The Biotechnology Project: Skill Standard Projects

What Is “Basic” In Biotechnology Workplaces?

Projects To Define Required Skill Sets

Basic skills are the ones that students need to master first, as they prepare for a biotechnology career. “Basic” means “fundamental” and should not be confused with the words “simple” or “easy”. What are the techniques and concepts that are fundamental to diverse biotechnology workplaces? While there is no single answer to this complicated question, there have been projects that have addressed it.

Between 1992 and 1995, the U.S. Departments of Education and Labor provided grants to develop national, industry based skill standards for more than 20 industries in the United States. The purpose of skill standards is to help identify what an entry level worker/technician needs to know and needs to be able to do. There were two federal skill standards projects relating to biotechnology that brought together hundreds of biotechnology technicians, supervisors, leaders and educators to analyze the nature of technical work in the biotechnology laboratory and in production settings. The Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC) received a grant to develop skill standards for entry and mid level technical workers in the Bioscience Industry, with a focus on medical bioscience. The FFA Foundation, Inc. (FFA) received a grant to develop skill standards for technical workers in Agricultural Biotechnology. The results of these two biotechnology-related national projects were two books: “Gateway to the Future: Skill Standards for the Bioscience Industry”, and “National Voluntary Occupational Skill Standards: Agricultural Biotechnology Technician”. The Agricultural and Bioscience Skill Standards have been combined into one brief summary document, The Combined EDC/FFA Skill Standards (http://www.bio-link.org/skillstandards.htm and http://www.bio-link.org/EDCskills.htm). If you are unfamiliar with the federal biotechnology skill standards projects, you might want to take a look at the “Brief Historical Introduction” (http://www.bio-link.org/EDCintro.htm) written by Judy Leff of the EDC.

In addition to these federally-funded projects, there have been state-funded biotechnology skill standards projects, for example, “The Austin Competency Analysis Profile” and the “State of Washington Biotechnology/Biomedical Skill Standards” (links to both are at http://www.bio-link.org/skillstandards.htm). Also, many colleges obtain input from their local employers and organize them into documents to guide the development of their biotechnology programs. Sometimes these documents are called DACUMs (short for "D evelop A Cu rriculu m"). Rochester Institute of Technology conducted an independent survey of employer needs in biotechnology that contains useful guidance (http://www.cbet.org/survey.html).

Skill standards and other types of work profiles provide a valuable resource to guide the planning and implementation of biotechnology courses and programs. These formal career analyses can be used to develop cohesive, effective instructional programs so that students are well-prepared for biotechnology careers. Skill standards also provide a common vocabulary and a basis for conversation among educators and industry representatives.

Sometimes skill standard documents indicate a significant gap between what is taught in traditional academic college courses, and what students need to know and be able to do when they begin working. For example, in many college science courses students are only briefly taught about laboratory safety as the introduction to a first laboratory activity. However, skills and knowledge relating to safety have been identified as essential in all laboratory skill standards projects. Therefore, safety probably warrants a more thoughtful and a more comprehensive presentation than it often gets. Similarly, biotechnology skill standard documents identify the importance of making solutions, reagents, and growth media. However, many college students only learn about this topic when it is briefly covered in freshmen chemistry.

While skill standards are valuable documents, they must be transformed by educators into meaningful instruction. The first step in this transformation involves selection. This is because the skill standards documents encompass a formidable array of skills and knowledge, more that a single student could master in a college program. It is the task of each biotechnology program to select the skills and knowledge they will teach and to organize them into coherent modules, courses and programs. Different programs make different choices because they reflect the needs of their own communities, institutions, and students. Most biotechnology programs teach communication, safety, and basic laboratory skills, the first three categories in both the EDC/FFA Combined Skill Standards and the Austin Competency Analysis Profile . These three basic areas are essential in almost any laboratory setting and are generally relevant to biotechnology production also. More specialized topics, such as bioprocessing or nucleic acid technologies, may be emphasized in one program and not another. For example, in some communities there are few biotechnology companies that make a product, but there are academic research laboratories. A biotechnology program in this community might emphasize such things as laboratory skills, research techniques, and molecular biology methodologies. In contrast, in a community that has many large biotechnology companies, students might learn cleanroom techniques, operation of large volume bioreactors, and large scale bioprocessing.

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