2 Preparing competence profiles

The COMPASS Method aims at actively involving the mobility participants in the definition of curricula and learning objectives in connection with their work placements abroad.

Ask the applicants or participants to prepare an individual competence profile in the COMPASS Database and to give details regarding their motivation and objectives of their projected stay abroad.

For this purpose, you create a website in the COMPASS Database for each applicant or participant, which they will have to design individually in the form of an E-portfolio. These details will be completed by a competence profile. Via two emails and an attached link sent by you, the mobility participants will get access to a list of “Can Descriptions“ with the help if which they can assess their skills in the various competence fields.

Subsequently, the findings of this self-assessment are visualised in the form of two “Competence Radars“. In line with the information provided on the portfolio site you and the hosting partner will, in due time, be provided with an overview of the individual objectives of the work placement abroad; this will facilitate the agreement of learning objectives and the selection of the appropriate company for the placement.

It is above all for “pool projects“ where participants are selected all over Germany and in which the applicants are not known before, that the COMPASS Method has a clear advantage over the previous methods.

Hands-on recommendations

The additional benefit of the COMPASS Method is the active involvement of the mobility participants into the preparatory process of their work placement. They can keep track of the enhancement of the respective participant portfolio and find out in what way the participants assess their skills in various fields.

Share information in the form of dialogues: send the invitation to generate the E-portfolio and to assess the individual competence profiles in separate emails and give positive feedback. This adds to mutual trust.

To facilitate the email communication, we have stored a number of standard texts in the COMPASS Database.

In the event a participant does not make any entries in the COMPASS Database for a longer period, offer help: sometimes the description of one’s own motivation for the work placement abroad or the preparing of a competence profile is difficult for the applicants. It is true that the COMPASS Method is to promote the location-and time-independent alignment of curricula and learning objectives among the partners, but it cannot take the place of real dialogue situation.