Ohio State University gets support from Glenn College

In Ohio, what are the job prospects for people who access state training services after losing their jobs through no fault of their own? How does community college or the Jobs for Veterans State Grant benefit people who complete those programs?

Ohio’s new Career Resource Navigator, created with expertise and work from researchers at the Ohio Education Research Center at the John Glenn College of Public Affairs, provides job seekers, students, career counselors and others with answers to questions such as these related to the state’s post-secondary education and career training programs.

The Career Resource Navigator helps Ohioans explore the education and training resources available to help them navigate their career journey. For example:

Job seekers can identify education and training programs that have the highest employment and earning outcomes for people like them.
Current and future students can use the tool to identify how their earnings may change over time.
People in jobs that help others overcome barriers to employment can add the navigator to their toolbox as a resource to easily provide their clients with education and career guidance.
Users of the Career Resource Navigator start by answering customized questions to learn about available education and career training resources and find links to connect with them. Then they can explore facets of those programs, including the resulting hiring success, earnings and top industries.

For example, someone age 25 or older who does not need to improve basic skills to find employment and does not have a disability could explore the employment outcomes for participants of the Dislocated Workers Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act program, which provides services to improve skills and credentials to secure and advance employment for workers who have lost their job through no fault of their own.

Someone who is younger than 25, needs basic skills to find employment and has a disability that is a barrier to employment can learn ways programs such as Vocational Rehabilitation and the Comprehensive Case Management and Employment Program could benefit their job search.

The site also includes links to other dashboards and websites where users can access more resources for career, training and education pathways. The resources include additional data dashboards created and maintained by the Ohio Education Research Center, including the:

Ohio Employment Projections tool, where users can explore the employment outlook for various industries.
Ohio Workforce Supply tool, where users can find education and training programs and providers related to the type of job that suits their interests.
Ohio Higher Education Outcomes Dashboard, where users can view employment and earnings by institution and degree program for college graduates in Ohio.
A team of researchers from the Ohio Education Research Center and the CHRR (founded in 1965 as the Center for Human Resource Research) worked to design the Career Resource Navigator with OhioAnalytics, a partnership of the Governor’s Office of Workforce Transformation, Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, Ohio Department of Higher Education, Ohio Department of Education, Opportunities for Ohioans with Disabilities and Ohio Housing Finance Agency. The agencies contribute data to the Ohio Longitudinal Data Archive, a powerful resource comprising de-identified administrative records that have been optimized for state agency-approved research and analytic projects. It offers researchers a unique opportunity to analyze the education, work and training experiences of Ohioans over time.

“We bring the expertise in terms of creating dashboards, linking up data and developing metrics and measurements,” said Erin Joyce, associate director of the Ohio Education Research Center. “Our staff members have been working with the Ohio Longitudinal Data Archive data sets for more than 10 years.

“We have tremendous expertise and knowledge of the data sets, how they work together and what you can do with them,” Joyce said. “We bring in state administrative records and turn them into a data archive. We can look longitudinally over time and across different programs administered by different agencies. We break down a lot of those silos and create insights for policy leaders, program administrators and residents of our state.”