Modeling Digital Workforce Competency for Work Integrated Learning Using Ontology

Abstract

The National Economic Development Plan for Thailand emphasizes the creation of a digital workforce to information technology (IT) industry for supporting digital economic growth. At the same time, it has been shown that in the Thai education system, higher education in IT-related subjects is the main producer of graduates who go on to work in IT-related capacities and Thai universities are largely responsible for creating the digital workforce. However, current university IT curriculums are not providing IT students with the skills and knowledge they need to respond to the IT industry’s expectations. This research established an ontology for digital workforce development aimed at bridging the gap between the IT industry and IT education. The research was based on case studies from work integrated learning (WIL) programs in IT education at two universities in Thailand: Chiang Mai University and Prince of Songkla University. The research development was separated into three phases, as detailed below. The first phase established and categorized the competency requirements for entry-level digital workers in the IT industry. The initial IT competencies were derived from existing models and were confirmed by IT experts using qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was then employed with 260 sample to categorize the competencies. The results in terms of the competency expectations discovered were presented within the categories revealed by EFA. The findings showed that 24 competencies were required for the digital workforce, which fell within three categories, Professional skills and IT knowledge, IT management and support, and IT technical. The second phase established the teaching patterns and other related techniques used by IT experts to develop the digital workforce. The 34 experts from the IT industry were interviewed in-depth with the semi-structured questions derived from adult learning theory. Thematic content analysis was used to analyze the interviews in order to identify themes relating to teaching patterns. It was found that there are four teaching patterns commonly used within IT, each of which included specific learning activities and learning sources. The third phase consisted of the development of an ontology for digital workforce development and proposed an ontology for WIL management in IT education. The findings relating to digital workforce competencies and teaching patterns from phases 1 and 2 were used as contexts in the ontology, and a previously proposed ontology-construction method was employed. The ontology class and hierarchy was analyzed from andragogical process. The ontology included 2,511 knowledge representations and the knowledge content of the ontology has practical components that can be directly utilized in WIL programs. WIL stakeholders’ opinions were sought and confirmed that the ontology was useful within their spheres of interest within IT. In conclusion, the IT education sector can reduce the gap between the competencies expected of graduates by the IT industry, and those currently produced, by learning from the ontology and using it in all aspects of its work.