e-Portfolio for Lifelong Learning Reference Model
e-Portfolio for lifelong learning is desirable, but is it feasible?
Key finding: This project has shown that the e-Framework can reduce the complex challenge of e-Portfolio for lifelong learning to simpler terms, in which it becomes both doable and affordable, and can be implemented and sustained.
Executive Summary
Key outputs: This project has produced:
- An overarching domain map, comprising service flows and web services covering the whole process of transition into HE through UCAS, predicated on an e-Portfolio-based learner application
- Technical specifications
- Service genre – Personal Profiling service
- Use cases and Service Definitions scoping further service genres
- A demonstrator illustrating services for HE admissions interacting with an e-Portfolio system
- Prototypes of two web services: Get Entry Profile service and Get e-Portfolio Items service
- An exemplification of the ‘thin’ model of e-Portfolio designed for the more open information environments JISC is developing and covering implementations within a single institution and for Lifelong Learning and Lifewide Learning
- A substantial technological foundation for the September 2006 JISC ITT for HE community projects on admissions beginning in March 2007
- A commitment from the University of Nottingham to build on this work within the institution for staff (e.g. piloting e-Portfolio for CPD), for students (e-Portfolio for Integrative Learning, including placement learning, through the CETL and in liaison with employers) and within the region, in partnership with the Derbyshire-Nottinghamshire LLN and further JISC projects.
Aims and Objectives
The project was reviewed by three sets of external consultants contracted to DfES and Becta. Partly as a result of this and working within a knowledge architecture agreed through DfES, Becta are now developing policy in relation to four broad categories of e-Portfolio: Learning e-Portfolio, Assessment e-Portfolio, Presentation e-Portfolio and Transition e-Portfolio.
The overarching aim of this project was to focus on mapping and specifying services for Transition e-Portfolio, a function uniting learning with administrative processes, in relation to the e-Framework, in order to stimulate and facilitate an implementation of e-Portfolio which would be both incremental and on a large scale.
The project thus aimed to conceptualise e-Portfolio in terms of the e-Framework; to review the role of standards, seeking a simpler, more pragmatic model of interoperability than that of IMS LIP; to focus on two major learner transitions; and, as part of the learning process, to provide for continuing access to learner-generated data (e.g. the UCAS Personal Statement), alongside administrative records, before, through and after transitions.
Overall approach: Thin model of e-Portfolio
The project developed the concept of the ‘thin’ e-Portfolio: (i) in relation to two practical implementation contexts (transition from Key Stage 4 to FE and from FE to HE via UCAS) and also (ii) in dialogue with key stakeholders, including UCAS, DfES, Becta and BSI. Scenario-building workshops were used to identify and prioritise e-Portfolio-enabled web services within the e-Framework. This practitioner-based work informed the development of use cases, which provided the basis for the development of a demonstration and two prototypes of web services for HE admissions.
Further findings and Conclusions
Re-usable technology This project demonstrated that the ICT developed for transitions at one point in an education pathway can be re-used at another. It also shows that web services developed for summative assessment within administrative admissions processes can be adapted for formative learning, transforming learners’ experience of transition. This proof of reusability has significant implications for sustainability.
Practical IT standards A number of JISC projects have demonstrated that the existing IMS specification for learner information can be made to work, but that it is over-complex. This project has shown how the e-Framework provides a means of making current monolithic specifications more fit for purpose and has broken them down into the application profiles required to pass data between an e-Portfolio and e-Portfolio enabled services. By aggregating such proven application profiles, it will be possible to develop and pilot new, more practicable specifications for learner information and related domains and report them back to international standards bodies, such as IMS and ISO.
Thin model of e-Portfolio The open structure of the thin model allows services to be prioritised and implemented incrementally. It provides great flexibility both to institutions and to government, enabling them to respond quickly to changing demands. Evaluations commissioned by DfES and Becta broadly endorse the project’s business and technical approach. The model takes account of repositories, but questions whether it is appropriate to add complexity to its implementation by requiring extensive, formal metadata.
Exemplifying the e-Framework
The project has exemplified to strategic stakeholders the wider potential of the e-Framework to reduce a complex problem to simpler terms in which implementation becomes practicable. Future work by Becta and work proposed in Germany on Schlanken (thin) e-Portfolio will build upon this Reference Model, in both cases committing to a wider engagement with the e-Framework.
Maturity of Transition e-Portfolio
Focusing on Transition e-Portfolio, this project contributed to the discussion behind the 3Square report of April 2006, helping to establish that this is the most mature of the four Becta categories and should therefore be the first for implementation.
Implications for e-Administration
Some practitioner communities, such as the PDP community, are already closely engaged with e-Portfolio technology. However, further important communities for key services are not yet engaged. These include school and college advisors and administrative staff. While this project argues strongly for a full understanding of the impact of Transition e-Portfolio on learning, the project recommends the development of further Reference Models of e-Portfolio services to engage communities beyond PDP.
Integrative e-Portfolio
This project highlights the need to maximise the potential of e-Portfolio technology by moving from definitions of PDP that were developed in the 1990s for paper Progress Files towards a pedagogy of integrative learning.