Students’ Learning Experiences and Skills Dataspace
Overview of the Use Case
The Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) is leading a DS4Skills use case to develop a dataspace that connects students’ learning experiences with skills data. The goal is to understand how learning outcomes align with the needs of the labour market, provide personalised support for lifelong learners, and make higher education more skills-driven.
Bridging the gap between academic outcomes and job market demands
Today’s labour market changes rapidly, but universities often struggle to provide timely insights into which skills their students are actually gaining. At UOC, where most students are already working professionals, the main challenge is to bridge the gap between academic outcomes and labour market skills. Students need clearer guidance on which skills their studies provide and how those skills match evolving professional demands.
Supporting key stakeholders
This use case addresses several groups within and beyond the university:
Students benefit from personalised learning paths that help them identify and close skill gaps.
Higher Education Instructors and program directors gain dashboards and analytics to align courses and programmes with skills needs.
Student advisors can offer tailored recommendations that consider academic progress, career goals, and personal circumstances.
Labour market organisations receive more accurate insights into the skills higher education institutions deliver.
Data-driven solutions and strategic activities
The UOC use case combines different datasets and services to make this possible:
Integrating skills data into learning datasets, connecting academic course catalogues, learning management systems, learner surveys, and external skills and job market sources.
Developing analytics and dashboards to visualise the relationship between skills, learning outcomes, and career pathways.
Ensuring FAIR data principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) by publishing anonymised and synthetic datasets so other institutions can replicate and experiment without privacy concerns.
Providing insights and service examples for Higher Ed Institutions to promote internal implementation of their own skills advisory services to support students, advisors, instructors, and policy makers to align learning outcomes and the needs of the labour market, provide personalised support for lifelong learners, and make higher education more skills-driven.
Expected results and long-term impact
The anticipated outcomes include:
Four datasets, at least, combining learning and skills data.
Dashboards and visualisations that demonstrate how education and skills are connected.
Reports on learning and skills analytics to guide continuous improvement in higher education.
Ultimately, the impact is a skills-driven university model that makes learning more relevant, personalised, and aligned with labour market needs.
Early takeaways and vision
The UOC has been gathering and analysing data from teaching and learning processes for the last decade, and in the last years has been combining this data with labour market skills data to advise students and instructors in the project called GPS Professional. These works confirm that combining skills and learning data allows richer, more actionable insights for both students and educators. For example, learning outcomes and skills datasets matches and dashboards already demonstrate how skills analytics can guide program design and career advising.
Beyond UOC, this use case will inspire other higher education institutions across Europe where lifelong learning is directly linked to skills and employability.
By leading this use case, UOC contributes to building a European dataspace for skills that makes lifelong learning more connected, more personalised, and more impactful for society.
Authors: Francesc Santanach Delisau (UOC)
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