DeCom: A model for context-aware competence management

Computers in Industry 72 (2015) 27–35

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Computers in Industry journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compind

DeCom: A model for context-aware competence management Jorge Luis Victo´ria Barbosa a,*, Marcos Ricardo Kich a, De´bora Nice Ferrari Barbosa b,1, Amarolinda Zanela Klein a, Sandro Jose´ Rigo a a b

University of Vale do Rio dos Sinos (UNISINOS), 950, Unisinos Av, Sa˜o Leopoldo 93.022-000, RS, Brazil FEEVALE University, 2755, ERS-239, Novo Hamburgo 93.352-000, RS, Brazil

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Article history: Received 8 July 2014 Received in revised form 24 March 2015 Accepted 31 March 2015 Available online 7 May 2015

This article proposes a model of a context-aware system, called DeCom, to support competence management. The model considers the profiles of employees in organizations and the contexts in which they are involved, looking for opportunities to help them to develop their competences. DeCom proposes a Context Model organized into five categories, which enable the mapping of employees’ mobility and development, using context-based information (people, events and other resources). Moreover, the model proposes a Competence Model specifically oriented towards contexts. A case study involving an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) vendor enabled data collection based on realistic scenarios. The model was implemented based on multiplatform programming for mobile devices. This prototype and the case study were used in an evaluation involving the IT manager from the ERP vendor. The specialized evaluator executed eight scenarios to test the functionalities of DeCom. The article discussed the result of this evaluation and describes three scenarios in detail to better demonstrate how DeCom explores the employee’s context in a business environment. Moreover, the article summarizes an acceptance evaluation conducted with twenty-one volunteers to test the DeCom’s usability. The results were encouraging and show the potential for implementing DeCom as a tool to foster the competence management in organizations and to support corporate education activities. ß 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Competence management Context awareness Corporate Education

1. Introduction Competence management [1–4] involves mapping organizational competences needs, identifying competence gaps [5], and filling these gaps through sourcing, training, coaching and other corporate education activities [2,6,7]. According to Drejer [8] competences are related with the synergy, integration and interplay between technology, people, organizational systems and culture. Therefore, Information Technology (IT) is a key resource to help managers to map and develop competences in the organizational context. The proliferation of portable devices, combined with the spread of wireless communication, has enabled computing services to become Context-aware [9,10]. Additionally, the Location Systems

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +55 51 35908161; fax: +55 51 35908162. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (J.L.V. Barbosa), [email protected] (M.R. Kich), [email protected] (D.N.F. Barbosa), [email protected] (A.Z. Klein), [email protected] (S.J. Rigo). 1 Tel: +55 51 3586 8800; fax: +55 51 35908152. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compind.2015.03.012 0166-3615/ß 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

[11,12] improvement allows the use of context-aware computing according to the user’s location. Context awareness enables the development of Adaptive applications [13], seeking to understand not only the users’ Profile [14], but also the contexts that surround them, in order to generate Personalized information [15,16]. Ubiquitous Learning researches [14,16] showed the relevance of context awareness in the learning process. In this sense, this work is based on the assumption that it is possible to support competence management within organizations using information about the employees’ competences and about the contexts in which they are engaging. Accordingly, this article proposes a model for context-aware competences management, called DeCom (Developer of Competences). DeCom introduces a Context Model [10] that considers the employees’ mobility and link it with opportunities for competences development. Moreover, DeCom proposes a Competence Model [17] specifically oriented to contextaware systems. Based on related works revision, it is possible to highlight DeCom as the first model that considers the users’ mobility to explore contextualized opportunities for competence management.

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The text is organized into seven sections. Section 2 discusses related works, indicating the contribution sought by the proposed model. Section 3 describes DeCom, mainly focusing on its architecture and the strategy employed to support context-aware competences management. Section 4 describes a case study conducted in a company, which enabled data collection based on realistic scenarios. Section 5 discusses implementation issues, describing technological aspects of the prototype. Section 6 focuses on appraisal aspects, based on the prototype tests and on data collected in the case study. Section 7 presents final remarks and directions for future research. 2. Related works There are many researches on competences management. Most of them are mainly concerned on Ontologies [18–20], Competence Modelling [7,21], strategies to identify competences needed for organizations or projects [4,22] and strategies for the development of employees’ competences [2,3,23–26]. In this article, the study of related works has focused on competence-based management models that have characteristics related to the use of contexts. Accordingly, four models were considered (MCSWILK [25], HRCSystem [22], MCGA [23] and MASEL [27]). They were used to define the criteria for comparison, seeking to discuss the contribution of DeCom. Table 1 shows a comparison between the related works. The comparison criteria were selected according to the topics considered as strategic for the development of DeCom, mainly the treatment of context-based information. MASEL [27] offers competence mapping, but does not consider proficiency levels for each competence. It uses information from the contexts surrounding the employees, such as profiles and resources, but does not take into account the location nor does it use information about events (for example, training courses or lectures) to make up the context. Similarly, MCSWILK [25] uses, as contexts, the data on competences, profiles and resources available within the organization. However, the model does not take into account the fact that competences may have proficiency levels and does not take the mobility of employees into account, which would require mapping their location. MCGA [23] considers the level of proficiency associated with employee competences. However, it does not address the profile and location of employees. The context refers to the circumstances under which something exists or occurs, and it is related to the scope and purpose of a given competence. HRCSystem [22] uses employee profiles and the company’s context information in order to support managers to select employees for specific activities. However, the model does not use information on proficiency levels and gaps to support the development of individual competences. The works reviewed do not take into account the location of employees as context information. Therefore, they do not consider mobility in their proposals. Furthermore, none of the models uses

information about training events to improve employee’s competences. These criteria were added to the last two lines in Table 1, allowing a full view of DeCom features.

3. DeCom model The DeCom’s main goals are to foster the competence management in organizations and to support Corporate Education activities. The model’s architecture has seven components designed to achieve these goals (Fig. 1). They are organized in three modules, three agents and an administration site. As indicated in the figure, the modules were designed as services [28], which enable the management of data treated by DeCom. The Personal Assistant (PA) agent follows the users on their mobile devices and assists them through online interactions. The Relationship agent delivers messages sent by the Competences agent. The Competences agent monitors the contexts, seeking opportunities to support the employees’ competence development. The Administration Site enables interaction with the DeCom modules for the maintenance of data explored by the agents. The following sections detail these components. 3.1. Profile module The Profile Module contains the services to manage the employees’ profiles. DeCom uses a Profile Model based on six categories: Contact, Preference, Security, PersonCompetence, Project and Person. The first three are based on the PAPI standard [29]. Contact contains the information for contacting users and Preference contains the preferences regarding the interface and communication elements. Security stores the security credentials. Moreover, DeCom introduces the PersonCompetence, Project and Person categories. PersonCompetence records the user’s competences and their proficiency levels. Project contains the list of projects in which the employee is engaged, recording the employee’s role and position, and defining the competences and proficiency level needed to perform the activities. The Person unifies the other five categories. 3.2. Competence module The Competence module uses metadata described by the IEEE RCD standard [30]. However, this standard does not consider the level of proficiency for each competence, which is relevant for DeCom. Thus, the Competence Model proposed has extended this standard. Although currently DeCom focuses on management of individuals’ competences, the competence model uses a Competence Tree structure starting from the organizational level, following to competences at a group level, and finally, approaching the individual competences. This general approach contemplating the three levels can allow future expansions of DeCom to help the management of collective and organizational competences.

Table 1 Related works comparison. Related works comparison criteria (DeCom features) It It It It It It It It

manages employees’ competences and enables gaps identification? considers the competences proficiency levels? identifies levels of importance (weights) for the competences? uses context-based information? takes employee’s profiles into account? uses information about resources? takes location into account (mobility)? uses information about events?

MASEL

MCSWILK

MCGA

HRCSystem

Yes No No Yes Yes Yes No No

Yes No No Yes Yes Yes No No

Yes Yes No Yes No No No No

Yes No Yes Yes Yes No No No

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Fig. 1. DeCom architecture.

DeCom uses a Competence Model based on the following categories: Competence, ProficiencyLevel, PersonCompetence, CompetenceWeight, Role, RoleCompetence, Project, ProjectCompetence, Event, EventCompetence, Resource and ResourceCompetence. Competence contains information on the competences mapped in the organization. ProficiencyLevel records the competences’ proficiency levels. It is also possible to define the experts in each competence, searching for people who have the maximum levels of competence (PersonCompetence). CompetenceWeight records the weights of the competences required to fill a position or to join a project. Role describes the positions, roles, or functions within an organization. RoleCompetence determines the competences and proficiency levels for each position. The Person category cited in the previous section contains the information about employees and it is linked to the PersonCompetence and Project categories. PersonCompetence stores the competences and proficiency levels developed by each person within the organization. Project describes information about the projects and ProjectCompetence lists the competences and proficiency level associated with each project. The projects (Project) are linked to the people executing them and to the competences, degrees of importance and levels of proficiency required (ProjectCompetence). Event contains the description of training events available and EventCompetence indicates the competences and proficiency level associated with each event. Resource contains a description of the available resources and ResourceCompetence determines the competences and proficiency levels related to each resource. 3.3. Context module The Context Model is organized in five categories: Location, Temporal, Social, Competence and Physical. Each category seeks to answer the following questions: where am I? (Location); what are my competences gaps? (Competence); what people and resources are close to me and can help me to fill my gaps? (Social); what events have not yet taken place, are nearby and can help me to fill my gaps? (Temporal); which device am I using? (Physical). The Location Context contains information about the geographical regions mapped. DeCom allows a company to map its facilities, such as conference rooms, offices and auditoriums, and even larger spaces, covering an entire branch or headquarters. The information that forms the elements of Physical Context is provided by the user’s device. The Competence Context supports the information on employees’ competences, the competences required in order to perform their job and the projects they are

involved in. This category has the ProficiencyLevelPerson element to define the proficiency level developed and the ValueGap element to define the value of the gap calculated for that competence. The Person (from Profile Module) and Resource (from Competence Module) categories form the Social Context. Person contains information about employees and is associated with the Location and Physical Context categories. Resource stores information about the resources available within a Location. Temporal Context is formed by the Event category (from Competence Module). The definition of events that may be relevant to a person considers when an event will take place, or if the event has already taken place, the geographic region where people are and what they still need to learn in order to perform their work with excellence within the organization. The Context module also determines the location of employees. The module links information about the current location, using data such as latitude and longitude, with symbolic names, thus enabling real-time mapping of the displacement of a mobile device [31]. 3.4. DeCom agents DeCom has three agents called Personal Assistant (PA), Competences, and Relationship. The PA is in the users’ mobile devices. This agent supports the interaction with users through two functions. It presents the recommendation messages and enables users to interact with the system, mainly updating their profiles. The Relationship agent is responsible for delivering messages from the Competences agent to the Personal Assistant. The Competences agent performs a set of actions in order to make recommendations about persons, events, resources, and to report changes in the Competence Context. The capability to make recommendations was divided into specific capabilities, which are initiated by five perceptions. These perceptions monitor the update of five kind of contextualized information, namely, Events, Resources, Locations, Profiles and Competences. When an updated is done, the perceptions trigger the capabilities to recommend possible opportunities to improve the users’ competences. DeCom agents were modeled according to the Prometheus methodology [32,33]. 4. Case study Looking for data collection based on realistic scenarios, DeCom’s development involved a case study in an Enterprise

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30 Table 2 Example of competences mapped in the case study. Competence

Description

Group

Organizational and physical structure of the company

Organizational design, both of the company’s hierarchical structure and of the relationship between processes, such as the physical distribution of the ownership structure, integration of organizational movements according to the company’s strategy Continuous search for knowledge to meet current and future organizational challenges Building and maintaining networks and partnerships (internal and/or external), harnessing them towards the company goals. Practicing assertive and friendly communication, with flexibility to revise positions Guiding behavior and human relations in order to maximize the potential of human capital in the workplace

Organizational

Learning and knowledge dissemination Building relationships

Team management

Personal Interpersonal

Technical

Resource Planning (ERP) vendor located in Southern Brazil. In this article, the company will be referred to by the fictitious name DevERP. The study was based on an actual consulting for the implementation of competence management processes in this company. The information refers to the competences, job positions and people from one part of DevERP. The main data sources in the case study were human resources documents and interviews with employees. The data collected in the case study were used in the DeCom’s evaluation (Section 6).

for the competences are specified. At DevERP, the following job positions were identified: Project manager, Developer, Business analyst, Quality analyst, Salesperson and Administrative manager. Table 3 shows the profile for Project manager. This job position requires 13 competences. At DevERP, the minimum level of proficiency for the competences is 5. Moreover, the company did not identify which competences are most relevant to the performance of each position, precluding the use of different weights for the competences associated with the job positions.

4.1. Competence mapping

4.3. Description of employee profiles

DeCom considers that competences are associated with groups. DevERP identified competences in four groups: organizational, personal, interpersonal and technical. Furthermore, in DeCom, each competence must be associated with a proficiency level. At DevERP, competences were classified as: undeveloped (1), early development (2), partially developed (3), developed (4), and fully developed (5). DeCom also allows for weights to be assigned to the competences, thus enabling certain competences to be defined as more important for a given job. At DevERP, however, all the competences have the same weight (in this case, the value is 1). The study identified 24 competences within the organization. Each competence has a name, a description and a group. Table 2 presents the example of four competences mapped through this process.

An employee profile consists of the employee’s set of competences. Each competence can be classified in five levels of proficiency, as indicated in Section 4.1. During the study, eight employee profiles were mapped. Table 4 shows the employee profile for Luciano (fictitious name).

4.2. Description of job profiles

4.4. Description of resources and events DevERP did not have a mapping of its training resources integrated with its competences map. Thus, the study used information from a second company, which uses an integrated management system and provided actual information about resources that are recommended to help to fill competence gaps. Only resources whose competences were comparable between the two companies were used. This work resulted in the identification of 62 real resources, to which 86 fictitious resources were added, as they were required to contribute to the development of competences that were incompatible between the two companies.

A job profile consists of the competences required for performing a job. In the profile, the minimum levels of proficiency Table 4 Employee profile for Luciano (fictitious name). Table 3 Project Manager job profile. Position: Project manager Group

Competence

Organizational Personal

! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Interpersonal Technical

Organizational and physical structure of the company Learning and dissemination of knowledge Personal presentation Communication Building relationships Teamwork Systemic activity Project management Knowledge management English Leadership Focus on results Team management

Sales area employee—subject Luciano—position: Project manager Group

Competence

Evaluation (1 to 5)

Organizational

Organizational and physical structure of the company

5

Personal

Learning and dissemination of knowledge Personal presentation Communication

5 4 5

Interpersonal

Building relationships Teamwork

5 5

Technical

Focus on results Team management Project management Knowledge management English Leadership

3 5 5 5 4 5

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None of the companies had training events mapped according to their targeted competences. Thus, the events mapped were fictitious, involving topics that addressed the competences involved in the case study. 5. Implementation issues Implementation used the Visual Studio1 2008 development platform and the C# language. The technologies used followed portability requirements, using the .NET framework. The prototype considered the use of two mobile devices: Sony XperiaTM arc S and iPhone 4s. The Personal Assistant (PA) runs on mobile devices as an ASP.NET Web Application. In ASP.NET, content is dynamically generated on the server, thus making the PA independent from the operating system. The adaptation of the interface to the devices was performed by separating content (HTML) and its presentation (CSS). Fig. 2 shows the PA’s options in two mobile devices using different operating systems. The option Competences presents the users’ competences and level as a chart (Fig. 3a) using Flash technology. On the iPhone, which is incompatible with this technology, the information is presented as a list (Fig. 3b). The option Gaps displays a list of competence gaps. For each gap, information about existing resources, events, or people that can assist in resolving the gap is displayed. This information is presented next to each gap (Fig. 4a). The option Simulation presents a simulation with information about which competences’ gaps the users would have if they had other positions within the organization. The PA displays a list of job positions and gaps ordered by the value of the gap in every position, in ascending order, showing the positions for which the employee is better qualified (Fig. 4b). 6. Application and results A test of DeCom was carried out in the company that provided the information in Section 4, involving its IT manager. The

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evaluator received a script for executing eight scenarios and had basic training on how to use the system. He used his own mobile device, an Ericson XperiaTM X. The evaluator was instructed to carry out the execution of the scenarios according to the scripts provided and to ultimately create an appraisal for the following statement: ‘‘I could fully execute this scenario using the DeCom prototype’’. The answer options had a five-point Likert scale [34], namely, Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Indifferent, Agree and Strongly Agree. For each question, the expert could also add a comment. The environment for the scenarios involved: 4 competency groups, 5 proficiency levels, 1 weight, 6 job positions and the competences required to exercise them, 8 locations, 8 personal profiles and the competences already developed by each person, 148 resources and their competences targeted, 46 events and their competences targeted. The evaluator tested the eight scenarios, strongly agreeing in six and agreeing in two. The scenarios are mentioned below, detailing the evaluator’s comments in the scenarios in which the appraisal was only Agree: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

(6) (7) (8)

Employee seeking to resolve gaps: Strongly Agree; Employee seeking to evolve in his career: Strongly Agree; Employee in transit, awaiting flight: Strongly Agree; Employee who wishes not to be disturbed by the Personal Assistant: Strongly Agree; Changing the location, date or cancelling an event: Agree— Evaluator’s comment: ‘‘Wouldn’t it be more practical to reach only the people who had confirmed their participation?’’; Changing the competences for a job position: Strongly Agree; Entering a new resource into the system: Strongly agree; Entering a new event in the system: Agree—Evaluator’s comment: ‘‘The message received does not specify the duration of the event, how many spots are available or whether an RSVP is required.’’

The next three subsections detail the scenarios considered as the most relevant ones to demonstrate as DeCom explores the

Fig. 2. Personal assistant screen.

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Fig. 3. PA options (competences).

employees’ contexts in business environments. The remaining scenarios followed the same pattern, focusing on different aspects of the model. Each scenario generated a log, thus enabling the creation of tables that describe the participation of each DeCom’s component in the execution. Complementarily, the last subsection summarizes the results of an acceptance evaluation conducted with twenty-one volunteers to test the Decom’s usability.

6.1. Employee seeking to resolve gaps (evaluator strongly agree) In this scenario an employee (Antonio) is using the Personal Assistant to look for information that may help him to know which competences he should develop, as a priority, in order to perform his work with excellence. In this scenario, DeCom helps the employee to see and decide which competences should preferably be developed and what resources and people in the company can

Fig. 4. PA options (gaps and simulation).

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help in this development. DeCom uses the Social Context to identify the people close to Antonio that can help him. Table 5 shows the execution flow of the scenario with particular emphasis in the DeCom’s components. ‘‘Antonio is the administrative manager of DevERP Company. He desires to establish a plan to competences development which contemplates actions to supplement his needs, preparing him to exercise his responsibilities with excellence in the organization. As the time available to invest in his improvement is restricted, his plan will provide a priority list of what competences he should develop, seeking to mitigate his main gaps. Antonio uses the Personal Assistant (PA) running on his smartphone to access the home interface (see Fig. 2) through his username and password. After the log, he asks information about his gaps (option ‘‘Gaps’’). The PA provides a list of the competences gaps that were not previously stored, but were calculated in real time and sorted by the gap level in descending degree (see Fig. 4a). The first competence is ‘‘English Language’’ with a gap 4 (Fig. 4a, see yellow stars). To each gap, the PA shows the contextualized resources, events and people that can help in the resolution of the gap (Fig. 4a, see left side). Antonio decides to ask which resources and people can help to mitigate his gap in the competence ‘‘English Language’’. DeCom uses the Social Context to identify in the company which contextualized resources and people can help him.’’ 6.2. Employee seeking to evolve in his career (evaluator strongly agree) This scenario focuses on a situation involving an employee interested in progressing in his career, taking positions in the Table 5 Execution of scenario ‘‘Employee seeking to resolve gaps’’. Character

Actions

Antonio (fictitious)

He accesses the Personal Assistant and enters username and password It performs authentication using the Profile Module It sends information about the Physical Context to the Context Module It accesses the Profile Module to fetch Antonio’s preferences It presents the home interface (Fig. 2) with the options available for Antonio It checks for new messages for Antonio and shows a notification icon if needed. It begins to check every 1 minute It sends location information to the Context Module if the ‘‘Use GPS’’ preference has been enabled (available in the Preference Category Profile Module). It begins to check every 1 minute He requests information about his gaps It accesses the Context Module and requests information about Antonio’s Competence Context. The module calculates the gaps and provides a list containing the competence gaps (Fig. 4a) It displays information about the competence gaps ordered by the gap value, in decreasing order, showing information about existing people, resources and events available next to each gap (Fig. 4a). The first competence displayed in the list is ‘‘English Language’’ with a gap of four and a notification showing that there are resources and people with this expertise developed within the Location Context He requests information to the PA about the people and resources that can support the development of this competence It fetches information about people and resources (Social Context) accessing the Context Module and displays this information for Antonio

Personal assistant (PA) PA PA PA PA

PA

Antonio PA

PA

Antonio

PA

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company that require higher qualification. In the scenario DeCom acted providing the employee information on his competences and gaps for all positions mapped in the company, so that he could realize which positions could be achieved more easily, considering the competences he already has and those that need further development. It supports his choice of which competences should be developed first. Table 6 shows the execution flow of this scenario using de prototype. ’’Matheus is a developer in the DevERP Company. He wants a plan to competences development that contemplates actions to meet not only his current needs, but also that considers future challenges, preparing him to take on responsibilities relating to other positions within the company. He would like to progress in his career. Matheus uses his smartphone to access the home interface (Fig. 2). After, he decides to perform a simulation (option Simulation) to obtain information about which gaps would have if he had another position within the organization. The PA displays a list of positions and gaps ordered by the gap of each position in ascending order, thus showing the positions for which the worker is more prepared first (see Fig. 4b). The first position in the list is that Matheus currently holds with a very small gap, only seven. The second position is the Business Analyst, with level seventeen. For detail the competences he need to develop to the second position, Matheus decides to request the PA information on the competences needed to perform the job and his level of development in each of them (see right side of Fig. 4b). The information displays (in a similar way as shown Fig. 3) what competences he has yet to develop, and also which are more lag considering the difference between the level he has today and what he needs to develop for the selected position. After carefully reviewing the information on the competences of the current position and the desired position, Matheus chooses to develop the first two competences that are listed as gaps in both positions: ‘‘Learning’’ and ‘‘Organizational structure of the company’’ (see Fig. 3b). With that he will solve his current gaps and get closer to the desired position. So, he goes to the PA’s Gaps option (Fig. 4a shows this option to the previous scenario) and uses the recommendation of contextualized persons and resources (Social Context) and events (Temporal Context) to start the development of the targeted competences.

Table 6 Execution of scenario ‘‘Employee seeking to evolve in his career’’. Character

Actions

Matheus (fictitious) and PA

He asks a simulation (option Simulation) to get information about the competences gaps he would have if he had other position in the company It accesses the Competence Module to get the positions list and the gap Matheus would have to each position. It shows the list (Fig. 4b) He reads the list and asks the PA to get information about the competences needed to hold the new position and his level of development in each of them It accesses the Competence Module to get the information asked by Matheus and shows the list (in a similar way as shown in Fig. 3) He considers the information and chooses to develop the first two which he knows are needed to both positions (current and desired), namely, Learning and Organizational structure of the company. He goes to Gaps option to get help to develop these competences

Matheus

PA

Matheus

PA

Matheus

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6.3. Changing the competences for a job position (evaluator strongly agree) The last scenario considers a methodology that can be adopted to stimulate the qualification of employees in the Corporate Education [37]. The improvement of a competence level needed to a position is automatically communicated to employees and DeCom can be used to help them to solve possible gaps. Table 7 shows the execution of this scenario using the prototype and highlighting the participation of its components. ‘‘The DevERP Company conducted a reassessment in the competences needed to hold the position of Project Manager and decided to add the need to have the competence Proactivity in level 5. Ricardo is responsible for the human resources sector. He performs the change in the position need using the Administrative Site. Luciano is a Project Manager. He receives a warning in his Personal Assistant informing the change in the competences needed to his position. He decides to see his competences gaps (option ‘‘Gaps’’). The PA displays the list of gaps sorted by level in decreasing degree (as shown in Fig. 4a to the scenario 1). The competence ‘‘Proactivity’’ topped the list, featuring gap 4. Considering this lag, Luciano immediately looks for options to improve this competence. He can do this using the list of persons, resources and events available in the Gaps option (as shown in Fig. 4a, left side, to scenario 1).’’ 6.4. DeCom acceptance evaluation A second test evaluated the acceptance of DeCom. The test involved 21 volunteers who, after using the prototype, answered a questionnaire. A diverse profile of participants was sought, including people from various areas and professional levels, from human resources managers and company managers to IT professionals, professors and students. Table 7 Execution of scenario ‘‘Changing the competences for a job position’’. Character

Actions

Ricardo

He uses the Administrative Site to access the Competence Module. He accesses the Project Manager position information and changes the ProficiencyLevel of competence Proactivity to 5 It realizes the change, identifies who should be notified and sends for each employee identified a message to the Relationship Agent It receives the new message and verifies the preferences of each employee through the Profile Module. Considering the employees’ preferences, it sends messages to them. For example, the agent considers the period of the day or preferred media to receive messages (Personal Assistant or e-mail) It receives the new message and shows it in the notification icon He receives the notification and asks the PA to see the message (Fig. 2, option ‘‘Post’’) It presents the message and deletes the notification after Luciano read it He asks the PA to see his gaps (Fig. 2, option ‘‘Gaps’’) It accesses the Context Module and asks information about Luciano’s competences (Competence Context). The module calculates the gaps and provides a list with them. For each gap, the module informs the contextualized resources, events and persons that can help to fill it It presents the information about the gaps with information about how the employee can solve them. The first in the list is Proactivity with a gap 4 He uses the information about possible resources, events and persons to start the improvement of his competence of Proactivity

Competences agent

Relationship agent

Luciano’s PA Luciano Luciano’s PA Luciano Luciano’s PA

Luciano’s PA

Luciano

The participants used the Personal Assistant, testing a proposed scenario. After, they answered a questionnaire (composed of seven questions) about their experience using DeCom. The questions had a five-point Likert scale [34], namely, Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Indifferent, Agree and Strongly Agree. The questionnaire items were developed based on the concepts of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) proposed by Davis [35] and expanded by Yoon and Kim [36] in their study on the acceptance of wireless networks. The TAM model considers two main factors for the acceptance of a new technology: (1) the degree to which users believe the technology could reduce their effort (Perceived ease of use); (2) the degree to which users believe the technology could improve their performance (Perceived usefulness). The questionnaire had 3 statements to evaluate perceived ease of use and 4 to evaluated perceived usefulness. The results related to the perceived ease of use show that 89% of participants Agreed or Strongly Agreed with the statements. These data indicate that, for most testers, it was easy to use the Personal Assistant to obtain information on competence gaps, persons, events and resources. The results related to the perceived usefulness show that 96% of participants considered that DeCom would be useful (Agreed or Strongly Agreed), to help them to improve their performance by facilitating the identification and understanding of their competence development needs. 7. Conclusions This article introduced the specification, implementation and evaluation of a model for context-aware competences management. The research data showed the feasibility of using DeCom in different scenarios and confirmed that it can support the development of competences, using context-based information. Recalling the characteristics of the four related models discussed in Section 2, the use of the proficiency level was found only in MCGA. Moreover, HRCSystem was the only work that considered that competences could have degrees of importance (weights), allowing differentiation between non-essential competences and essential competences. MASEL and MCSWILK stand out by considering, in an integrated way, employees’ profiles and resources surrounding them. DeCom takes into account proficiency levels, gaps, weights, competences, profiles, location, events and resources for managing the development of competences. Thus, the proposed model encompasses all the criteria assessed in the previous literature. Moreover, DeCom is the only model among them that considers the users’ mobility through the treatment of Location Context. DeCom is an evolving model. Therefore, the following future research issues have been identified: (1) allowing users to manage a deadline by which a competence must be developed, (2) adding a feature to enable the identification of the most qualified employee to fill a position, (3) allowing alternatives of employee groups to be identified for the execution of projects, (4) adopting an Ontology [18,20] to classify competences, (5) expanding the evaluation, testing or applying DeCom to competence-based management in other companies, focusing especially on Corporate Education [37]. References [1] C.K. Prahalad, G. Hamel, The core competence of the corporation, Harvard Business Review 68 (May–June (3)) (1990) 79–91. [2] R. Lindgren, O. Henfridsson, U. Schultze, Design principles for competence management systems: a synthesis of an action research study, MIS Quarterly 28 (3) (2004) 435–472. [3] S. Colucci, E. Tinelli, E. Sciascio, F.M. Di Donini, Automating competence management through non-standard reasoning, Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 24 (8) (2011) 1368–1384, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.engappai.2011.05.015. [4] B. Malachowski, Competence-based management of knowledge workers in project-oriented organizations, in: Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Knowledge Science, Engineering and Management (KSEM), vol. 7091,

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[33] L. Padgham, M. Winikoff, Prometheus: a methodology for developing intelligent agents, in: Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS), ACM Press, Bologna, Italy, 2002, pp. 37– 38, http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/544741.544749. [34] R. Likert, A technique for the measurement of attitudes, Archives of Psychology 22 (140) (1932) 1–55. [35] F. Davis, Perceived usefulness perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology, MIS Quarterly 13 (3) (1989) 319–340, http://dx.doi.org/ 10.2307/249008. [36] C. Yoon, S. Kim, Convenience TAM in a ubiquitous computing environment: the case of wireless LAN, Electronic Commerce: Research and Applications 6 (1) (2007) 102–112, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.elerap.2006.06.009. [37] N.R. Albuquerque, M.M.M.R. Vellasco, J. Mun, Housel, J. Thomas, Human Capital valuation and return of investment on corporate education, Expert Systems with Applications 39 (15) (2013) 11934–11943, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2012.03.002. Jorge Luis Victo´ria Barbosa received the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 1996 and 2002, respectively. He is currently a Full Professor of the Applied Computing Graduate Program at the University of Vale do Rio dos Sinos (UNISINOS), Sa˜o Leopoldo, Brazil. Additionally, he is a researcher of productivity at CNPq/Brazil and the head of the Mobile Computing Laboratory (MobiLab/UNISINOS). His research interests include mobile and ubiquitous computing, ubiquitous learning, competence management and ubiquitous accessibility. He is a member of the Brazilian Computer Society (SBC).

Marcos Ricardo Kich received the M.Sc. degree in the Applied Computing Graduate Program at the University of Vale do Rio dos Sinos (UNISINOS), Sa˜o Leopoldo, Brazil, in 2010. He researches the application of ubiquitous computing to support competence management at the Mobile Computing Laboratory (MobiLab/ UNISINOS). He is also a tutor in UNISINOS and a professor of Computer Networking in the Evangelical Institute of Novo Hamburgo. His research interests include mobile and ubiquitous computing and competence management.

De´bora Nice Ferrari Barbosa received the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, in 2001 and 2007, respectively. Nowadays, she is a professor and researcher at the FEEVALE University, Novo Hamburgo, Brazil. Additionally, she is a researcher of productivity at CNPq (the Brazilian Council for Scientific and Technological Development). Her research interests include ubiquitous learning systems, distributed computing, multi-agent systems and artificial intelligence. She is a member of the Brazilian Computer Society (SBC).

Amarolinda Zanela Klein received the Ph.D. in Business Administration from the University of Sa˜o Paulo (USP), Brazil. She is a researcher and professor in Management and Information Systems at UNISINOS (University of Vale do Rio dos Sinos) Business School, Sa˜o Leopoldo, Brazil. Her research interests include mobile and ubiquitous learning, competence management and corporate education.

Sandro Jose´ Rigo received the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 1993 and 2008, respectively. He is currently a Professor of the Applied Computing Graduate Program at the University of Vale do Rio dos Sinos (UNISINOS), Sa˜o Leopoldo, Brazil. Additionally, he is a Researcher of productivity at CNPq/ Brazil. His research interests include mobile and ubiquitous computing, ubiquitous learning, natural language processing and semantic web. He is a member of the Brazilian Computer Society (SBC).