CROSS SKILL: computer-assisted self-assessment made in Luxembourg

Published on 03/08/2016

The Focal Scan research project "Self-assessment of skills in line with professional requirements" led by the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) is reaching completion, an opportunity to look back to the beginning but also to present you its results as well as the project impact.

In an ever increasingly competitive market environment, how can businesses, institutions or any entity assess the skills of one of its employees, colleagues or future colleagues? In an age of mobile careers where people will experience several employers in their professional lives, the use of tools which enable your skills or the skills of a third party to be easily assessed at a low cost may pay dividends.

CROSS SKILL - automatically generated skill assessment

The main result of the Focal SCAN project, which highlights not only the efforts made by our researchers but also our partners, is none other than CROSS SKILL, an innovative skill assessment tool. CROSS SKILL is a tool which allows each individual to assess their skills in line with professional requirements, independently, from a website. We are talking here about computer-assisted self-assessment of skills.

To this end, the experience of our LIST experts has helped to develop software which enables skill assessment to be carried out more effectively. CROSS SKILL was created from work on different prototypes and has been tested more than 1,000 times on over 1,600 people from different professions (in mechanics, banking, engineering, the army, and even on job seekers) and countries. What are its advantages?

CROSS SKILL assessments are not formal knowledge tests. They are easy to create and quicker to take, and therefore more economical.
The assessments are automatically generated: they take a few seconds to create and take; this is why any change to a job description can be almost automatically reflected by CROSS SKILL. It is the only tool to automatically generate assessments based on job descriptions specific to the company's vocabulary.
Lastly, if the results are compared with the tools available on the market, Cross Skill has up to 7 times greater accuracy (accuracy here means more accurate inter-assessor agreement).

CROSS SKILL is therefore a versatile tool enabling all types of skills to be assessed (technical, behavioural, know-how, soft skills, etc.). It also allows for a 360 degree assessment and functions with any type of medium or browser.

Feedback on Focal Scan and focus on the future

Focal Scan is a project lasting two years and will be completed at the end of July 2016. Led by a multi-disciplinary team comprising IT experts and psychologists, it also benefits from the psychology research into assessment undertaken by Dr Alexandre Baudet, a researcher in our department IT for Innovative Services department (ITIS). The objectives were to validate a computer-assisted self-assessment tool, i.e. to check and confirm the initial positive results stemming from Alexandre Baudet's thesis, and subsequently reflect on the development of this tool. Objectives met!

New reflection is therefore in progress with a view to continuing its use and promoting its transfer to the market. In fact, the latest version of the CROSS SKILL prototype is being finalised and can be already used to meet service needs. With this in mind, the CROSS SKILL trademark has been filed, as well as a patent application; the first results shall be conveyed during August 2016.

This project has been realised to a 100% by public research in Luxembourg. In terms of impact, it is in line with LIST's mission as a research and technology organisation, namely to develop advanced technologies and offer the economy and society innovative products and services. In this respect, CROSS SKILL might, in particular, assist ADEM National Employment Administration job seekers and more generally, for a private organisation, its use may assist any business interested in skill assessment, since this is a generic tool that anyone can use.