OaSIS Update

[Francois Paradis]

Many of you by now are aware that ESDC released OaSIS in November 2022, under the NOC 2021 framework and which organizes over 900 occupations by skills, abilities, personal attributes, knowledge and interests. The CAVEWAS board of directors has been in touch with ESDC to discuss some concerns we have with OaSIS’ content. The following issues were outlined in a letter submitted to ESDC last month:

1. There is a lack of description for the scales used in OaSIS and what the levels actually mean (i.e. importance scale, proficiency/complexity scale, frequency scale, duration scale). There are no criteria provided to understand the ratings. We understand that ESDC has been relying on a Canadian Ratings Guide but there is no indication as to when this will be made available.
2. OaSIS does not provide a description of the traits utilized (i.e. abilities, skills).
3. OaSIS does not provide examples of job specific tasks for abilities, as opposed to the CH (see Main Characteristics under Aptitudes section).
4. Ratings for physical demands should be quantitative (i.e. amount of weight, duration and frequency) instead of qualitative (i.e. low, highest level), to accurately and objectively compare a person’s capacities to occupational requirements.
5. There are no tests available to measure most of OaSIS traits, with the exception of interests (Holland codes). VR professionals were able to use aptitude tests and compare results with aptitude profiles in the CH. This is not possible with OaSIS.
6. There is a loss of data specificity between the essential skills profiles (ESP) and OaSIS. The ESP provided job-specific examples of tasks for each rating, whereas OaSIS only provide a rating.
7. The scale used to rate ESP literacy/numeracy skills was based on the Canadian Language Benchmark framework, which allowed skills to be measured by tests such as the TOWES (http://www.towes.com/en/home/home) or the OECD’s Survey of Adult Skills (https://www.oecd.org/skills/piaac/onlineassessmment/). OaSIS is using a different scale and there are no test instruments available.
8. Some of the physical demands are overly aggregated (i.e. walking and running). Combining activities that are very different in nature will reduce data usefulness.
9. CH data will remain an important source of information in vocational rehabilitation (at least until there are tests available for OaSIS traits) and should be updated to NOC 2021 codes to facilitate the use and comparison of CH and OaSIS data. There is already a concordance table for NOC 2016 to 2021 at the unit level (4 digits): https://noc.esdc.gc.ca/Versions/ConcordanceTables, which should facilitate the update. CH Sub-unit codes should
be assigned NOC 2021 codes as well.

In sum, we pointed out that a lack of clarity, data specificity and a lack of available testing instruments will make it more difficult for VR professionals to render dependable and reliable services to people with disabilities, which represent a significant segment of the Canadian working population.

CAVEWAS had a meeting with ESDC on April 13, 2023 to discuss the above concerns and how they can be best addressed. I am pleased to say the meeting went very well and that ESDC is taking our feedback to heart. All of the above issues were reviewed, some of which will be resolved in the coming months. ESDC intends to release within the next few months a draft of its Canadian Ratings Guide, which was used to assign occupational ratings in OaSIS. They also plan on expanding the occupational descriptors to include examples of tasks for each ratings, which should help better understand their meaning. ESDC also plans on adding quantitative data for physical demands of occupations (i.e. amount of weight, duration, frequency), which will be important to match occupations with the capacities of our clients.

I expect that these updates will come gradually over the next year and rest assured that CAVEWAS will continue collaborating with ESDC to ensure OaSIS is optimized for vocational rehabilitation purposes.

You will have an opportunity to ask your questions directly to ESDC presenters at our Victoria conference day on May 30, 2023!

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