External scrutiny · being formed
External advisory group and standards alignment
SkillSignature is forming an independent advisory group to scrutinise how skills are assessed and credentials issued. No members have been appointed yet. Members will be named here only after they agree to be listed. Referencing a standard on this page does not mean SkillSignature is certified, accredited or endorsed by any standards body or employer.
Seats and appointment criteria
Assessment scientists (2)
Criteria: Postgraduate training in psychometrics, educational measurement or industrial-organisational psychology; published or audited work on validity, reliability or standard setting.
Remit: Review competency frameworks, pass-mark setting, reliability and bias analyses before any validation report is marked complete.
Senior practitioners (2–3)
Criteria: 8+ years' paid experience in a skill area SkillSignature assesses, including hiring or reviewing others' work.
Remit: Check that tasks and rubrics reflect real job demands; challenge unrealistic or outdated content.
Employers (2–3)
Criteria: People who hire for roles covered by SkillSignature skills, from organisations of different sizes and regions.
Remit: Say whether reports are useful for hiring decisions; take part in pilots measuring outcomes.
Credentialing specialist (1)
Criteria: Experience with certification-body operation, accreditation (e.g. ISO/IEC 17024) or digital-credential standards.
Remit: Assess governance, impartiality and credential lifecycle against recognised standards; advise whether formal accreditation is appropriate.
Independence rules
- Members declare conflicts of interest on appointment and yearly; declarations are summarised here.
- Members do not review cases of candidates they know, and are not paid per credential issued.
- The group's recommendations and SkillSignature's responses are published, including where advice is not adopted and why.
- Members may publish dissenting views.
- Membership does not imply the member's employer endorses SkillSignature.
Standards mapping (self-assessed)
Benchmarks used to find gaps. None of these is a certification held by SkillSignature.
ISO/IEC 17024 — certification of persons
Covers: Impartiality, scheme ownership, examiner competence, appeals, certificate lifecycle
Status: Internal self-mapping only. Gaps: no independent scheme committee, no impartiality committee, no accreditation-body assessment.
ISO 10667-1/-2 — assessment service delivery
Covers: Client agreements, assessor competence, candidate information and feedback
Status: Internal self-mapping only. Gaps: formal client agreement template, documented assessor competence records.
AERA/APA/NCME Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing
Covers: Validity evidence, reliability, fairness, score reporting
Status: Validation reports published as drafts; no measured results yet (fewer than 30 candidates per skill).
1EdTech Open Badges 3.0 / W3C VC 2.0
Covers: Portable signed credentials, status checking
Status: Implemented; not yet conformance-tested or certified by 1EdTech.
WCAG 2.2 AA
Covers: Accessible assessment and public pages
Status: Automated test on public pages passed; manual and independent audit outstanding.
Route to independent review
- Appoint the advisory group and publish its terms of reference.
- Group reviews the methodology, validation reports and this mapping; findings published.
- Run employer pilots and publish measured outcomes on case studies.
- Commission an independent external review of the assessment methodology.
- Only if the review supports it, approach an accreditation body (for example for ISO/IEC 17024). Accreditation will be shown only once granted, with its scope.
Employer acceptance is shown only as named, permitted statements from real employers. None are published yet.
Express interest in joining
Tell us which seat fits you and your relevant experience. We reply within 2 business days.