This article explains how to employ the Skills feature in boards and certificates.
The feature allows you to connect your courses to ESCO (European Skills, Competences, Qualifications and Occupations), the European Commission’s multilingual skills classification. ESCO provides a common framework for describing skills and learning outcomes across education and the world of work.
Why ESCO?
Why ESCO?
Using a common skills framework makes learning outcomes easier to discover, recognize and communicate across courses, organizations and labor markets. It also helps learners, educators and employers describe skills in a consistent and transparent way.
This feature lays the foundation for richer skills-based learning, helping organizations connect learning, demonstrated competencies and recognized achievements.
The ESCO skill hierarchy is partially based on elements of the existing classification of O*Net OnLine (USA) and the Skills and Knowledge Checklist (Canada) skill and knowledge glossary.
This service uses the ESCO classification of the European Commission.
Learn more about ESCO → https://esco.ec.europa.eu/
Enable the Skills feature
Organization admins can enable/disable the Skills feature for the entire organization from the Admin Panel's Settings page. Skills are disabled by default.
Go to the Admin Panel → Settings
Locate the Module settings and check/uncheck the box for "Allow ESCO skills"
Click Save at the bottom of the page to implement the settings
If skills have already been assigned to any boards, disabling the feature for the organization will simply cause all skill tags to disappear. Re-enabling the Skills feature returns boards' skills to their previous state.
Note: Certificates containing the EARNEDSKILLS placeholder may become disabled along with the feature, and may need to be replaced.
(See "Use Skills in certificates" below.)
Apply Skills to boards
Skill tags can be added to boards in the board's Create/Edit form.
Select Create board in Study > My boards, or go to Edit board in an existing board
Locate the Skills section, type your search terms into the field, and choose the skill tags that best represent the course
Remember to Save the changes! The skill tags will appear as pills in the board's Overview, below the board description. Each contains an external link to the skill's official ESCO description.
Go back to Edit board to add or remove skills at any time
Use Skills in certificates
For boards that provide certificates, tagged skills can be included in the certificate using the placeholder EARNEDSKILLS.
The placeholder populates automatically from the skills associated with the board at the time of board completion.
Learn more about Certificates HERE.
Skills for learners
Skill search
Learners can search boards by skill in the board feed's search engine. The search results will only include skills tagged in boards they already have access to.
Earned skills
Having completed a board that provides a certificate, learners will see their earned skills listed in a column in My certificates, regardless of whether the certificate itself includes the board's skill tags using the placeholder EARNEDSKILLS.
Note: Skills earned from boards that did not provide a certificate do not show up in My Certificates.
