Launched just two months ago, the OSN Community of Practice has hit the ground running! Our first two meetings on Open Skills Implementation and Open Skills Tools & Platforms saw members discuss the broader open skills landscape, best practices for implementing open skills at institutions, and key gaps and needs for education and employment stakeholders.
Our next CoP session on April 27th, which will focus explicitly on Open Skills Projects, builds off the discussions of these prior meetings and asks one key question: what projects can members begin working on today?
We invite projects from individuals, organizations, and teams that are interested in contributing to the OSN’s efforts to create an open and interoperable ecosystem for skills.
By projects, we don’t just mean implementing open skills at institutions, though these projects are welcome, too. What novel ways can we collectively work together to ease the Rich Skill Descriptor (RSD) creation process? What tools and integrations can be improved to deploy open skills and related technologies more effectively? How might we work together to extend or improve the RSD schema?
Aside from addressing the questions above, projects may focus on a range of areas, including but not limited to:
Developing or expanding the OSN’s open skills, which includes a set of competencies, skills, and related knowledge and abilities
Creating or enhancing open tools and services that support the use and implementation of open skills
Piloting the implementation of open skills and related tools and services in education and/or workforce contexts
Conducting research and analysis to inform the development and implementation of open skills and related tools and services
Developing training materials or resources to support the use and implementation of open skills and related tools and services
This next meeting aligns with the kickoff of OSMT.HACK, a hackathon around improving, extending, integrating, and innovating OSMT and RSDs. With a $10,000 prize pool and opportunities for recognition and contribution to the OSN community, the hackathon could be a great starting point for the CoP community to work together and collaborate on impactful projects.
If you haven’t attended our CoP meetings thus far, you can still participate and propose project ideas. Any open skills work you’ve been doing, or ecosystems primed for skills-driven impact, are welcome contributions to our CoP.
If you have a project idea and aren’t sure if it’s a good fit for the CoP, please reach out or share with the OSN community! We’d love to talk to you more about your ideas and how you can engage.