The boys in the ACS are doing it again
The subject for this evening's ACS meeting was the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA, pronounced "Sophia"). It's a framework for determining the type of skills an individual has and level at which they operate. It seems to be a reasonably practical sort of system, somewhat akin to outcomes-based curriculum. Part of the intent is to assess the individual's suitability for particular jobs (to be redefined as skills profiles), and to more clearly define the pre-requisites and desired outcomes of training courses; the befores and afters.
All very well, but I was itching to ask questions about the self assessment process, for students/novices tend to overestimate their skills (because they don't know what they don't know), and the more experienced people tend to under-estimate their skills (because they do know how much they don't know). There are two safeguards here: the person has to provide evidence of their experience, and the ACS offers a validation service. Further, the evidence requirements seem to be pretty tight; "filling in while the boss was on holidays for a week" may mean that you are capable of Level 6 Team Leadership (or whatever), but does not qualify you to say you *operate* at that level.
Imagine addressing the selection criteria for every job you might ever do. It's a bit like that.
So, all going along swimmingly, until the representative of the program threw in a statment along the lines of "Women don't usually over-estimate their skills." I thought to myself that that was likely, and one of the causes of glass ceiling problems. But a lot of the overwhelmingly male audience then *laughed*.
WTF? Were they laughing at the very idea of women+skills in the same sentence? Were they laughing at me? If that was the case then something bad was going down. It didn't occur to me before, but the SFIA could be particularly important to allow women to recognise their own skills, and gain confidence for themselves, and hopefully increase respect for women in IT in general. No matter what The Boys were actually laughing at tonight, those things are going to be important.
It wasn't quite the usual mix of members at tonight's first forum of the year. There were a lot of new members (including a whole batch from iiNet) so there was a bit of a skew to youth and inexperience. That's no excuse to be overtly sexist (if that's what happened), even if the boys outnumbered the girls in the room by about 40:1.
I'm a bit sad now that I couldn't stay for the networking session and find out what the room was really thinking, but I can save that up for the next one.
ED: I nearly forgot the good story. The presenter was using a green jellybaby in a lot of his slides and I got to answer "Tom Baker" to the obvious question. He then asked everyone in the room to put up their hands if they were a fan of Doctor Who, to which he responded (aproximately): "Trick question! You can't be a member of the ACS if you don't like Doctor Who."
All very well, but I was itching to ask questions about the self assessment process, for students/novices tend to overestimate their skills (because they don't know what they don't know), and the more experienced people tend to under-estimate their skills (because they do know how much they don't know). There are two safeguards here: the person has to provide evidence of their experience, and the ACS offers a validation service. Further, the evidence requirements seem to be pretty tight; "filling in while the boss was on holidays for a week" may mean that you are capable of Level 6 Team Leadership (or whatever), but does not qualify you to say you *operate* at that level.
Imagine addressing the selection criteria for every job you might ever do. It's a bit like that.
So, all going along swimmingly, until the representative of the program threw in a statment along the lines of "Women don't usually over-estimate their skills." I thought to myself that that was likely, and one of the causes of glass ceiling problems. But a lot of the overwhelmingly male audience then *laughed*.
WTF? Were they laughing at the very idea of women+skills in the same sentence? Were they laughing at me? If that was the case then something bad was going down. It didn't occur to me before, but the SFIA could be particularly important to allow women to recognise their own skills, and gain confidence for themselves, and hopefully increase respect for women in IT in general. No matter what The Boys were actually laughing at tonight, those things are going to be important.
It wasn't quite the usual mix of members at tonight's first forum of the year. There were a lot of new members (including a whole batch from iiNet) so there was a bit of a skew to youth and inexperience. That's no excuse to be overtly sexist (if that's what happened), even if the boys outnumbered the girls in the room by about 40:1.
I'm a bit sad now that I couldn't stay for the networking session and find out what the room was really thinking, but I can save that up for the next one.
ED: I nearly forgot the good story. The presenter was using a green jellybaby in a lot of his slides and I got to answer "Tom Baker" to the obvious question. He then asked everyone in the room to put up their hands if they were a fan of Doctor Who, to which he responded (aproximately): "Trick question! You can't be a member of the ACS if you don't like Doctor Who."