The Competency Library is a continuously updated database of descriptive statements about what workers need to know and be able to do in their jobs. Expressed in a common skills-based language, the statements are meaningful to business and industry, students, educators and training providers, policy makers and the taxpayers they represent. The descriptive statements are intended to improve transparency in the talent pipeline from career exploration and training to job placement and career advancement.

The Skills Outcomes Alignment platform uses the skill library to help colleges match what is taught in the classroom with work performed in business and industry. Colleges upload course learning outcomes which are matched and compared to competency profiles found for over 900 occupations. The output shows which learning outcomes are most relevant and which additional competencies may need to be incorporated into the curriculum.
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Since 2011, 22 colleges have used this platform to align more than 900 courses across 61 awards. The goal of this work is to maximize student employability, earnings and economic contributions to the community. Based on positive responses from faculty and administrators, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board approved the common skills language methodology for all colleges to validate curriculum in Texas.

Competency analysis results will lead to new insights about relative value and redundancy within a curriculum.  Though the results are useful and informative, the process is not complete.  Analysis also creates a profile of your curriculum in a common competency language that makes the conversation between educators and practitioners more productive.
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After review and clean-up by faculty, practitioners of the target occupation will receive an online survey that allows them to rate the frequency, criticality, and mastery level for each of the competencies in the profile.  The result is a fully industry-validated competency profile for development of new curriculum or revision of existing awards.

Computerized processing of human languages is called Natural Language Processing (NLP). The promise of NLP is automated analysis based on the programmatic ability to mine competency statements from unstructured text.  The content of the web can be used to increase fidelity and monitor every-changing skills requirements in near real-time. The result will be drastically reduced time and cost to create a market-driven training curriculum, continuously updated occupational profiles,  and job seeker skills matching across a range of occupations.