Professional profiles: what is a professional profile, and what is the difference
with a job description? What are the levels for a professional profile?
What about tasks and responsibilities, as these are implied in legislation,
professional standards and ethics? What level of abstraction and detail should
be taken into account?
Competency profiles: from the analysis of the case studies, this section
will present the common points, differences etc., and serve as a reading
tool for the user to understand the different examples in the annexes. It
will therefore give a definition of competency and competency profile, and
include the background of professionals. It will also consider competencies
for professional qualification, and competencies for further development,
and think of the context in which the competency model has to fit into (e.g.
making use of organisational competencies manuals, legislation, laws and
by-law, regulations...). The vocabulary used in the examples will be studied
and presented. What makes the profession unique? An answer will perhaps
be shaped from the comparison of the different models. We will have a
look at what other professions in this field (curators, museums, librarians,
information managers, IT specialists) are doing, to compare or to learn
lessons. Thinking of people who will use the competency model, we will think
about the reader orientation.
Acquisition of competencies: this section will focus on education and
training, mentoring, lifelong learning or continuous professional
development, and on-the-job off-the-job learning. It will study the impact
of education on competencies and vice versa, the role of teachers, mentors
and pedagogic competencies. The education culture and legislation in a
country might be "competency driven": this approach will be explored.
The embedding of archivist programmes in other programmes (history,
information management, library studies, culture studies, media studies,
and their interdependence is also a topic to be tackled in this section as well
as accreditation of educational programmes.
The "assessment of competencies" section will deal with certification and
registration. We will ask who is doing the certification (assessment), and
try to define which kind of indicators show that a candidate masters the
competencies described in the competency model. The situations of "staff-
review", "peer-review" and self-assessment will be developed.
Communication, and review of the model over the time: the issue will be
handled in two phases. During the process it will deal with information
to stakeholders, commissioning bodies, future users. After the process, we
will consider the dissemination of the outcome. A communication plan
will have to be developed, taking into account the audience, the means
of communication, and the format of the messages. Dissemination on
the internet, using the web 2.0 (user feedback) will contribute to the
maintenance, systematic revision and updating of the model. The phase of
acceptance and endorsement by stakeholders significantly contributing to
anchor the product will also be studied in this section.
Besides the manual will propose annexes, such as glossary terminology (non
archival terms for archivists and vice versa), case studies, a bibliography, the code
CHRISTINE MARTINEZ WHEN CHRISTINE MEETS HANS OR AM I A COMPETENT ARCHIVIST?
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