East of England Lifelong Learning Support
This project (EELS) explored the issues and benefits of setting up a portal based ePortfolio service for lifelong learners within the East of England region through the development of a pilot service.
Executive Summary
In the context of education and learning, an ePortfolio is a portfolio based on electronic media and services. For the EELLS ePortfolio this consists of a personal digital archive containing personal information, records of achievement and artefacts, transcript type data supplied from official institutional transcripts, and information on the people and organisations to which the owner has granted access.
The EELLS ePortfolio project wanted to encourage users to document their lifelong learning achievements. The EELLS ePortfolio project differs from other electronic portfolio projects within higher education as it was designed to exist independently of institutional systems, whilst also providing an interface to enable the transfer of learner data from participating institutions. The EELLS ePortfolio vision was to invite all lifelong learners within the East of England region to capitalise on their learning before, during, and after formal education, regardless of provider.
The EELLS project ran a number of pilots with learner groups from the partner institutions which attempted to explore the requirements of learners within a client-centred model of progression appropriate to lifelong learning, where ownership and control of the information is transferred from the institution to the individual but with appropriate authentication for institutional progress files. Feedback has been positive with learners easily understanding the concept and suggesting potential applications for further development. The feedback demonstrated a viable market for an ePortfolio service that transcends institutional boundaries and is available throughout the life of a learner.
Agreement has been reached with MOVE (The Lifelong Learning Network of the East of England) to continue the ePortfolio service developed by EELLS as part of their services to the region. The intention for the future of the system is to provide a free service to the region. Since the system is not intended to be institutionally owned, it would be difficult to persuade institutions to contribute towards developmental and operational costs, and a regional or national context was considered to be the best option.
The project was managed by the University of Hertfordshire and Luton University.
The software developer was Phosphorix Ltd and the software is available as open source