Hello, this is Mark Dempsey
with the National Convergence Technology Center.
This short webinar will explain our job skills worksheet.
We sometimes call that Excel worksheet the “KSA list”
or the “KSA worksheet.”
This is the list of entry-level IT job skills
as validated and updated by our National BILT each summer.
We always get questions about how to use this worksheet,
so hopefully this webinar will help.
Remember: the goal in all of this
is to make sure your curriculum aligns with what businesses want
so your graduates can get hired.
That’s why we engage our business and industry experts.
We validate job skills once a year.
For the CTC, that meeting – which we call the “KSA meeting”
for knowledge, skills, and abilities,
although now we have also added a T for tasks -
that meeting happens in early May.
We spend 4-6 hours going through the list
line by line asking our BILT to identify the KSAs
they want to see in new hires.
Now, once you’ve worked with your BILT and created a KSA list,
then each year you’ll just update and revise the old list -
that is, in 2020, for example, you’ll update the 2019 list.
After the KSA meeting with your BILT,
faculty uses those recommendations
to make sure everything’s getting covered.
If something is missing,
faculty can decide how best to address those gaps.
Let’s do a quick recap of how we got to the worksheet.
At the KSA meeting, there are specific roles.
We have the facilitator who keeps things on track
and makes sure all of the BILT voices in the room are heard,
we have the recorder who’s tallying up the votes –
either by manually updating that KSA worksheet in the room in real time
or by managing any online tools you’re using to collect the votes,
we have the BILT members serving as the subject matter experts,
and we have the faculty attending the meeting as active listeners.
The goal of the KSA meeting is to give the employers an open forum.
We want to avoid getting sidetracked by curriculum discussions.
And we always record the meeting
so we can create detailed meeting minutes.
Just a quick note here: we have more resources –
both videos and documents – that explain
the voting process in much more detail.
We’ll list those on the very last slide of this presentation.
Here you can see a vote taking place.
In the upper right corner of that photo, you can see the KSA worksheet
projected on the screen for everyone in the room to see as they vote and discuss.
Now this is the old school way of doing it –
the facilitator there is counting the raised hands
manually one by one.  This works, but it can take a lot of time.
We have a new way of doing it now using
free online Google forms and Google sheets.
This allows the BILT to vote online using their phones or laptops –
it’s faster and easier, and it gives you much more time
in the meeting to talk about the KSAs.
We have some training resources
on how to do this that we’ll provide on
the last slide of this presentation.
Here's how the vote works.
Employers rank each KSA on a scale of 1 to 4.
Four means the topic must be included in the curriculum,
three means it really should be included if possible,
two means it would be nice to have it included,
and one means you can discard it.
Consensus here is not the goal –
that’s why we do the votes and then calculate the average.
And we always remind the BILT
that they’re evaluating these skills based on what
an entry-level IT worker coming out of a program
12-36 months in the future will need to know.
The KSA worksheet tries to look ahead.
Now let’s look at the actual KSA worksheet.
There are four sections – the KSA number.
This year we have 24 Ts, 89 Ks, 49 Ss, 26 As, and 7 certifications.
And, you’ll also see in the sections we have a
new set of separate cloud-specific KSAs.
There’s also the actual name and description of each KSA.
We have the vote tally columns that tells you
how many BILT members voted for each number.
And then, finally, the vote average.
Votes that average 2.6 or less are in red
on our sheet to suggest a cut-off for low-interest KSAs
that should not get included in curriculum,
but that 2.6 is arbitrary –
maybe your school needs the cut-off to be a little bit higher, maybe 3.0.
So here’s what the worksheet looks like.
The KSA numbers go down the side on the far left –
just a quick and easy way to identify the KSA
when you’re discussing them.
The next column there shows the name and description
of each KSA.  In addition to voting,
the BILT also sometimes chooses to collectively edit
the name and description of the KSAs to make them more current.
This is one reason why in-person discussions are so important.
Next, are the columns that tally the BILT votes.
For example, here for T1 “Configuring and Optimizing
Network, Routers, and Switches,” eight BILT members
voted 4, six voted 3, and two voted 2.
The average for T1 was 3.4.  This is the average column.
So, what happens next?  Ideally, you’ll use this spreadsheet
as a template with your own local BILT.
Let them add to it, subtract from it, vote on it.
Make the KSA list your own.  Your local BILT will have
needs that may not match the feedback and votes
provided by our national BILT.
In this way, you’re customizing our national
BILT KSA list with your local BILT members votes
so you end up with your own wholly unique set of KSAs
for your region.
Or, if you already have a running KSA list with your BILT
from last year, you may just want to use our updated list
to look for possible new KSAs you might want
to discuss with your BILT.
You can conduct your KSA vote prior to the meeting
via the Google form or some other survey,
but it is absolutely essential that you don’t just stop there.
The vote is only half of the process.
The other half comes from when you convene the BILT
to discuss the vote results all together synchronously
in real time in the same room.
There are several ways to do this, by the way –
you can discuss each line one by one,
you can only discuss the KSAs that got
an unusual spread in votes, like maybe a split between
four 4 votes and five 1 votes,
or you can discuss only those KSAs that the BILT wants to discuss.
The point is that there is immense value to be had
in the lively in-person discussions and debates of the KSAs.
You and your educator colleagues should hear that debate.
This is also the only way to fine-tune
the actual KSA text descriptions.
The last step in all of this is to share the results
of the KSA meeting with your faculty to make sure everything
your BILT wants is covered in the curriculum.
This is where your average cut-off comes into play.
To get into the curriculum, does it need to be a 3.0 or better
or are you open to trying to including some high 2s?
So, here are the resources –
we have videos, we have BILT process documents.
They all have easy to use bitlys here.
And remember also that you can always email us with questions.
Thank you for your time.  And best of luck to you
with your BILT and your annual KSA vote!
