In the early 1990's through March, 1994, a consortium of the National Occupational
Information Coordinating Committee (NOICC) and the State Occupational Information
Coordinating Committees (SOICC’s) of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New Jersey worked with
the Institute for Research and Community Service of Indiana University of Pennsylvania
and the Pennsylvania State Data Center to produce the prototype of the Economic
Development and Employer Planning System (EDEPS). The original EDEPS effort identified
many of the core content data elements and concepts still utilized in the system.
However, the initial version of EDEPS did not anticipate the rapid and ubiquitous
development of the web. For instance, EDEPS initially was an application for mainframe
and laptop computers. To up-date and supplement the conceptual insights from the
EDEPS prototype, the present version of EDEPS relies exclusively upon data and examples
from internet websites.
The following individuals and organizations were the key participants in the development
of the first EDEPS prototype:
from the NOICC, Rodney Slack and Jim Woods;
from the Institute for Research and Community Service, Indiana University of Pennsylvania,
Robert Rittle (principal author):
from the Pennsylvania State Data Center, Michael Behney;
from the Pennsylvania SOICC , Fritz Fichtner (consortium coordinator), Carl Thomas,
Peter Cope, and Robert William;
from the Ohio SOICC, Mark Schaff and Keith Ewald;
and from the New Jersey SOICC, Shirley Goetz, Constance Hughes, and Laurence Seidel.
In addition, the new EDEPS subsumes within its files the substance of the earlier
Occupational Supply Demand System (OSDS), which was developed by the National Supply
Demand Consortium with funding support from the U.S. Department of Labor. The National
Supply Demand Consortium members and their organizations follow:
from Georgia State University, Les Janis (Consortium Chair) and Karen Gilbreath;
from the Georgia Department of Labor, Amelia Butts and Ralph Towler;
from the U.S. Department of Labor, Michelyn Burke-Lee, Burt Carlson and Barbara
Derwart;
from the California Employment Development Department, LMI Division, Phil Hardiman
and Akhtar Kahn;
from the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation, Garry Breedlove;
from the Illinois Department of Employment Security, Larry Christison;
from the North Carolina Department of Labor, Sajid Hussain and Karen Sell;
from the North Dakota SOICC, Dan Marrs;
from the Ohio SOICC, Mark Schaff;
from the Oregon Employment Department, Workforce and Economic Research, Brenda Turner;
from the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry, Keith Bailey and Bill Ceriani;
from the West Virginia Bureau of Employment Programs, David Calvert;
and from the Washington State Employment Security Department, Labor Market and Economic
Analysis, Dave Wallace.
The national consortium, led by the Georgia Department of Labor and Georgia State
University, completed its development work on the OSDS on September 30, 2005. The
OSDS website was operational and widely used until 2012. Les Janis retired from
the university in late 2011. Two years afterwards, Les and Mark Schaff began development
work on the new EDEPS.