In Oct 2010 I had this concept of an IT related skills quiz, community constructed and community graded.
Conversations with others in the field led me to register a domain (ibise.org) and create a prototype of the system.
The grand scheme was to create some type of community regulated certification system.
Progress was(is?) slow.
By 2012: I’d told a few people; created code to handle various question types (pick one, pick many, fill-in and essay) and created a few questions.
The breadth of skills represented was small.
The name had changed to Opus, and now Ars.
It’s hard, very hard, to grow a project when it’s not able to get more than 10% of your time.
I wanted this thing; however I had no time to grow it.
Nor did I feel like spending a few buck to have it populated with questions, polished and published.
Over time the idea morphed around; what was the real issue I’m solving.
What did/does/are/were the problems which others in my field faced with regards to representing skill-set?
The name changed, more than once (Opus, then finally Ars I/O) which makes it hard to get a good bond with the project.
Time to Let it Go
Recently I came across Smarterer which provides for very similar quiz functionality (limited to pick-one style questions).
And the Ars project (as it’s now called) had migrated away from the focus on the Skills quiz and become yet another on-line profile.
I think we have to let-go of the Quiz part and simply integrate with Smarterer.
I had/have some "my baby" feelings about what I’ve built so far, so it’s tough.
However…
From the feedback the my associates gave me the site had morphed into a system that pulls your IT profile from a bunch of sites and makes a pretty display.
From fancy Quiz system to simple Resume Editor.
So, yes, now Ars integrates with Smarterer.
And, of course Stack Exchange is getting into the Resume business with their Careers 2.0 option, which is suprisingly like Ars.
I’ll either have to give more time to Ars to compete with Stack Exchange, or I’ll have to let this thing it’s morphed into go too.