Scott Wilson, Simon Whittemore and Simon Grant
Service Offer: Digital Credentials
Business Area: Employability
Techniques Used: Service Design
Service Type: Consultancy
The Employability Skills Match Service (ESMS) project was tasked with delivering an Alpha service for developing and recognising learner’s employability skills (also called soft skills) using Open Badges, and ran from May to August 2015. The project was a collaboration between Jisc, CINECA, Live|Work and Cetis LLP.
The prototype service focused on qualities such as resilience, versatility, empathy, initiative and cross-cultural awareness that underpin many employability skills such as problem solving, communications, teamwork, and leadership. The service used a combination of “nudge” motivations, open badges, and employer content to encourage students to build a repertoire of experiences that evidenced their abilities.
The service was co-designed with learners (from both FE and HE) and employers using a Service Design approach with Agile development. The pilot involved trialling with students from concept stage, through paper prototypes to a prototype digital service.
Cetis partners provided a range of services for the project, including overall agile project management, and subject matter expertise in competency frameworks.
While ultimately the client decided not to press ahead with a production service based on the prototype, the project was noted for both its high quality and efficient management, and the insights it delivered about its customers.