Sensible Systems, Inc -- A leader in
Automated Support for Responsible Occupational Analysis
For Historical Interest
ONLY!
For current information,
please see: <http://www.icodap.org>
Welcome to the World of CODAP! (The atCODAP Story)
History of CODAP |
Overview of My Thirty Years in Occupational Analysis |
atCODAP - A New Animal with a Broader Mission |
CODAP is an acronym for Comprehensive Occupational Data Analysis Programs - a set of programs originally developed by the Air Force Human Resources Laboratory (AFHRL) from the late 1950's through 1995 here in San Antonio, Texas.
CODAP was the United States Air Force's answer to managing a workforce
in a rapidly changing, high-tech world. Although the term
"CODAP" started out as an acronym for a set of computer programs, the term has
grown to cover operational and research protocols for structuring, collecting, organizing,
and reporting large quantities of detailed occupational data.
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Welcome to CODAP
Representing the Air Force Human Resources Laboratory at the Federal Laboratory Consortium and Technology Exposition in 1979, I was able to talk with local and state governments officials as well as other federal agencies about the shortcomings of the CODAP system. The then current CODAP system (1979) was designed by the military primarily to target a billion-dollar training program and occasionally restructure career ladders when missions, technologies, or staffing levels had to be changed because of external forces. Other applications from modeling assignments to promotion testing were added, but the primary structure remained on the primary target -- large scale training decisions.
Other critiques began to surface.
Frank,
M. S. (1981). The Philadelphia Experience:
A Critique and analysis of the applicability of the Comprehensive
Occupational Data Analysis Programs (CODAP) for civilian personnel management. Draft
Report for The National League of Cities Service Program on Employer-Employee
Relations
Goodison, M. (1980). A summary of 10 cities on-site interviews and a critique of CODAP (Comprehensive Occupational Data Analysis Programs). Report: Center for Occupational and Professional Assessment. Princeton NJ: Educational Testing Service
Levine, E. L., Ash, R. A., Hall, H., &
Sistrunk, F.
(1983). Evaluation of Job Analysis Methods by Experienced Job Analysts. Academy
of Management Journal, 26(2), 339-348.
The most comprehensive assessment came from a review by Levine, E. L., Ash, R. A., Hall H., & Sistrunk, F. (1983) . We at AFHRL reviewed and commented on pre-publication drafts. (This is where I learned some highlighters are opaque to some photocopiers!) The Levine, et al paper rated several OA methods along 11 organizational dimensions and found CODAP and Functional Job Analysis to be the best -- but that no method should be used alone.
The Air Force
was given all of the above information. This was before President Ronald
Reagan's push for technology transfer filtered down to my organization's
operational mindset. AFHRL said it was not in their mission (or funding) to customize
software for external use -- CODAP would be provided only on an
"AS IS" basis just as it stated in our DoD approved release statement.
Unable to garner the internal support needed to
effect a change in CODAP, I transferred out of the
occupational analysis support shop after 9 years (1971-1980) and completely left
civil service about a year later. In 1982 I incorporated Sensible Systems,
Inc. (SSI).
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Welcome to CODAP
atCODAP - A
New Animal with a Broader MissionA commercial ground-up re-design and extension to the CODAP methodology (atCODAP) was undertaken by Sensible Systems Incorporated (SSI) to address all the then know concerns (1985). This new approach was documented and presented into two papers at the 1987 International Occupational Analyst Workshop (IOAW) - "atCODAP: A Definition" and "atCODAP: Federal Power at Municipal Prices" and one at the 1995 IOAW - "atCODAP: A Model for Minimizing Logistical Requirements". These and many other relevant papers may be found online on this web site.
atCODAP was designed to support multi-method analyses. Whereas historical (now called "mainframe" CODAP) CODAP specified the TASK LIST was to be the one and only backbone of an OA, atCODAP permits up to 99 independent lists to serve as a central or collateral focus. One can still survey tasks lists, but one can also, in the same study, survey competencies, or tools, or knowledge, or principles, or functional job areas, or critical incidents. In addition to the diversity of lists, atCODAP no longer assumed that "Relative Time Spent" was the central metric - it was hard-coded into report titles in mainframe CODAP! While you can still use relative time spent, you can also use up to 98 other user-generated rating factors for any given list.
Historically task rating factors have included traditional Air Force factors such as incumbent-provided ratings of "time spent" and expert-provided ratings of task learning difficulty, training emphasis, testing importance for promotion, consequences of inadequate performance, or need for immediate performance. Non-traditional rating scales used for tasks have included: absolute time spent (typically hours/month at the functional area level in UN Projects), importance for successful job performance, and proficiency acquisition timeframe. Other, more appropriate rating scales are used with other lists like competencies, organizational communication lines, job satisfaction, etc. When a factor rating scale is linked to a specific list, it defines the data that will be available for processing in a given study (plus any stand alone items collected such as name, current position, demographics, etc).
Dr. James Sage of the Ohio State
University, Adult and Vocational Education Department (1993)
taught and used atCODAP over a number of years. In 1996, Dr. Sage
conducted an updated study similar to Levine, et al comparing OA
and training methodologies. Both "CODAP" and "atCODAP"
were included as separate systems and the ratings demonstrated why. The
atCODAP system had countered the most negative aspects of the mainframe CODAP
system and retained all its outstanding capabilities from the past. (Sage, 1996)
Clustering, inter-rater reliability, and
calculation/printing/export of "job descriptions" can be performed on
any psychometrically valid list-factor combination. Unfortunately, calculations
can also be made on invalid combinations, but that is why a professional analyst
is a necessary component of any responsible study.
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Welcome to CODAP
Copyright © 1997-2001 Sensible Systems, Inc.
