The 9th OJA Forum took place on May 13 – a well-established online format that once again brought together international experts in the field of online job advertisement (OJA) analysis. The event was jointly organized for the ninth time by the Bertelsmann Stiftung and the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB). 

International Expertise in Dialogue 

The forum brought together a wide range of experts: In addition to representatives from political institutions such as the European Commission, researchers from universities and research institutions – including from Austria, Spain, and Denmark – also took part. Major data providers in the field of online job advertisements were represented, as were renowned German research organizations. The OJA Forum offered participants the opportunity to exchange insights on the current state of research, develop innovative ideas through discussion, and establish new contacts. 

Video Blog Series Featuring Talks from the OJA Forum 

Topics at the 9th OJA Forum included the further development of existing taxonomies. Taxonomies are systematic classification systems used to organize information according to specific criteria – for example, to classify occupations, skills, or qualifications. Another key topic was how to link training content with labor market requirements. In this video blog series, the presentations will be published one after the other. The first presentation is by Claudia Plaimauer from the 3s Unternehmensberatung, titled “What to add, and what not to add – that is the question!“ 

What to add, and what not to add – that is the question! 

The decision whether, and how, terms found in OJAs should be added to existing skills taxonomies depends on several fundamental factors, such as the usage context of the taxonomy, the information policy being pursued, and the available technical possibilities. It also needs to be considered that curated vocabularies (like taxonomies) and natural language (as it appears in OJAs) pursue different objectives. Furthermore, OJAs are addressed to a specialist audience (potential applicants) and therefore do not have to be generally intelligible. The role of the taxonomy manager is to review at least the more frequently occurring terms that seem to be missing, and to interpret, organize and structure these in view of the above-mentioned factors, content related necessities, as well as taxonomy conventions. The presentation will illustrate this decision-making process with examples taken from ESCO and the Austrian PES’ Competences taxonomy.