The National Security Agency (NSA) has launched SkillTree, an internally-developed open source solution for gamifying user training. SkillTree is claimed to provide a systematic and interactive way to promote user proficiency of an existing application.

The service is “based on industry best practices” using gamification to provide awareness of tool features, promote best practices, and document user progression and expertise.

By reducing an application’s training curve, SkillTree is claimed to reduce traditional comprehensive training costs while providing a more enjoyable experience for the user.

The SkillTree platform combines three major components to enable a more engaging user experience. These include Dashboard and services, Display libraries and Skill event reporting libraries.

While Dashboard and services offer simplified management through centralized web-based user interface and data API service, Display libraries provide pluggable user skill and ranking visualization and customization across tools.

Further, Skill event reporting libraries enable easy integration into an application by reporting skill events to the centralized service.

NSA initially developed the SkillTree platform to improve how users across the Agency interacted with in-house complex applications.

SkillTree is currently available as open source software.