CaSS vs Open Skills Management Tool (OSMT)

CaSS provides infrastructure for describing and exchanging competencies, evidence of attainment, and related resources. It translates competency data between systems with different structures, using global identifiers and APIs to support sharing. Organizations can use competency and framework alignments to find learning resources such as courses, assessments, books, and games. CaSS can store competency-based profiles, transcripts, badges, and credentials for training, credentialing, and career management. Its tools include a REST JSON-LD API, a JavaScript library for browser and Node.js environments, and adapters for IMS CASE, Open Badges, xAPI, and JSON-LD. Competencies can be imported and exported in common formats as linked data, and API integrations are described for learning management systems and sources such as O*NET. Access controls can be configured to govern who views, accesses, or edits competencies. Deployment options include public or private cloud, a federated architecture, and configurations ranging from lightweight open systems to strong cryptography. The project describes a no-knowledge security architecture in which the server does not access unencrypted private data or user credentials. CaSS is free and open source under Apache 2.0, with code available for hosting an instance.

Open Skills Management Tool (OSMT) helps organizations create and share open libraries of skills for education and hiring. It uses the Rich Skill Descriptor standard, pairing skill statements with metadata such as keywords, occupation codes and alignments. Users can search, write, edit, organize and publish skills and collections, with branded hosting available for skills definitions. OSMT is open source under the Apache 2.0 license and can be self-hosted; it is listed for web, API, Linux, macOS and Windows use. Skills can be batch-imported from CSV, and published skills or collections can be exported in that format. The project supports OAuth2, including Okta and Google, and defines Admin, Curator and Viewer roles with different permissions. Its API supports anonymous searching and UUID filtering for skills. The local Quickstart is intended for evaluation, and its database should be treated as temporary; production deployment can vary by organization. Support is available through the open-source community, GitHub discussion forum, documentation and issue tracker.