Inquire Competence for better Practice And Assessment

inquire Competence for better Practice and Assessment (iComPAss) emerged from the needs of two organisations that both focus on learning and competence development. This included the Master's program in Organization and Management at the Sogn og Fjordane University College (HiSF),and the training of Fire Constables organised by Sotra Fire Protection IKS (SFR). Both organizations had a need to identify competence needs, to raise the quality of their education and training, and to develop methods and technology that could provide a better overview of existing training and the identified competence needs. Moving towards a growing digital society, where large and small amounts of data can be gathered to support decisions, the objective of iComPAss has been to identify methods that can support both the identification of competence needs, the skills that individuals and groups have or must acquire in their organisation, profession, and field of practice. Thus, iComPAss has worked with technology development for a better overview of a field of practice, the existing competence of the organisation, as well as how to connect identified needs to their existing competence situation. Furthermore, iComPAss has worked to investigate how new digital technology and learning analytics can support training and organisational development for a more systematic approach to skills, knowledge and practice development. Results from iComPAss include: --> Identifying Competence Needs: Inquiring Practice Method for identifying competence needs and developing a skills hierarchy that includes skills and the context around the skills in an organisation --> Data collection tools: Readiness App, Assessment App, and Indoor positioning and biosensor App for smoke diving --> Using the visualisation tool Highcharts, we developed visualisations of data from the assessment application, with a focus on group and individual skills. The indoor positioning app visualises smoke diver movements within a smoke filled house. --> The project?s research partners and participating organisations developed knowledge about how data can be used to raise awareness of training and education development, and how such awareness can support the development of the organisations. --> Project results from the project were disseminated to the education sector, the public sector, and the business community, which has led to new project initiation. Further, iComPAss partner EVOVATE has plans for commercialising some of the applications developed in the project and our method for identifying competence needs will be used in further research and in consultant work.

I Sotra Brannvern er det blitt enighet om større fokus på kompetanse og vurdering for både mannskap og ledelse, hvor flere forstår at overordnet organisasjonsstruktur også må forbedres. De har endret øvingsplaner, som har ført til bedre tidsplaner, treningsrutiner, og identifisering av kompetanser det ikke tidligere er trent på. HVL har sett behov for å bringe sammen forskning, arbeidsliv og utdanning for å forbedre utdanningene, med resultatet at de har hentet ledere fra arbeidslivet inn i undervisningen og dratt nytte av den «praksisnære ekspertkunnskapen» i opplæringen. Masterstudiet har fått en større forståelse for at ledererfaringer fra sektorene masterstudiet utdanner for, også kan være av interesse for dagens studenter. Enovate AS har planer om kommersialisering av verktøyene. Nasjonale (Blålysetater og industri) og internasjonale organisasjoner har vist interesse. Den viktigste organisasjonen innen luftfart i Europa, på myndighetsnivå, har vist meget stor interesse.

Educational and training organisations are challenged to support their learner's competence development, and to maintain an overview of this competence development in order to be able to identify knowledge and skills gaps, and identify the actions and resources needed to address these gaps. iComPAss will address this challenge by carrying out state-of-the-art learning sciences research that investigates how data-driven decision making by individual learners, by teachers/instructors, and by management/leadership can be supported through competence mapping, data from multiple assessment sources, learning analytics, and visualisation of student learning data in an Open Learner Model, and evaluates how this support impacts student learning and managerial decision-making. Building on our previous research and extending existing information and communications tools that we have developed, we will provide methodological, procedural, and technological support for competence mapping, developing assessments (based on competencies, achievement levels, and achievement goals), gathering evidence in the form of learner data, interpreting the learner data, and providing an Open Learner Model with various visualisations of the competencies of an individual learner, a subset of learners, or the entire group of learners. This visual information is used by individual learners for self-evaluation and for managerial decision making to determine competence gaps to be addressed by feedback/feedforward/guidance, teaching/instruction, or organisational development. To carry out this research and development, the iComPAss team comprises researchers, ICT developers, users responsible for the education of firefighters and of health and care sector leaders and their students, with input from international leaders in their fields of expertise.