Although this presentation is entitled ‘Data Driven Journalism’, it provides a great introduction for anyone wanting to use data – and more particularly data visualisations for research and development. Tont Hirst’s blog, OUseful blog, is a brilliant source of ideas for those interested in this fast growing area of work.
Following my last post on creating a database for the LMI for All project, I am now beginning to explore what you can find out from the database.
One of the main sources for labour market data in the UK is the quarterly Labour Force Survey. Data on employment is collected under two main categories, the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) about the industries in which people work, and the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) about their occupation. Using our database API we can query the two classification systems against each other to find out how many people in a particular occupation work in which industries. We did this query on Friday for Computer Programmers. This gave us a long spreadsheet which was not particularly easy to understand. I cleaned the data and uploaded it to the IBM ManyEyes site and used the bubble visualisation which gives the graphic above. OK it is not perfect. The industry titles are too long for the index box. And maybe it provide too much data (I will look at what we get using a 3 figure SIC classification, rather than the present 4 figure SIC).
However I think it show potential. And there is no reason why we could not provide longitudinal and comparative data with a bit of work.
Over the last year we have been working on a series of ideas for using open data in careers guidance. We call these applications under the generic name of Technology Enhanced Boundary Objects.
In the last six weeks we have been working with the Institute for Employment Research, University of Warwick and Cambridge Econometrics on a project for the UK Commission for Employment and Skills on a database, code named ‘LMI for All’.
The Stakeholder Briefing explains:
LMI matters: accessible and intelligible labour market information (LMI) is vital for the effective functioning of the UK labour market. Young people entering the labour market for the first time, and people of all ages re-entering it or seeking to move between jobs, need up-to-date information on the opportunities available. But too often this information is located in a number of places and highly technical, reducing its value to non-experts.
The government has emphasised the importance of careers information to its plans for growth. The National Careers Service’s new web portal, which will launch in April 2012, will provide up–to-date information on occupations, progression routes, wages and employment trends. But over the longer term more can be done to provide nuanced information, more closely connected to the original data sources.
One way in which this could be achieved, which this project will explore, is through the creation of a comprehensive database that pools information from key LMI sources into one place. This database would be accessible to web developers who could develop targeted interfaces: connecting the right information to the right audiences…….
The database will be developed in line with the UK Government’s open data principles3 and will be accessible to web developers from the private or non-profit sectors to use to develop targeted interfaces that provide the information that their target audience requires, in the way that best meets their needs. This will ensure that the data can be used flexibly and creatively to meet real demand for LMI.
The prototype database draws on a number of different data sources including the quarterly Labour Force Survey, O*NET data and Job Centre vacancies. We have developed an API to provide access to the data and last Tuesday UKCES organised a hack-day where, in a one day workshop, developers from Rewired State took part in a competition to develop applications based on the database. The Rewired State blog provides screen shots and brief details of the different apps developed.
The results of the project will be fed through to the English government with recommendations as to how this work might be further developed.
I was at a meeting earlier this week discussing our ideas for a project using mobile devices for work based learning in the construction industry (see previous blog entry). We have emphasised the importance of interaction with physical objects in the workplace, which I think has generally been underestimated or even ignored in most elearning research and applications, at least outside the e-science domain.
We were asked whether the ideas we were putting forward were applicable to knowledge workers.
According to Wikipedia:
Knowledge workers in today’s workforceare individuals who are valued for their ability to act and communicate with knowledge within a specific subject area. They will often advance the overall understanding of that subject through focused analysis, design and/or development. They use research skills to define problems and to identify alternatives. Fueled by their expertise and insight, they work to solve those problems, in an effort to influence company decisions, priorities and strategies. What differentiates knowledge work from other forms of work is its primary task of “non-routine” problem solving that requires a combination of convergent, divergent, and creative thinking (Reinhardt et al., 2011).[1] Also, despite the amount of research and literature on knowledge work there is yet to be a succinct definition of the term (Pyöriä, 2005)
I am not sure that the concept of knowledge workers is very helpful. In reality many jobs today are requiring research skills and non routine problem solving as well as creative thinking. And that goes well beyond people who spend most of their days working in front of a computer or what used to be called ‘white collar’ jobs.
Indeed one of the big issues in the building and construction industry appears to be rapidly increasing needs for higher levels of skills and knowledge, driven largely by new (and especially green) technologies and work processes. Traditional course based further training does not scale well – and may not be particularly effective when not linked to workplace practice.
Proving this ‘hypothesis’ is not so easy and of course leads us back to the issue of what constitutes knowledge in a work based context. But in November last year I attended a fascinating (at least to me 
) seminar hosted by the LLAKES project at the Institute of Education in London where Any Dickerson discussed work undertaken for the UKCES on:
the development of a new and comprehensive set of detailed, multi-dimensional occupational skills profiles for the UK by combining the US-based Occupational Information Network (O*NET) system with the UK Standard Occupational Classification (SOC2010). This enables the multi-dimensional O*NET system to be used to generate comprehensive occupational skills profiles for the UK, providing a much more detailed depiction of skills utilisation, and changes in utilisation, than is currently available for the UK.
The project report “Developing occupational skills profiles for the UK : a feasibility study” provides detailed information about the methodology and findings. And I suspect, with a little more detailed analysis, it should be possible to draw some conclusions about changing skills and knowledge components in different occupations.
Why is this important? Obviously it has implications for economies and employment. But from the point of view of teaching and learning – and especially developing learning opportunities – we should be training for the future not the past or even the present. To do this we need a detailed understanding of what is happening in different occupations. And we need to get beyond policy rhetoric about the knowledge economy and knowledge workers.
I spend a lot of time at the moment looking at how we can interpret and explain labour market data, especially for use in careers. Universities are a sensitive area of policy in the UK, and particularly in England, with an increase in fees of up to £9000 a year from this September. Inevitably, young people – and parents, are increasingly wondering if it is worth it in terms of future careers.
Strangely the big fall off in applications is from mature students who will be less effected as many of them will not hit the ceiling for repayments of the students loans being made available to pay the fees.
Thus, I suspect, it is perception rather than immediate hard economics which is driving people to apply or not.
Yesterday, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) published a new report – Graduates in the Labour Market 2012 – based on the latest statistics from the Labour Force Survey. And in a very welcome development, they published a video on Youtube to accompany the PDF report. The Guardian newspaper highlighted the main results of the4 report:
More than a third of recent graduates are employed in low-skilled jobs, official figures show.
In the final quarter of 2011, 35.9% of those who had graduated from university in the previous six years were employed in lower-skilled occupations, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said. This compares with 26.7%, or just over one in four, in 2001.
In the same period, the number of recent graduates in the jobs market has grown by 438,000 to around 1.5 million in 2011.
Jobs categorised as low-skilled by the ONS include hotel porters, waiters and bar staff, and retail assistants.
The report may be masking the extent of graduate unemployment however, as the unemployed figure excludes those on work experience or internships many of which are short term and, controversially, unpaid.
The one figure which surprised me in the video was the concentration of graduates in London and the South East. I suspect this reflects the role of the London and the South East as the centre for banking and finance, most of which jobs require a degree. Conversely those regions with a lower percentage of graduates are mainly focused on manufacturing industry. Whilst these industries require skilled workers, degrees may not be so important. I would be very interested to see a comparison between pay and employment of graduates and skilled workers (without a degree – for instance with an apprenticeship). Unfortunately the way in which The Labour Force Survey collects data around qualifications makes it very difficult to make any meaningful comparisons. Yet, especially for young people from working class backgrounds, that may be a key choice for them in coming years.
And whilst the present English government is attempting to increase the number of apprenticeship places, there have been persistent criticism over the quality of those apprenticeship places (see this recent BBC report), with many so called apprenticeships consisting of short courses in the retail and service industries – just those very areas where so many recent graduates are ending up!