Design Principles for Auto-mapping Professional Competencies

CONTEXT Engineers are required to maintain currency in their respective fields (through continuous professional development). In Australia, engineering students are expected to progress towards Engineers Australia's (EA) Stage 1 competencies throughout the course of their accredited engineering studies. Similarly, professional frameworks are well established internationally and recognised as key guide for the development of engineers in the workforce (Leslie, 2016). Throughout their professional careers, engineers are required to undergo formal, informal, and non-formal learning. The process of maintaining these records and mapping them to competency standards is rigorous and time consuming. This paper examines how this process is undertaken and investigate how this process can be automated to facilitate the alignment between education and industry needs. PURPOSE OR GOAL To provide the design principles of auto-mapping professional competencies, this research effort will apply the business process analytics methodology. This methodology will assist in identifying the inefficiencies of the current mapping process. By doing so, it will be possible to identify a new automated process that can facilitate the design of new software. This technology will assist both student and practicing engineers alike by providing correct mapping to competency frameworks and alleviating the time burden to do so. This system will also eradicate some of the administrative functions performed by professional bodies and their competency assessors. APPROACH OR METHODOLOGY/METHODS By applying the business process analytics approach to a series of case studies and an extensive literature review, the process of how mapping of skills and competencies to formal qualifications is presented. The paper identifies areas of inefficiencies and propose design principles and processes for an automated software solution. ACTUAL OR ANTICIPATED OUTCOMES The outcome of this research is a set of design principles that can be used to map competencies utilising an automated software solution. These design principles will inform the development of the system by providing a clear picture of what users are involved and the critical data that needs to be shared between them. The development of an automated solution to map different forms of learning to professional skills strengthen the connection between formal qualifications, continuous development, and professional competencies. CONCLUSIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS/SUMMARY This study discusses the importance of mapping learning against skills in standard competency frameworks during formal engineering education and throughout professional life and sets the principles to conduct an automatic mapping to facilitate the development, achievement, and recognition of engineering standard competencies.