elearning2.0

Looking over our referrer logs for the KNowNet site, I noticed the other day that we still get hits from people searching for the Skills Review program. My apologies to those who may have sought without finding: you can try out an online version of Skills Review on our old website (you cannot save your answers in this version, so should print the reports before closing the browser window). We have also converted the Skills review application into a Plone content type so that it can be shared as a saved-answer application, but have never released this as a finished product. Contact me (at my i-name =Mike.Malloch) if you want to know more about the Plone version.

I've spoken with Alan Brown, who created the wonderful questions-set for Skills Review, and he's agreed to participate in writing a 'review of the review', which will be appearing in various blogs over the next few weeks ( any new content will be linked-to from this weblog entry as it is posted, so watch this space ). I hope that we can develop a plan for taking Skills Review on to the next stage.

In the years since Skills Review was created there has been a growing 'buzz' about personal-development-planning (pdp) tools and - especially in the past year or so - e-Portfolios for developing and sharing personal development plans and skills profiles. Skills Review was a small but very good example of a pdp tool, and deserves to be remembered, learned from and built upon. KnowNet has many plans for extending knotes to help people to create, maintain and share e-Portfolios and social-software 'presences'; I hope that personal skills reflection and planning applications like Skills Review will fit nicely into that upcoming work.

The Skills Review Program was originally developed as a skills self-assessment tool for employees in small businesses, based on questionnaire content development by Alan Brown of the University of Warwick. KnowNet collaborated with Alan and the University of East London in 2001 to produce an online version which proved popular and usable. Alan's questions were so compelling that we could not get people away fromn the application once they had started it! Below are a few screenshots:

See the extended text for this entry (ie view the full entry) for more screenshots and content about Skills Review.

Extended text for this entry:

The text below is taken from the 'about Skills Review' page on our old website. The screenshots are of show the Review at different stages as a user fill in their skills details.

The Skills Review program has been developed by theKnowNet.com as part of a European Union funded ADAPT project, co-ordinated by the University of East London (UEL). It builds on earlier work on skills profiling, undertaken as part of another ADAPT project co-ordinated by the University of East London on the use of labour market information to enhance careers guidance practice. That project produced a range of careers guidance materials, including a (free) CD ROM on skills development.

The questionnaire on which this program is based was developed by Alan Brown, from the Institute for Employment Research, University of Warwick. This web version was commissioned by Learn4Business and the University of East London.

The program is free to users, but we would appreciate if you could fill in the evaluation form provided in the program.

• Learn4Business
• TheKnowNet.com
• The University of East London
• Alan Brown ( alan.brown @ warwick.ac.uk )

The Skills Review Program was originally developed as a skills self-assessment tool for employees in small businesses. However we believe it has a wide range of potential uses including:

• Self assessment
• Appraisal and staff development
• Formative assessment prior to entry on learning programmes
• Company recruitment
• Improving your CV

The review provides users with a detailed self-assessment of their skills and abilities and those skills they wish to acquire. Its greatest benefit is in guiding the user through a process of self-enquiry and reflection on their learning, skills and knowledge.

The program is not intended to replace the role of careers guidance counsellors and others involved in employment, staff development and assessments processes but rather to supplement their work.

It is estimated the program will take about one hour to work through. The present version of the program is a beta version, and as such is still being tested. We hope it will work on all Netscape and Internet Explorer browsers Versions 4 and above. (It should work on versions 3 and above as well, but with a poorer appearance). If you do encounter any technical problems please fill in a bug report by clicking on the bug icon which appears at the top right of the program window.

Instructions appear within the program window to guide you through the process of doing your skills review. There are 4 stages of the review, plus a final wind-up stage. At each stage, you will be asked to enter information by clicking on checkboxes or typing into text-boxes.

The information you enter is totally confidential. It is not sent to a server or stored on your machine. As soon as you close the window your information will have disappeared completely. We will soon be offering a confidential service that will allow you to log into a server to save your skills review information between sessions.