JISC

The final report is available at the bottom of the page

Region: South East

Overview

e-Portfolios are a step towards learner-centred, self-directed, peer-to-peer education and personal learning environments (PLEs). The myWORLD project will test e-portfolios software in 10 education, training and development sites, and evaluate these case studies and their impact on learners and institutions.

What are e-Portfolios?

Portfolios, in education and personal or professional development, are collections of documents and other objects that can be shown as evidence to support claims a person makes about what they know, what they have achieved, and what they can do. Portfolios came into common use in UK education in the 1980s for assessment of coursework with the introduction of the GCSE and for the assessment of competency-based vocational qualifications. Portfolios have become the standard means of evaluating prior learning and prior experiential learning.

As for e-portfolios, a common starting point is that they are simply electronic versions of physical portfolios that contain digital objects instead of physical objects. They are, “… the new generation of the old 3-ring binder” or, “… a self-selected multimedia presentation of student work”.

e-Portfolios are growing in importance and have come into wide use as an assessment method. Portfolio research and development is expanding. (Bailey et al, 2004,) There are important international developments in basic skills and adult continuing education (e.g. European Certificate in Basic Skills project) and the Europass portfoli. Bold claims are made: portfolios are crucial for lifelong learning in a knowledge society and even, “...the future of learning” itself.

Reflective Learning and Identity

Whether such claims can be justified, it is recognised that portfolios can be an aid to reflective learning and that reflection has value across the disciplines as a means of developing skills. Reflective learning and reflective practice are hallmarks of professionalism in many fields, particularly Health and Social Care, Education, and Medicine. Both building and presenting a collection require reflection: “Portfolios allow you to ... reflect on  what you learned from doing the work.” (http://www.eportfolio.org/eportfoliomanual.pdf). Penn State says, e-portfolios are, “... personalized, web-based collections that include... reflective annotations and commentary related to these experiences. (http://portfolio.psu.edu/about/index.shtml).  Portfolios also make explicit and facilitate the representation of identity. Identity can be weakly or strongly conceived. A weak conception of identity concerns the problem of associating an identifier (e.g. a name or ID number) with an individual and then associating that identifier with data. A strong conception of identity covers things like gender, race, age, ethnicity, vocation, class, embodiment, pleasures, communities, family, friendships, religion and so on; who am I, really? Reflective learning is dependent on strong identity issues however, with the advent of the Lifelong Learning Record in the UK, e-portfolios have become part of the national identity card strategy and are expected to support weak identity concepts also.

Aims and Objectives

The effective use of ePortfolios to support reflection can enrich learning and teaching and can help widen access and increase participation in education. myWORLD seeks to identify the issues which need to be addressed in order to offer effective regional, cross-institutional eLearning systems and services.

The wider aims of this project are to explore how ePortfolio systems, tools and resources can be used to:

• support the independent lifelong learner
• personalise the learning experience
• demonstrate the sharing of learning resources and services across institutions
• deliver tools and information from a range of sources to the learner at home or in the workplace.
• facilitate progression between institutions.

Project Methodology

The project has two stages: preparation and implementation. Over it all an evaluation study will be undertaken.

During the preparation stage from April to September 2005 we will develop the scenarios and case studies to be piloted at each of the sites. Course leaders, mentors and learning technologists will be identified. We will localise, configure and install software and train course leaders/mentors in its use.

During the implementation stage from September 2005 to March 2006 the case study sites will use the software on their courses and other activities. The project will support the pilot teams and evaluate the experiences of the learners, teachers and other actors.

The software that will be used is the OSPI derived Personal e-Portfolio for Teaching and Learning (PETAL) which has been developed under the JISC Distributed e-Learning Tools Programme.

During the project we will:

• Examine existing sources and processes for creation of, and access to student records, student work and relevant transcripts
• Determine appropriate methods of implementing the Petal ePortfolio software within the case study
• Determine how ePortfolio services may be delivered within community programs
• Examine issues relating to access to appropriate technologies to engage with the ePortfolio software
• Examine how personal development planning across disparate community groups and learning providers can be facilitated by the use of the Petal ePortfolio software
• Examine existing processes for reflective development and  personal development planning and map these to the use of the ePortfolio software
• Examine issues relating to accessibility of  the ePortfolio software
• Operate regular liaison with staff and students to monitor issues as they arise and record evaluation output
• Have access to technical and user support from Brookes Centre for eLearning and Media Workshop, University of Brighton learning technology services and other project partners
• Examine issues and processes relating to appropriate authentication and access to systems hosting information relevant to the ePortfolios being developed

Evaluation

The evaluation of the MyWorld cases will be focussed by the overall aims of the project to enrich learning and teaching through the effective use of ePortfolios. Enrichment here is defined as being through greater learner choice and personalisation of the learning experience. Data will be collected from each of the 10 case studies through:

• An initial questionnaire
• A final student questionnaire
• Student diaries
• Evaluator visits and focus groups with samples of students and semi-structured interviews with key members of staff.

We expect to be able to integrate the questionnaires and diaries into the ePortfolio itself to aid data collection. Completion of the questionnaires will be required by every learner as an integral part of their participation in the pilots. A sample of students will be recruited and rewarded separately to complete the diaries. Data will be collected in NVivo^© software for subsequent coding and reviewing.

Implications/ Deliverables/ Stakeholders

(It might be best to represent this as a three dimensional matrix with a Z axis for each case-study site or type of site. The implications for adult community learning sites may be very different, for example, to those for professional institutes.) 

Lead Institution  

• Oxford Brookes University, Centre for e-Learning
  

Project Partners

• University of Brighton
• Association for Learning Technology (ALT) 
• Knowledge Integration Ltd. (K-Int) 
• Abingdon and Witney College 
• Plumpton College
• Sussex Downs College
• Thames Valley Professional Instutes Partnership (TVPIP)
• Oxfordshire Community Learning Support Unit (CLSU)
• Brighton Community University Partnership Project (CUPP)