The Universitat Oberta de Catalunya has developed a tool based on artificial intelligence capable of analyzing more than five million job offers in Spain and deducing which are the most requested professional skills in the labor market. Thanks to this instrument, those responsible for each university degree and master’s degree have the possibility of adapting the study plan based on the professional skills that are most requested in each sector: “Program directors have the ability to identify within each market occupational profiles, the evolution of vacancies and which profiles are most in demand,” commented Carme Pagès, director of the UOC’s Labor Prospecting and Analysis Unit.
This tool achieves a better relationship between learning and the needs of the labor market. Pagès explains how thanks to this artificial intelligence that is being used, those responsible for each degree also “have the possibility of updating training, offering new offers and renewing some subjects”, always with the objective of adapting everything towards the professional world.
The project is led by Carme Pagès herself together with researcher Federico Christmann, also from the Labor Prospecting and Analysis Unit. With its application, Pagès states that the objective is to be a “pioneer university in access to the job market for students and to ensure that studying at the UOC implies a good perspective and career path.”
Using artificial intelligence, the Lightcast company classifies the text of millions of vacancies published on the main job portals in Spain, based on the ESCO (European Skills, Competences, Qualifications and Occupations) guidelines, a classification carried out by the EU on skills, competences, qualifications and occupations. This procedure already generates a first large database that can be accessed by each UOC program director. Regarding this project, Carme Pagès highlights its ability to “accelerate the process”, in addition to the fact that this is a “living tool”, since it is constantly updated, and warns that “it is not a market study”.
The reports have been prepared for four of the seven UOC degrees: Computer Science, Multimedia and Telecommunications; Arts and Humanities; Psychology and Educational Sciences; and Economics and Business Studies. According to Pagès, the objective is to implement artificial intelligence in these seven degrees, and he confirms that, at the latest, “it will be like this at the end of next year.” Those other three where this tool will end up reaching are the studies of Law and Political Science; Health Sciences; and Information and Communication Sciences.
Regarding this project, Àngels Fitó, rector of the UOC, commented that “universities cannot limit themselves to generating and transmitting knowledge”, and states that this knowledge must serve and be used to promote professional talent.
