A major study to ascertain what kind of person is most likely to be
a success in the IT industry and what stops people considering IT
as a career option will begin later this month.
The Scale 21 (Skills Capabilities Aptitudes in Learning
Environments of the 21st Century) programme is the brainchild of
the Real Time Club Foresight Associate Programme, which was set up
to investigate issues and implement the recommendations of the DTI
Office of Science and Technology's Information, Communications and
Media Foresight Panel.
Scale 21 aims to obtain verifiable facts on the long-term
underlying skills people need to succeed in an environment of
accelerating change.
"One of the great things about the response we have had is that
everyone knows we have to take action. It is not too melodramatic
to state that the future of the UK IT industry is at stake," says
Charles Ross, chairman of the Scale 21 programme. "Everyone we have
asked has agreed to contribute."
The list of participants includes Computer Weekly, the British
Computer Society, the Institute of Electrical Engineers (IEE), the
Institution of Analysts and Programmers (IAP), the Institute for
the Management of Information Systems (Imis), the Department of
Trade & Industry, the Computer Services and Software
Association, IT Training, Calibrand, Talent Foundation, Oxford
University, London Business School, Reed-In-Partnership, and the
National Computing Centre.
The programme has four working parties. In conjunction with the
Department for Education and Skills and the E-Skills National
Training Organisation (NTO), working group one will produce an
inventory of all the IT courses, qualifications, examining bodies
and initiatives currently available.
During the autumn the second working group will invite 150,000 IT
professionals - members of the BCS, IEE, Imis , IAP and readers of
Computer Weekly - to participate in a pathfinder study to identify
the underlying skills that have made them successful members of the
IT profession.
The third working group will bring together a number of the
industry's successful entrepreneurs to identify the barriers and
impediments they have encountered and identify solutions.
The fourth working party will be ensuring that the study gets
maximum publicity in the media.
The first sets of tests will take place from the end of October and
will include various generic aptitude tests.
"We don't simply want to confirm whether someone is an existing
certified professional in a commercial product (although that is
important information). We want to look at the underlying generic
aptitudes," says Denis Saunders, chairman of working group two and
managing director of Calibrand, which is supplying the software for
the study.
An example of this would be spatial awareness or pattern
recognition, which is useful in Web site or games design and some
of the questions will be along these lines.
For the project to be a success it is essential that as many people
as possible from the targeted groups participate in the tests. The
numbers are very significant, if 5% of the 150,000 people invited
to participate in Scale 21 reply, that would represent a 7,500
individual response survey - which is significantly bigger than any
previous survey of the industry.
From the end of the month people will be able to take the tests
online at www.scale21.org.
The task will involve spending a maximum of one hour filling in
optional personal characteristic details and taking different types
of test.
The online questionnaire features a combination of knowledge-based
tests; personality profiling; reasoning profiles, conceptual,
verbal and numeric tests; and emotional intelligence tests.
All the tests are simple and easy to complete and take about 10 to
15 minutes each.
"Whatever we find will be interesting," said Saunders. "We have a
real chance to promote a huge change for the better, so I appeal to
everyone who can to get involved by taking the tests."
An important subsidiary objective is to assist the E-Skills NTO in
its efforts to communicate with a wider spectrum of computer users
and increase its membership and contributors.
Karen Price, chief executive of the E-Skills NTO, says, "The Scale
21 agenda impacts across most of our objectives, and we are happy
to give it our full support."
The results of Scale 21 will be revealed at a conference on Monday
11 February 2002 in the Faraday theatre of the Royal Institution.
The conference is titled "Building Britain's Brainpower" and the
objective is to bring together some 450 IT leaders and
entrepreneurs to review the pathfinder work and debate
recommendations to take the project forward. If successful, the
study is likely to have wider implications for both industry and
the education system.
Computer Weekly will be publishing more about the tests at the end
of October.
Further Information:
www.scale21.org