Western Governors University – a competency-based university – was constantly updating its libraries of competency, according to Marni Baker Stein, provost and chief academic officer.

Baker Stein says the effort was “to make sure that the skills were still relevant to employer needs. And that the skills and the competencies that students were mastering were still valuable in the marketplace.”

“This was incredibly hard manual work. We decided, ‘You know, this is crazy.’”

Open Skills Network was created in March 2020. Baker Stein explains, “Is there an easier way to do this? Is there a consistent way to write skills so that we’re all writing them in the same way and they’re machine readable, and everybody got excited about the idea.” “Open Skills Network was born with the mission to truly figure this out and do everything that we can to promote skills-based hiring and education.”

WorkingNation sat down with Baker Stein at SXSW EDU in Austin.

She says the worldwide network includes educational institutions, as well as companies – with a goal to promote skills-based education and hiring practices.

Learn more about Western Governors University.
Learn more about Open Skills Network.