JISC

Overview

Workforce development is key agenda for addressing the skills needs for the UK knowledge economy. Professional education however needs to be made more relevant to business needs and delivery methods need to be suited to the employer rather than the HEI. Building on the recently established network of employers and other FE colleges, this project aims to support employer engagement and workforce planning requirements by providing a CRM based integrated view of employer based, professional and tertiary sector education. It will deliver a system that will map course descriptions from professional providers, employer specific training and skills to validated university programmes and will also support employer-led learner route planning.

Aims and objectives

Middlesex University skills & education planning tool (Musket) project aims to develop software applications that will support employer engagement and workforce planning requirements. The objectives are:

•  to deliver models that will span employer engagement and course information in a unified and integrated manner;
• deliver software tools that will allow non-technical specialists to import MS Word documents containing course descriptions from professional providers, employer specific training and HE and provide semantic markup to enable export into the JISC XCRI-CAP standard beyond simple XML editing. A second tool will support the defining of mappings and relationships between different sources and types of course information to support employer-led learner route planning.

Project methodology

The project will use the following methods:

• an adapted version of Rational Unified Process (RUP) to support the design /implementation of the tools and the integration services;
• a model driven architecture using UML 2.0 and BPMN 1.0 as the primary mechanism for defining and delivering models;
• a user-centred approach to develop requirements, design, implementation and deployment through a co-design process;
• stakeholder engagement throughout the lifetime of the project to ensure the usefulness of end-products to;
• selection of appropriate technology in the early stages of the project; and
• conduct workshops which include co-design approaches.

The team has significant experience and skills in these areas.

Anticipated outputs and outcomes

Enhanced CRM process and information models: allow CRM systems to be viewed as employer driven portals for key education and training information.

Evaluation Report: shows the impact of the proposed system and lessons learnt and their applicability to the wider HE sector.

Two software tools:

1.  Transform tool: imports MS Word documents and provides semantic markup to enable exporting to JISC XCRI-CAP standard.
2.  Mapping tool: supports employer-led learner route planning.

Dissemination Outputs and Engagement with the community: Promote the project findings and the developed system.

Employer-led Learning Route Planner Case Study: demonstrates how the course information knowledge base will be accessed through a CRM system.

Interim reports and a final report: communicating project progress and end results.

Technology / Standards used

• Rational Unified Process (RUP)
• UML 2.0
• BPMN 1.0
• XML

Lead Institution

• Middlesex University