How do we create a shared understanding of the explicit, implicit, tacit, and procedural knowledge necessary for individual makers to participate in and easily navigate an open, distributed manufacturing ecosystem?
The IOP has been working to establish five families of open data standards that form the open digital infrastructures needed for the foundations of an open, distributed manufacturing Ecosystem; together, these five families of standards cover the essential ingredients needed to make anything: Designs & Documentation; Machines, Tools & Facilities; People & Skills; Materials & Components; and
Contracts & Business Models.
Earlier this year, the IoPA talked with mAkE project lead Jessica Nguema and Research and Community Engagement Lead Sarah Hutton about the future of decentralized production and the development of a People and Skills Specification in support of creating a Digital Maker Passport.
Following extensive community research, we are pleased to announce that the beta release of the People and Skills Data Specification (PSS) is now open and available for review:
People and Skills Specification: BETA Release (on PubPub open publishing platform)
Assertions and the framework for PSS BETA were developed based on the following community research activities: Extensive desk research; 25 semi-structured interviews with global maker community members, focusing on passport program developers/leads; and 96 survey responses from global maker community members, focusing on makerspace leaders and targeted questions regarding nomadic maker practices, preferences, and the utility of a maker passport.
Next Steps: PSS Working Group and Community Feedback
We are now kicking off a PSS Working Group to review the beta release.This group will review the BETA release and provide recommendations to advance its development for a release of v1.0 in June. Members of this small team include representation from FabAccess, Berlin University of Applied Sciences, OpenWorks, Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences, and Helpful Engineering.
This work will also incorporate recommendations from the mAkE project review team that has provided feedback on the research methodology, data analysis, and specification output(s) as they apply to the immediate use case of providing a mutual recognition standard for a digital maker passport.
Here is how you can contribute
We will be incorporating preliminary feedback from IoPA community members, once v1.0 is released. Keep an eye on the People and Skills channel on our community forum for invitations to contribute to the conversation!If you are interested in collaborating on this work and/or have any other questions, we encourage you to get in touch with us.
