ICT skill frameworks: do they achieve their goals and users’ expectations?

ICT skill frameworks: do they achieve their goals and
users’ expectations?

Objective: To examine whether existing ICT skill frameworks achieve their goals and the expectations that end users may have.

Methods: First we examine typical objectives and user expectations of ICT skill frameworks. Then three existing ICT skill frameworks, specifically SFIA, e-CF and SF for ICT, are surveyed and compared with each other in terms of their design choices and feature sets. The implications of some of these design choices are discussed, particularly where there are significant differences between the frameworks or where there are apparent conflicts with objectives or user expectations. We also identify salient features which are missing from all existing frameworks.

Results: The existing frameworks differ in a number of significant areas, including the number of hard skills and the treatment of soft skills. Furthermore, all three frameworks surveyed might be considered somewhat complex in terms of defining skill proficiency using multiple attributes and the intricacy of the skill/proficiency mapping. There is also a lack of unambiguous and universal certification criteria, which limits the portability of the frameworks between organisations. Finally, automation of skills management is also hindered by the fact that the skills are defined in natural language without any specific structure or semantics that could be leveraged by advanced applications.

Conclusions: The significant differences between and the complexity of existing ICT skill frameworks implies that debate is still required about how an ICT skill framework should be designed to be of maximum utility. Existing frameworks need to be extended or complemented to support important use cases around portability and automation.

c. University of Kent. No evidence of copyright restrictions preventing deposit of Accepted version. Published version available at journal website.