Knowledge Management Techniques for Improving Lifelong Learning and Professional Competences

The intent of this paper is to present a knowledge acquisition and organization methodological approach adopted in a European project regarding the building construction domain and the obtained results. The activity of knowledge formalization is carried out taking inspiration from the Common KADS approach, especially its prescriptions about knowledge acquisition and elicitation, while the modeling process is supported and facilitated by tools made available by PCPACK5, a software package for knowledge organization and management. Such a procedure of knowledge acquisition and organization ‐ carried out together with some reference domain experts ‐ is aimed to capture the interiorized know‐how and the strategic skills gained through years of experience, to make them explicit, to formalize them in a knowledge base and to make them reusable. In our case, the main objective of knowledge extraction is not only capitalization and formalization of tacit knowledge related to processes and activities, but also the description and the subsequent recognition of professional competences and skills. The idea is to support development, valorization and sharing of expertise in a community of practice, in order to make tacit knowledge and competences explicit, attestable and easily reusable, for practice improvement and organizational learning enhancement. To this aim, we experimented with a procedure for knowledge acquisition and organization that aimed at highlighting, validating and recognizing innovative competences, acquired through informal and non‐formal learning paths. It is focused on “green” professional profiles, whose activities have effects on supporting the reduction of energy consumption and the rational use of energy. Their role is completely recognized and consolidated in the domain while the green component of their activity is not always known and attested. These profiles have been selected, subsequent to a survey among the main stakeholders involved in the construction sector, from a list provided by qualification frameworks, which describe them by structuring them according to competence, knowledge and skill, in compliance with the European Qualifications Framework (EQF). The final aim is also to extend and improve qualification frameworks and to delineate the route for designing training paths of lifelong learning, which also take into account the transfer of informal and non‐formal skills.