Convergence Accelerator Phase I (RAISE): Connecting Indiana's Learn-And-Work Ecosystem

NSF融合加速器支持基于团队的多学科努力，以应对国家重要性的挑战，并在不久的将来显示出交付成果的潜力。这一融合加速器第一阶段项目的更广泛影响/潜在好处是，通过使用互联数据交换访问和共享与证书和工作相关的信息，使美国员工能够成功地在其职业生涯中导航。交换职业目标、记录、证书、能力、评估、工作描述和路径作为机器可操作的数据将是实现这一目标的基础。由于教育和就业部门有许多不同的文件政策、流程、作用和治理，该项目吸引了广泛的专家。领导团队代表多个学科，包括教育、政府、商业、计算机科学、慈善、政策、教育心理学和伦理学。印第安纳州是这项研究的理想背景，因为该州正在积极但独立地制定多项相关倡议。第一阶段的活动将建立一个广泛的合作伙伴网络，以记录每个计划的数据交换如何连接起来，以支持特定的用例。已确定的数据差距限制了这些举措的价值，并将被添加到消除技术壁垒的路线图中。与互联数据交换如何迅速改善旅游业一样，我们相信，州一级对关键数据交换的治理将加快工人的创新应用，并帮助其他州领导人推进类似的倡议。这一融合加速器第一阶段项目关注的是支持学生、教育提供商、工人和雇主的关键数据交换之间的连接方面的州一级治理缺口。在印第安纳州，就像在其他州一样，这些数据交换处于不同的发展和采用阶段。确保这些数据交换充分连接以支持关键用例依赖于自愿的努力，并且弱实例化到规范组织本身的业务流程中。随着各行各业日益“以信息为基础”，相互竞争的商业模式有可能延迟甚至破坏创新应用和/或不经意间集中控制关键数据交换。我们的研究目标是增进关于各州如何通过团队建设活动更好地解决这些问题的知识。具体而言，将召集数据专家，确定分析数据交换信息的评价标准。印第安纳州的教育提供者和雇主还将通过两个多学科研讨会直接参与，以记录重要的印第安纳州使用案例和支持性数据交换，例如根据职位描述中所要求的能力搜索证书计划。因此，项目团队将创建一个优先路线图，一个州领导人工具包，以及连接印第安纳州S学习和工作生态系统的第二阶段提案。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The NSF Convergence Accelerator supports team-based, multidisciplinary efforts that address challenges of national importance and show potential for deliverables in the near future. The broader impact/potential benefit of this Convergence Accelerator Phase I project is to enable American workers to successfully navigate their career by accessing and sharing information pertaining to credentials and jobs using connected data exchanges. Exchanging career goals, records, credentials, competencies, assessments, job descriptions, and pathways as machine-actionable data will be foundational to realizing this goal. Because the education and employment sectors have many different documentation policies, processes, roles, and governance, this project engages a wide range of experts. The leadership team represents multiple disciplines including education, government, business, computer science, philanthropy, policy, educational psychology, and ethics. Indiana is an ideal context for this research because multiple related initiatives are actively but independently being developed across the state. Phase I activities will build an extensive partner network to document how each initiative's data exchanges can connect in support of particular use cases. Identified data gaps limit the value of these initiatives and will be added to a roadmap for eliminating technical barriers. Similar to how connected data exchanges have rapidly improved the travel industry, we believe state-level governance of key data exchanges will accelerate innovative applications for workers and help other state leaders advance similar initiatives.This Convergence Accelerator Phase I project focuses on a state-level governance gap concerning the connections among key data exchanges supporting students, education providers, workers, and employers. In Indiana, as in other states, these data exchanges are at varying points of development and adoption. Ensuring these data exchanges are sufficiently connected to support key use cases is dependent upon voluntary efforts and weakly instantiated into the business processes of specification organizations themselves. As industries increasingly become "information-based", competing business models have the potential to delay or even derail innovative applications and/or inadvertently centralize control of key data exchanges. Our research objective is to advance knowledge concerning how states could better address these problems via team-building activities. Specifically, data experts will be convened to define evaluation criteria for analyzing data exchange information. Indiana education providers and employers will also be engaged directly via two multi-disciplinary workshops to document important Indiana use cases and supportive data exchanges, such as searching for a certificate program based on a competency required in a job description. As a result, the project team will create a prioritized roadmap, a toolkit for state leaders, and a Phase II proposal for connecting Indiana?s learn and work ecosystem.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.