ePortfolio Developments in the UK
Peter Rees Jones, University of Leeds, Senior Visiting Research Fellow, University of Nottingham, JISC consultant is our keynote speaker this morning and has an impressive profile. He will be speaking about the Changing Context of EPs.
They have a nine year track record – UK E-University initiative brought in a lot of money to support the work of JISC in an administrative role for EP communities of practice. Managing Information Across Partners (MIAP) – coordinated web-services – will fundamentally change the ePortfolio environment – the UK ministry wanted a human face to the ICT services.
Peter refers to Dr Helen Barrett’s theory – portfolio as a story of deep learning rather than portfolio as a test of skills, as the underlying context. ‘Through ePortfolio – a pathway to deep personal learning’ is a driving pedagogy for JISC. The underlying context is that ‘personal data should be owned by the individual, the subject of the data.’ So it has become imperative to give the owner ‘control’ over the ePortfolio – requiring sound pedagogic models of experiential learning. e.g. harvesting data for an RPL process.
Interesting to hear Peter describe the definition of an eportfolio e.g. a digitized collection of artifacts and how that does not adequately describe the ‘process’ of creating them as a learning experience. Emphasis on the process as a fundamental issue leads him to think that eportfolio: a static metaphor – is misleading as a definition.
Q & A: Is there a conflict between top-down services and individual ownership of EPs? Without consultation with learners, this will indeed arise. In the Netherlands they are prescribing an EP for all from primary to tertiary education with a national repository – this is a similar policy to that in Wales, UK. This context is of great interest to me – it gives a more lifelong purpose for EPs – a symphonic and organic prerogative rather than a structured and controlled directive.
Q. How to overcome a ‘big brother’ effect? Control of data about a person – their digital shadow – is already happening – there is more digital information about us than we have initiated. There is a huge duty of care issue for youth in creating their digital footprint – more need for guidance and prof dev for maintaining: integrity, privacy and personal IP for the viewing of EP content.
Q. How to avoid exclusivity? Scoping of issues about stakeholders involved is a point of conversation for JISC – are all learners able to access an EP.
Lots of stimulating thought now as we move to our next speaker.
University of Nottingham ePorfolio Connections
Emma Crawford now gives us an overview of EP perspectives in Nottingham – the local education authority wanted to focus on the 14-19 year old learners: raising aspirations, broadening employment horizons, improve transition into FE/HE, improve advice and guidance, improve and track progression.
Passportfolio: achievement zone, reviewing zone and presentation zone – all provided to enable various views of students.
RIPPLL: Regional Interopability Project on Progression for Lifelong Learning – to support progression to HE and to guide towards employment, and to pilot the transferrability from the City of Nottingham Passport into the PDP system at Uni of Nottingham, to support adminissions and entries. Some project finding of interest to me is the last point on current slide from Emma, real life - community providing comprehensive examples of use and advice on best practice.
A governmental initiative: 14-19 Specialised Diplomas – strenghening vocational pathways and combining skill development. Looking at the Passportfolio interface I can see that it would have appeal for this age group. Tabs include: Inbox, My Details, My Webfolio, My Docs, My Blog, My Actions and My Stikkies.
Note: I would like to see more of this tool – http://www.passportfolio.com/About.aspx
