JISC

 Overview

e-Portfolio use in the UK (and wider) has escalated over the past decade driven mainly by Personal Development Planning, Life-Long and Life-Wide Learning agendas. During this period e-portfolio tools and technologies are continuing to mature. There are a variety of instances of large-scale institutional implementation and unshared institutional knowledge about implementation issues. ePI seeks to work with key stakeholders to identify, document, analyse and understand the processes involved in large scale e-portfolio implementations within HE/FE and professional organisations. It will use and further develop a threshold concept framework that resulted from recent JISC work in this area. ePI will disseminate this practice through the use of a range of case studies to support large-scale institutional e-portfolio use.

Aims and objectives

The study seeks to:
• Identify a range of examples of wide scale e-portfolio implementations within HE/FE and professional bodies that will inform practice/strategy;
• Gather a range of case studies to support the articulation of models of implementation;
• Develop an appropriate means of disseminating the outcomes that enables a potential user to understand the implementation issues and identify the cases that are most relevant to their own contexts.

Methodology

The process will be started with the identification of up to six mini case studies through analysis of current documentation, institutional contact and discussion with JISC to support the development of an analytic framework based on a threshold concepts framework. An online wiki will be used to involve this community in the creation of the mini cases and engage them in discussion of the ways these are disseminated through the JISCinfoNet e-portfolio infoKit. A further 8 mini UK cases and Australian cases will then be developed to ensure different approaches to implementation are explored. Finally up to eight of these mini cases will be identified for more in- depth analysis of implementation.

Anticipated outputs and outcomes

Outputs:

• A report for JISC providing an overview of the approach taken, issues arising, lessons learnt and recommendations;
• An e-portfolio implementation (epi) toolkit that will support institutions in analysing and developing informed e-portfolio provision;
• An online resource within the JISC e-portfolio infoKit that incorporates the ePIi toolkit and presents the mini and full cases from the UK, Australia and a parallel New Zealand study;
• A PDF version of the online resource that can be downloaded from the e-portfolio infoKit;
• Papers at key e-portfolio conferences, e.g., EAC, Eifel ,ALT-C, HEAC leading to journal papers.

Key outcomes will be:

• A community of participants informed about their current practice and future directions through their engagement in the study;
• An informed and evidenced perspective about effective approaches to large-scale e-portfolio implementation.

Download the ePI Final Report (PDF)