Glossary

Plain-language definitions for the acronyms and scores used throughout MVQS. Open MVQS Online →

Vocational Quotient(VQ)

A single number that summarises how employable a person is relative to the general workforce — higher means broader employability. It is a weighted sum of 24 worker-trait dimensions (11 aptitudes, 6 physical demands, 7 environmental conditions) using the McCroskey formula ported from the legacy system.

Transferable Skills Profile(TSP)

How much of a person's prior work skills carry over to a candidate job, as a percentage (0–100 %). It compares DOT and O*NET code prefixes and industry crosswalks between the work history and the target job; a job whose VQ is below 85 earns credit from shared crosswalk codes alone (at most 14 % on a case built under the desktop MVQS rules, up to 17.1 % on a case not yet rebuilt), never from the code prefixes. Shown as 'TS %' on the job-match reports.

Earning Capacity Loss Ratio(ECLR)

The evaluee's estimated hourly earnings at six points (mean, 10th, 25th, median, 75th and 90th percentile), derived from their Vocational Quotient and scaled by the inflation factor and the regional wage factor set on Intake. Comparing pre- and post-injury ECLR figures gives the earning-capacity loss. In this app "ECLR" always means these earning estimates; the state-wage multiplier is called the regional wage factor.

Minimum-wage floor

A per-case switch on Intake's Economic assumptions, off by default as the desktop MVQS has no floor. On, no earning-capacity figure is printed below the legal minimum wage of the work location: when the McCroskey earning formula places one of a job's six hourly estimates below that minimum, the estimate is raised to it when the job bank is built, and the Economic assumptions box on every earning report names the rate, its jurisdiction and the date it took effect. The rate is the U.S. Department of Labor's state table (the higher of the state and federal rates; New York's downstate counties and Oregon's non-urban counties resolved from the work county); city ordinances are not applied, so the floor is a lower bound on the legal minimum.

Reviewed

One mark per case that a person with write access to it sets with Mark as reviewed on the Reports stage (the Classic screens' Evaluee Reports tab carries the same control): it records who reviewed the case, when, and the calculation it covers, the results as of their date; the stepper's Reports step shows its check for a current mark alone, and every exhibit's header band and the pack cover print Results as of and the review line for results calculated after the release day and only while nothing on the case is out of date. It reads Review needed again after a newer calculation, an input change, a change to the case details or a desktop rules release (the stages that bring the desktop MVQS methodology to the app), until someone marks the case again; Clear review removes it. Opening or printing a report does not review it. Reviewed covers the calculation as of its date; evidence notes, value responses and questionnaire answers entered later are not part of it.

Specific Vocational Preparation(SVP)

A DOT rating (1–9) for the time required to learn the techniques, acquire the information, and develop the skills needed for average performance in a job.

General Educational Development(GED)

Three DOT sub-scales (Reasoning, Math, Language) that describe the general educational development required by a job, rated on a scale of 1–6. In this system they are scored from standardized tests and used to build the evaluee's aptitude profile.

Aptitude(APT)

Worker trait dimensions on DOT scales: Spatial, Form Perception, Clerical, Motor, Finger Dexterity and Manual Dexterity, scored from standardized tests, and Eye-Hand-Foot and Color Discrimination, rated by the evaluator, as in the desktop MVQS. Along with GED scores, they form the 11-dimension aptitude profile used to compute the VQ.

Dictionary of Occupational Titles(DOT)

The U.S. Department of Labor classification system assigning a 9-digit code to each occupation. The first 3 digits identify the occupational group, the middle 3 encode the Data/People/Things worker-function ratings, and the last 3 distinguish occupations that share the first six digits. DOT codes are the primary occupational identifier in this system.

MVQS supplemental occupation

An occupation the McCroskey catalogue added beyond the Dictionary of Occupational Titles — 24 jobs, among them Computer Scientist, Webmaster, Concierge and Segmental Paver — filed under a nine-digit code in the DOT's form that the Department of Labor never published. Wherever a DOT code prints (the exhibits and their CSV files, the occupation pages, the Compute cards, the Claude connector) a supplemental code carries the dagger, as in 913.463-012†, and the table or section that carries one prints the footnote once underneath, never as a row: "† MVQS supplemental occupation added by the McCroskey catalog; not a DOT-published code.". The occupation is scored on the same 24 worker-trait requirements and matched, ranked and counted like any DOT occupation; the dagger says only that the code is not a DOT citation. A supplemental code has no O*NET crosswalk row, so its SOC 2018 column prints a dash and the BLS ORS card and exhibit say there is no SOC mapping for it.

Vocational Interest Personality Resource(VIPR)

A four-letter vocational personality type (E/I, S/N, T/F, J/P) derived from the evaluee's answers to 108 forced-choice job-pair items. The type ranks job matches in the VIPR reports; all 108 pairs must be answered before a type is computed.

McCroskey Transferable Skills Profile(MTSP)

The full job-matching method (35 legacy steps) that scores every occupation in the DOT database for one evaluee. The job-person match decides which jobs the Pre and Post Profiles can perform — every one of a job's 24 worker-trait requirements at or below the profile — then each matched job is scored for transferable skills (TSP) and earning capacity (ECLR). It produces the pre- and post-injury job sets, the Job Bank and the pre/post comparison statistics.

McPLOT

The reports the original desktop MVQS program printed about the evaluee, McPLOT 1 to 5 and 7 (the desktop had no McPLOT 6): the test results with their percentiles on the general adult norms, the evaluator's ratings with their scales of measurement, the VIPR type with the occupational values and needs, the Evaluative Profile one worker trait per line, the VIPR type with its preference scores, and the graph of the Work History, Evaluative, Pre and Post Profiles over the worker traits. MVQS Online keeps the desktop's names and lays each out as the desktop printed it; they are printed one at a time from the Reports stage; the Standard, All and audience packs leave them out, and only a user's My reports pack prints them together.

McDOT

The reports the original desktop MVQS program printed about each job in the evaluee's work history, McDOT 1 to 6, from the McCroskey McDOT 6th Edition Revised dataset: the job definitions, the complete report (the crosswalk codes and titles, the worker traits, the O*NET abilities, the work context and the temperaments), the crosswalk codes, the worker traits, the occupational values and needs each job reinforces, and the typical skills of each job's O*NET transferable skills group. MVQS Online keeps the desktop's names and lays each out as the desktop printed it; they are printed one at a time from the Reports stage; the Standard, All and audience packs leave them out, and only a user's My reports pack prints them together.

Labor Market Access(LMA)

The share of the jobs searched that the evaluee can perform: the matched jobs in the pre- or post-injury set divided by the jobs searched (the evaluee's county job bank from the Intake work location, the whole state's bank when Statewide is picked, or, on a case built before the Stage 4 rules, the statewide bank it fell to with no county or the whole DOT catalogue with no work state), as a whole number on a case computed under the desktop MVQS rules, to one decimal on a case not yet rebuilt. Pre-injury and post-injury access are compared on the pre/post comparison report to show how far the injury narrows the labor market.

Occupational Information Network(O*NET)

The U.S. Department of Labor's successor to the DOT — a database describing occupations by skills, knowledge, abilities, and work activities. O*NET codes are used alongside DOT codes in the transferable-skills crosswalks.

Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics(OEWS)

A Bureau of Labor Statistics program (formerly OES) publishing employment counts and wage estimates by occupation and geography. Used as a wage reference for occupations in earning analyses.

Occupational Requirements Survey(ORS)

A Bureau of Labor Statistics survey publishing, for each 2018 SOC occupation, the percentage of workers with each physical demand, environmental condition, education/training requirement (including SVP) and cognitive requirement. MVQS maps a DOT code to its SOC through the O*NET crosswalk and prints the ORS estimates beside the DOT profile and the evaluee's levels; ORS never changes a TSP or VQ.

Standard Occupational Classification (2018)(SOC)

The federal occupation taxonomy BLS statistics are published under. MVQS keeps the DOT's original 1980-era SOC field for legacy scoring and adds the 2018 code (via O*NET-SOC 2019) for BLS ORS lookups.

Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages(QCEW)

A Bureau of Labor Statistics program reporting average pay by state and industry. The regional wage factor was derived from a state's average pay relative to the national average for the evaluation year before Stage 4 of the desktop rules releases; a case created then keeps that value, captioned on Intake as the earlier automatic factor, until its user chooses Auto, which fills the MVQS ECLR rate of the work county.

Regional wage factor

The MVQS ECLR rate of the work county for the evaluation year, from the desktop MVQS program's county table (1.00 = the base; the statewide pseudo-county's rate when Statewide is picked for the whole state's job bank), so the factor and the job bank always come from one county row. It scales every ECLR earning figure to the work county's wage level. Auto fills it on Intake from the work state, the work county and the evaluation year and follows them when they change; a value you type is kept as typed, and a factor filled before Stage 4 from the state's BLS QCEW ratio keeps its value, captioned as the earlier automatic factor, until you choose Auto.

Consumer Price Index (Urban)(CPI-U)

The Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers. The inflation factor (1.00 = no adjustment) multiplies every ECLR earning figure. Auto fills the MVQS inflation index for the evaluation year (1.000000 in 2001); the CPI-U calculator on Intake is a way to type a factor from a Dollars from year and a To year, and a factor filled before Stage 4 from the cumulative CPI-U change to the most recent CPI-U year on file keeps its value, captioned as the earlier automatic factor, until you choose Auto.

MVQS inflation index

The desktop MVQS program's table of inflation factors, one for each evaluation year from 1991 to 2030, with 2001 as its base (1.000000). Auto on Intake fills the index for the case's evaluation year as the inflation factor, so every earning figure is in evaluation-year dollars as the desktop MVQS prints them; the reports of a case built from the Stage 4 start on print the figure as the desktop stores it, to seven significant digits (1.495049 for 2026), and an older case prints it to four decimals until its next Build. Outside 1991 to 2030 Auto has no value and a factor must be typed.

Crosswalk

A mapping between two occupational classification systems (e.g. DOT ↔ O*NET, or occupation ↔ industry/SOC/census codes). Crosswalks let the transferable-skills algorithm compare jobs coded in different systems.

Job Bank

Every DOT occupation scored for one evaluee (transferable skills (TSP) from the work history and the six earning-capacity percentiles), one row per occupation, built by Build on the Compute stage. The job-person match flags the rows the Pre and Post Profiles can perform; those flagged rows are the pre- and post-injury job sets the job-match reports list and the pre/post comparison counts. The sets are drawn from the job bank of the Intake work location (the DOT occupations the desktop MVQS lists for the work county, or the whole state's bank when Statewide is picked; a case built before the Stage 4 rules can still sit on the statewide bank it fell to with no county), which the pre/post comparison names as the jobs searched.

Vocational Aptitude match(VA %)

The share of an occupation's required aptitude and GED dimensions (up to 11) that the evaluee's profile meets or exceeds, as a percentage — the Pre Profile on the pre-injury job tables, the scenario's Post Profile on the post-injury tables and the Evaluative Profile on the work-history tables. A report column, not a stored score.

Earnings index(EQ)

A per-occupation index carried over from the legacy MVQS occupation table and shown on occupation detail pages for reference. MVQS Online does not use it in the VQ, TSP or earning-capacity calculations.

Evaluative / Pre / Post Profile

The three computed worker-trait profiles for an evaluee. Evaluative Profile is built from case-specific test results + ratings, and a documented clinical judgment can adjust it in the profile editor; as the desktop MVQS does, it starts every one of its 24 dimensions at the Average Worker level; a test score replaces the start on the nine test dimensions, Reasoning to Manual Dexterity, once a work-history occupation is entered, and a rating replaces it on the other 15, so a dimension with neither keeps the Average Worker level, and every report discloses which. Pre Profile is the highest demonstrated capacity, the Max of the computed Evaluative and Work History profiles on each dimension (the Work History Profile being the highest demand of the evaluee's past work, or the Average Worker profile when no work-history occupation is entered), with no strength floor, and no edit to either profile reaches it; Post Profile is the current Evaluative Profile with each level rounded to the nearest whole level, half up. Run analysis builds the Work History, Evaluative, Pre and Post Profiles at every run, as the desktop MVQS does, and an edit to the Evaluative Profile in the profile editor is copied into the Post Profile at the save; a Work History, Pre or Post Profile adjusted by hand is kept through every run until its Snapshot button replaces it. Reports compare Pre vs. Post to quantify loss.

Job-person match

The McCroskey rule that decides whether an evaluee can perform a job: all 24 values of the person's profile (3 general educational development levels, 8 aptitudes, 6 physical demands, 7 environmental conditions) must equal or exceed the job's 24 requirements. It is applied to every job in the Job Bank against the Pre Profile and again against the Post Profile; a job fails on any one dimension, physical and environmental dimensions included. A job the evaluator adds by hand is listed separately as an evaluator addition and never counted.

Post scenario

A named post-injury profile of a case — 'Sedentary', 'Light' — with its own Post snapshot, clinical adjustments, matched job set, MTSP-4 statistics, earning-capacity summary, evaluator additions and report pack, beside the one Pre Profile; the first scenario is the case's Post Profile. Compute's Post scenarios rows add, rename, snapshot and delete them; every Post-bearing exhibit, the print pack and the Claude connector take a scenario, and MTSP-4S prints every scenario beside the Pre Profile.

Utilization

A pre/post comparison figure from the desktop MVQS: (matched jobs ÷ jobs searched) ÷ (highest VQ in the matched set ÷ highest VQ in the job bank searched) × 100. It relates the share of the labor market open to the evaluee to the ceiling of that market; the divisor is the highest VQ in the evaluee's job bank — the catalogue's highest when the whole catalogue is searched — as in the desktop MVQS, so the figures reproduce the printed legacy packs. Printed with the transferable-skills levels on the pre/post comparison report.

Training Potential

How close the best job the evaluee can perform comes to the top of the job bank searched, as a percentage: the highest VQ in the pre- or post-injury matched set ÷ the highest VQ in the evaluee's job bank × 100, printed as a whole number for each phase, with Residual = Post ÷ Pre. A legacy MVQS figure — its divisor is the same bank maximum VQ that Utilization uses, the catalogue's highest when the whole catalogue is searched — and a gauge of the headroom for training toward higher-VQ work, not a prediction: access to specific training programs depends on qualifications, educational development, aptitudes, motivation, the training market and funding. Printed as the last row of the earning-capacity summary on the pre/post comparison report.

Claude connector

A link between Claude (claude.ai, Claude Desktop, Cowork, Claude Code) and MVQS Online at mvqs.app/api/mcp, for KWVRS staff accounts. After you allow it once — signing in to MVQS, with two-factor sign-in — Claude can read your own cases: the case summary and worker-trait profiles, the matched job sets and MTSP-4 statistics, the matched job lists and the BLS ORS requirements of an occupation, and can draft a report section from them. Once the administrator has switched writes on — the consent page then says what Claude can also do — it can work a case with you: create the case and enter its tests, ratings and work history, run Compute, adjust the Evaluative, Pre and Post profiles (each adjustment is noted on the exhibits with your reason) and produce the print-pack link, always showing you what it will send and waiting for your yes. It never archives, deletes or unlocks a case, never opens a case you could not open in MVQS yourself (an administrator sees every case, as in the app), and reads no locked report; MVQS keeps a log of what was read or changed (ids and a one-line summary such as 'ratings: 24 set, 0 deleted', never the content). Disconnect it in Claude under Customize → Connectors.

Military occupational classification(MOC)

The code a service gives a military job — Army and Marine Corps MOS; Navy ratings, NECs, NEBCs and NOBCs; Navy officer designators; Coast Guard ratings and specialty codes; Air Force AFSC; Space Force SFSC. MVQS records it as the DD-214 shows it and lists the related O*NET-SOC occupations through the military crosswalk.

Military crosswalk

The O*NET Resource Center files that link a military occupation code to O*NET-SOC occupations — the Defense Manpower Data Center's MOC crosswalk (July 2024) and its four supplements (the services' COOL sites, Careers in the Military, the RAND Army study, the DOL enhanced analysis). MVQS lists each linked O*NET-SOC occupation with the DOT titles that map to it; they are related occupations, not equivalents, and nothing is linked automatically.