Many professions in the developed world measure competency through a degree program from an accredited university and some sort of licensing exam. If a person successfully graduates from college and/or graduate school and passes the exam, then they are competent to practice in their field. This basic process covers a range of professions from engineering to medicine.

Many in these professions would admit that this isn’t the best way to measure competency. Accredited degrees are really limited by the student’s effort. Some students learn a lot and others just skate through. A similar thing can be said about licensing exams. Many students use the exam as an opportunity to consolidate what they’ve learned. Others, however, just learn to  *take* the test. They are less concerned with internalizing the material and are more concerned with passing the test.

I’m wondering what kind of new ways of measuring competency might arise in the late-developing world where the degree/licensing exam model hasn’t yet crystallized. I think assessment has to be a key part of this; however, I’m not sure that accredited degree programs have to play such a central role. Many countries simply do not have the educational resources or accrediting bodies that other countries have. There is a lot of room here for people to innovate and proactively define competency for their fields.

Janet Clarey and Mike Caulfield recently posted on the dead shark problem. They reference Woody Allen’s Annie Hall:

“A relationship, I think, is like a shark. You know? It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we got on our hands is a dead shark.”-Annie Hall, 1977

The gist is that online communities sometimes die. They don’t seem to grow at a fast enough clip or their users lose interest and they eventually become stagnant and then die. I think some online communities die as a natural part of their process. They serve a specific purpose and after that purpose has been met, they die.

Successful communities, on the other hand, thrive because people are intrinsically driven to keep them alive. There is some kind of value that people find in using the site, so they continue to use it. Facebook and MySpace have proven to be incredible value drivers. People spend an average of 16 minutes a day on these sites, uploading pics, poking people, commenting etc. I think a fair amount of the value here can fall under the construct of identity or impression management. People are doing these things to manage how other people see and experience them.

LinkedIn seems to be a bit different. This is more of a business social network. Sure, people definitely do impression management on LinkedIn, but it seems less so. There are specific questions you can ask your network. You can post jobs. You can find contacts to help you solve problems. LinkedIn seems to offer a different type of value and one that seems more functional and quantifiable. People seem to go on LinkedIn with a specific goal or action in mind, whereas facebook or MySpace seems to draw more of a meandering sort of engagement.

We at NIXTY believe that education is a huge and compelling value for institutions, educators, and learners. Institutions often keep learning communities alive because it is at the core of what they do (think of any academic institution[k-12, college, university]). I’m using learning community here broadly, so any sort of LMS/CMS would be considered a learning network or community. According to our research (mostly qualitative interviews), educators find value in networking with other teachers, sharing learning materials, and finding tips/hints from more experienced teachers. Educators, of course, also love to teach. Learners are compelled to learn for a variety of reasons. Some of the core reasons include: mastering a new skill, connecting with other students (homeschoolers), gaining CEUs, test-prep, and keeping brains active and young.

Our goal at NIXTY is to provide an educational platform so that institutions, educators, and learners can easily add value/content and also use the system to meet their intrinsic goals. We are in the midst of testing this out. If you share this interest, and/or are interested in using the NIXTY platform, then please sign up for our beta and help us reach this intrinsic goal.