Re: Welcome & introductions

I'll go next.

*Introduction.*

I, too, am an independent consultant.  I work primarily in the 
education-to-employment space, traversing the middle ground between 
scientific research, technology implementation, data analysis and 
strategy.  My clients are typically nonprofits and startups.  I'm 
probably best known for inventing the concept of skills-based hiring 
(see "view history" page behind the Wikipedia article of the same 
name).  The fact that this concept grew so popular, though, is entirely 
due to the tireless persistence of Innovate+Educate, the nonprofit that 
did all the heavy lifting of implementation with employers and for 10 
years conducted advocacy at a national level to get the word out.  Hats 
off to them. Innovate+Educate, by the way, has signed up separately to 
this group.  The reason for our joint interest is that a lot of 
nonprofits - I+E and others - have  made tools that automate 
job-to-person matching via skills (at various times using ACT WorkKeys, 
National Retail Services Initiative, or O*NET competency frameworks), 
but these tools were designed to work primarily in isolation, for 
one-off grant-funded projects. There was never a way to communicate with 
a broader commercial market centered on competencies - and to be fair, 
that market is only now starting to exist. JDX offers the opportunity to 
start dusting off a lot of those tools and get them integrated into 
contemporary commercial products (e.g., applicant tracking systems, job 
boards, learning management systems, etc. ), where they can be used to 
bring competency-based transactions to life.  That's why I'm here.

Merrilea J. Mayo, Ph.D.
Mayo Enterprises, LLC
12101 Sheets Farm Rd.
North Potomac, MD 20878

merrileamayo@gmail.com
https://merrileamayo.com/
240-304-0439 (cell)
301-977-2599 (landline)

On 3/1/2019 7:31 AM, Phil Barker wrote:
>
> Hello everybody and welcome to the Talent Marketplace Signaling W3C 
> Community Group <https://www.w3.org/community/talent-signal/> (let's 
> call it TalentSignal for short). This is the public mailing list of 
> the group. Messages here are visible to anyone whether or not they are 
> a member of the group, so this is the best place for us to do our work 
> in the open.
>
> I am Phil Barker, and with backing from colleagues from the Job Data 
> Exchange project (JDX 
> <https://www.uschamberfoundation.org/workforce-development/JDX>) I 
> proposed this community group. As this is a new group, I think that we 
> should wait a short while longer before we start work in earnest so 
> that more people can join the group. But there are a couple of things 
> that I think might be useful to do while we are waiting.
>
> I am going to assume that you have read the official description of 
> the group and know roughly what you have joined up for, but let's get 
> any queries about that sorted out before we start the work. If you 
> have any questions about the purpose of this group please ask them here.
>
> Also, it would be really useful to get some idea about who is in the 
> group. The basic information of name and affiliation is recorded when 
> you join, but I would be interested in a little more about what you 
> hope this group will achieve for you.
>
> I'll start.
>
> *Introduction.**
> *
>
> I am an independent consultant in the area of technology enhanced 
> learning and information systems for education. I am based in 
> Scotland. I have worked on structured data to describe educational 
> resources and outcomes for some years now, most lately the Learning 
> Resource Metadata Initiative DCMI task group [LRMI 
> <http://lrmi.dublincore.org/>], the Schema Course Extension community 
> group [Course <https://www.w3.org/community/schema-course-extend/>], 
> and the Educational and Occupational Credentials community group 
> [EOCred <https://www.w3.org/community/eocred-schema/>].
>
> I am being paid by the US Chambers of Commerce Foundation to work on 
> TalentSignal in order to widen the scope of what has been achieved 
> through the JDX project. My big-picture hope for all the work in this 
> area is that better expression of job requirements in the same 
> framework as can be used to describe qualifications and educational 
> courses will lead to better articulation of what is required and what 
> is being provided, and to improvements in educational and occupational 
> prospects for individuals.
>
> I hope that this group will be able to further this work by providing 
> guidance on how to use existing schema.org terms to describe 
> JobPostings and by proposing small refinements (e.g. improved 
> definitions) to existing relevant schema.org types where we identify 
> that they are needed. Where improved signaling cannot otherwise be 
> achieved we can suggest new properties for schema.org. Of course the 
> final decision on whether anything we do is adopted by schema.org 
> rests with the schema.org steering group.
>
> Best regards, Phil Barker. <http://people.pjjk.net/phil>
>
>
> [TalentSignal] <https://www.w3.org/community/talent-signal/>
> [JDX] <https://www.uschamberfoundation.org/workforce-development/JDX>
> [LRMI] <http://lrmi.dublincore.org/>
> [Course] <https://www.w3.org/community/schema-course-extend/>
> [EOCred] <https://www.w3.org/community/eocred-schema/>
>
> -- 
>
> Phil Barker <http://people.pjjk.net/phil>. http://people.pjjk.net/phil
> CETIS LLP <https://www.cetis.org.uk>: a cooperative consultancy for 
> innovation in education technology.
> PJJK Limited <https://www.pjjk.co.uk>: technology to enhance learning; 
> information systems for education.
>
> CETIS is a co-operative limited liability partnership, registered in 
> England number OC399090
> PJJK Limited is registered in Scotland as a private limited company, 
> number SC569282.
>
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