Open Forum Europe - Open Skills Initiative
06-April-2005
permalink email this"OpenForum Europe introduces a new OSS skills initiative "The OSCoP Competency Framework" a definition of the skills needed by IT Professionals to excel within the open source environment".
Open Forum Europe - Open Skills Initiative:
Don't know how I missed this before. Many thanks to stuart Yates from the UK OSSwatch who told me about it.
This looks a great initiative - there are a sereies of projects in europe looking to promote education and training in Open Source and i think agreement to adapt this frameowrk woudl provide a degree of coherence to these steps. Need to look at this in some detail. But what interests me even more is the way the framework has been designed to allow a common standard for education and professional development without forcing unessarily rigid stanadrisation of learning.
In Europe major effort is being expended into trying to develop a common framework for qualifications - effort which in my view is making little headway. this is largely because moves towards standardizing qualifications fails to recognise the diversity of contexts in which learning takes place and the different cultures which have not only shaped our education systems but also impact on the organisation of learning at work. Will come back to this in next few days....
"OpenForum Europe introduces a new OSS skills initiative "The OSCoP Competency Framework" a definition of the skills needed by IT Professionals to excel within the open source environment. It has been developed in conjunction with many of the major open source product providers (including HP, IBM, Novell, Sun, RedHat), and endorsed by independent organisations such as the LPI.
The Competency Framework is at an early stage of development and nows needs review and input from the OSS community before the next stage of drill down is undertaken. We therefore welcome your comments and suggestions on both the concepts behind and the current limited detail within the OSCoP Competency Framework.
Extended text for this entry:
There are a number of key benefits to IT Professionals when they create their skills record against the OSCoP Competency Framework, including:-
· A simple process to endorse an IT Professional’s current level of skills;
· A comprehensive process to validate those skills;
· The ability to target skills development plans to a precise and highly granular level;
· The production of a continuous professional development (“CPD”) record based on ability.
In addition, the records are of substantial benefit to the IT Professionals’ managers; these benefits include:-
· A skills assessment tool that allows a manager to benchmark the skills of their team against accepted standards of excellence;
· A valuable collateral in determining personal development plans, and career planning;
· A powerful tool for validating staff competences prior to staff assignment to a new project;
· A methodology by which system integrators and external service providers can differentiate themselves in the provision of open source solutions to clients;
· A metrics-driven approach by which organisations can specify SLAs for skills within outsourced services contracts.
For a Competency Framework to be effective it should be:-
· Consensual – the OSCoP Competency Framework has been developed and is supported by some of the major organisations within the Open Source environment;
· Configurable – the framework comprises 13 specialisations, each of which can be included or excluded within the individual’s personal framework;
· Role-oriented – the framework recognises 5 job roles from management to support.
· Metrics-driven – the OSCoP SkillsTracker is points driven and recognises three types of points (competence, ability, and experience) within each specialisation and role.
· Easy to use and maintain – to build a skills record within (for example) three specialisations will take approximately ten minutes.
· Easy to change – the competency framework is maintained by the Open Skills Council and will be updated regularly as technology (and the skills to use that technology) evolve. "
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