TRUSTED SMART STATISTICS - Expert workshop in Greece explores analytics for OJAs

In September 2023, Cedefop and Eurostat hosted a workshop in Thessaloniki, Greece, on enhancing analytics for OJAs. The event gathered 60 participants, including the network of experts helping Cedefop and Eurostat in this domain, and Web Intelligence Network (WIN) members. It featured six sessions covering various project aspects, such as green skills, skill relevance, Natural Language Processing samples, occupation classification and source overlaps. The active involvement of WIN members working in OJAs was particularly important, as it allowed for direct interaction and collaboration between all key project developers and potential WIH users.

date: 05/01/2024

On 21–22 September 2023, European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop) and Eurostat held an expert workshop on 'Deepening on Analytics for OJAs' at Cedefop’s premises in Thessaloniki, Greece.

The workshop explored a range of novel and highly policy-relevant topics relating to OJA based skills intelligence and data analytics. It brought together approximately 60 participants, including the network of experts put together by the consortium helping Cedefop and Eurostat in this domain. Members of the WIN working with OJAs joined the technical discussions, sharing their expertise and perspective on the topics.

Key topics

Six sessions provided in-depth insights into various aspects of the project:

Session 1, 'Current state of the art of Cedefop’s project’, featured presentations from Eurostat and Cedefop providing an overview of the project's journey and recent progress
Session 2, 'Green Skills’, presented developments in work on green skills, with a focus on the theoretical framework related to green skills and occupations
Session 3, 'Constructing an index of skill relevance and skill change', offered insights into using OJA data to produce indicators of skill change
Session 4, 'Natural Language Processing (NLP) Sample’, delved into the design and characteristics of the NLP sample and its potential uses, including research activities for a wider community of users
Session 5, 'Improving Classifiers', presented an occupation classification pipeline and the enhancement of digital skills, with a focus on job title variety and qualifications
Session 6, 'Source Overlap', focused on research into source uniqueness and overlap, crucial for informing agreement policies and source replacement policies.

Background

Cedefop and Eurostat have been developing the WIH-OJA platform since 2021. A consortium led by the Interuniversity Research Centre for Public Services (CRISP) steered by the University of Milano-Bicocca has been supporting both organisations in these developments. The system is designed to gather and analyse data from OJAs. Given that the system has now reached an advanced level of maturity, the help of WIN members and various stakeholders is critical to expand the Hub’s user base among National Statistical Institutes, seeking to further improve the production process, including data validation steps and, ultimately, the indicators generated by the system.

The WIH-OJA’s pivotal analytics on the OJA database have become instrumental for its successful deployment and adoption. Workshops like this one have been organised to share the latest advancements in data production and analytical tools with key stakeholders, including members of National Statistical Institutes and European agencies.

We already look forward to the 2024 edition of the workshop and encourage all participants to share their feedback on the event and suggestions on how we could improve it.