search for
 the areas of skill and competence they want
 in someone within the organisation, or someone new
 the required (proficiency) levels of those areas
 specifying the evidence they might accept for (pre-)selection
 from the short list look at the e-portfolios for detail
 example or experience: anyone suggest?

6. 6
Employers search terms?
 competency names?
 but how would you know whether, say, one definition of “team
working” competence would be the same as another?
 or whether the same thing might have another name?
 and what happens when you go international?
 qualifications...
 academic? vocational?
 what do they really mean, anyway?
 hasn't one of the problems always been that having a
qualification is not the same as being able to do the job?

7. 7
Vocational qualifications
 the most directly relevant to employment
 apprenticeship (one type) has long history
 Trades Schools started in UK in 1907
 NVQs (“National”, another type) since 1986
 NVQs based on National Occupational Standards
 strong industry involvement, so language is OK
 however, NOSs are declining in importance
 it's all “employers” at present

8. 8
Apprenticeships
 are based in the work place
 focused on employers and their requirements
 may combine technical and employability skills
 “Apprenticeships must include the following elements:
 … module on personal learning and thinking skills … ”
 https://www.gov.uk/apprenticeships-guide
 http://www.apprenticeships.org.uk/

9. 9
Higher apprenticeships
 “aims of the Higher Apprenticeship Fund are to:
 generate employer contributions to support programme costs
 facilitate stronger sector or occupational partnerships to drive
developments
 create a lasting change in employer recruitment and training
patterns
 develop new models of Apprenticeship learning at the higher
level”

10. 10
Totara for apprenticeships
 Totara is a distribution of Moodle for the corporate sector
 designed to work with job competencies
 Totara for apprenticeships:
 is based around competency etc
 has strong e-portfolio connections, with Mahara
 “harvests” frameworks from Ofqual
 could be generalised from apprenticeships outwards
 see …
 http://www.totaralms.com/case-studies/wyre-academy
 http://learnit-e.com/bespoke-apprenticeships/

11. Ofqual “harvester”
 Ofqual's “Register of Regulated Qualifications”
 see e.g. http://register.ofqual.gov.uk/Unit
 over 17,000 qualifications and 41,000 units
 search for the qualification or unit you want
 displays learning outcomes and assessment criteria
 Totara for Apprenticeships has implemented a way of
reading these into their system – “harvesting”
 would take at least several days programming for each
other new source of information
 (“harvesting” takes more work than just “importing”)

18. But no standardization
 they can harvest Ofqual ones, but wouldn't it be nice to
be able to import any vocational (or other) qualification,
framework, or standard?
 e.g. National Occupational Standards
 information is not available in standardized format
 what could that standard be?
 it's called InLOC, and it's new
 “Integrating Learning Outcomes and Competences”

19. What is InLOC?
 a European expert project that finished earlier this year
 drawing on earlier work including “InteropAbility”
 InLOC specifies a particular way of expressing any
structure (often “framework”) of skills, competence, etc.
 an “information model” with standard formats
 that can be processed freely and easily by software
 together with URIs for each part of the structure
 structures initially represented in XML
 also potentially in JSON and RDF
 specifications and other information available at
 http://www.cetis.org.uk/inloc/Home

20. InLOC features
 distinguishes structures and definitions
 structures: like frameworks, relating a set of …
 definitions: separate skills, knowledge items, competences
 definitions can occur in different structures
 structures can take any form, and be of any depth
 clear and principled treatment of levels
 both defining levels and attributing levels
 can easily represent multilingual information
 scope for all the most relevant educational metadata
 single structure for all relationships and compound
attributes with easy mapping to RDF (linked data)

21. e.g. the European e-Competence
Framework (e-CF)
 look at the PDF
 the structure is the framework as a whole
 the definitions are every piece of text setting out
something that people could know or do
 available from http://www.ecompetences.eu/
 for an explanation of how to represent it in InLOC
 http://purl.org/net/inloc/InLOC+explained+through+example
 the InLOC XML for the e-CF is available
 from http://www.cetis.org.uk/inloc/XML

22. If e.g. Ofqual used InLOC...
 they could publish everything in InLOC format
 any system could import the information reliably
 the system would just have to extend their software once
 not dependent on detailed (and potentially inconsistent) layout
 other framework owners could export similar
 professional competency frameworks
 National Occupational Standards
 etc...

23. National Occupational Standards
 http://nos.ukces.org.uk/Pages/index.aspx
 http://nos.ukces.org.uk/help/Pages/FAQs.aspx
 created by Sector Skills Councils and others
 groups together sets of
 performance criteria
 knowledge and understanding
 they already have a clear template
 would not be difficult in principle to publish InLOC

24. Mahara and InLOC
 Mahara implements Leap2A import/export, which already
has the capability to refer to URIs of “abilities”
 InLOC gives framework owners the incentive to make
URIs for each of their ability / competence definitions
 Viewers of an e-portfolio should be able to click on an
ability claim and link to an original definition
 Mahara could hold information ready for a matching
system
 Totara complements this and makes a more complete
system for occupational skills and competence

25. The argument summarised
 if frameworks were widely available
 then definitions could be reused rather than reinvented
 communities could come together on terms to use
 e-portfolios would be able to
 refer clearly to definitions in the employer's terms
 represent people's claims in those terms
 show relevant and acceptable evidence
 then if e-portfolios coordinate with recruitment matching
 employers get short lists, and then are linked straight
through to the evidence in learner's own terms

26. What needs to be done
FIRST
 persuade Ofqual, UKCES and others to publish the
information related to skills and competence as InLOC
 carry on building tools like Totara for Apprenticeships,
making each tool able to process InLOC information
THEN
 get employers to use the same frameworks when
recruiting
 create the matching services to create short lists

27. Thanks!
 thanks for your attention
 I'm happy to advise or consider being involved in any
projects that could use InLOC, and can also recommend
other colleagues
 questions?
asimong@gmail.com
@asimong