Last term I went to an excellent event in London called “Effective Practice with E-portfolios”, the last one in a series that grew out of a big programme of JISC-funded projects about e-portfolios in FE and HE.

The day was particularly useful as it combined honest and lively contributions from staff who had tackled eportfolios at the coal face, together with views from experts at JISC and the Centre for Recording Achievement (the organisation leading on Personal Development Planning in HE). It was also valuable in terms of the contributions from the audience who brought their own expertise to the event and enabled some rich debate.

Delegates from universities and colleges in Wales made up about a fifth of the participants, and most participants, whether from FE, HE or workbased learning, were piloting an eportfolio of some kind or on the verge of doing so. A wide range of tools were being considered by participants, e.g. PebblePad, Mahara, Blackboard Expo and Wordpress.

Now the materials from that event (plus the five others in the series) have just been made available for free via Netskills, including presentations, links to resources, activities and feedback from the discussions.

Here are some of the most useful points that came out of the event for me personally:

• the presentation Emergence of the Personal Learning Space by Geoff Rebbeck from Thanet College, was one of the most persuasive and down-to-earth talks I’ve heard not just about eportfolios but about any e-learning tool (several other delegates told me they’d also enjoyed this one). It included this brilliant Youtube video with college staff talking about what they’ve used their own eportfolio for.
• I also enjoyed the presentation from Merv Stapleton of City of Sunderland College, looking at the introduction of an e-portfolio in a work-based learning context (Foundation Degree in Service Management). One of the findings that interested me about this one was that students found their digital literacy skills were enhanced by having to use the e-portfolio.
• It was agreed that there are many different notions of what an e-portfolio can be, ranging from the use of an eportfolio to track learners (this is what schools have concentrated on) and accredit learning (with the push coming from awarding bodies) through to the kind owned by the learner, geared to personal reflection (eg the commercial tool PebblePad). The latter type has attracted most interest in Higher Education. FE colleges were initially interested primarily in the tracking/accrediting type, but are now getting much more interested in the reflective type.
• However, ideas often associated with e-portfolios include: capturing informal as well as formal learning; reflection and opportunities for feedback; enhancing the student experience and providing more opportunity for the learner to take control
• We looked at the question: what’s the difference between an e-portfolio and a VLE, given that they now seem to offer many similar functions? One way of distinguishing them is to think of the eportfolio as the learner’s space, and the VLE as the institution’s space. I liked the the way one presenter defined an e-portfolio neatly as a ‘VLE of one’!
• The question of portability of e-portfolios (or rather lack of) came up frequently, and it is an area that still needs a lot of work if students are going to be able to take their stuff with them from one organisation to another. JISC is working with other bodies to try and make progress with this thorny issue.
• Several speakers made the point that you can’t necessarily expect students (or staff) to immediately get the point of an eportfolio. They may need time to realise the benefits (though it was argued FE staff may find it easier than HE). There can be strong disciplinary differences in the degree to which a portfolio approach (let alone an e-portfolio approach) is valued.
• If all you want is to replicate what you are currently doing on paper, maybe you should stick to paper! But at the same time, moving to ‘e’ can help to make more explicit the transformative process of ‘learning how to learn’
• One benefit of eportfolios which was repeatedly cited was the opportunity it gives to help to make connections between the otherwise fragmented components of courses
• Another benefit particularly relates to work-based learners in professions where they can be isolated. Professional development particularly at senior levels can seem slow and fragmented: some people can feel they are going backwards! Relating to peers via an eportfolio could help counteract this feeling.

Tips on getting started

After we’d all had some hands on practice using a variety of eportfolio tools, we finished up with some plenary discussion during which we shared a number of good tips for getting started with eportfolios, eg

- run a pilot

- do some action research to build a case

- talk to awarding bodies

- talk to students

- importance of preparation

- consider access from the workplace

- use networks such as JISCmail lists. There are a few useful ones: go to www.jiscmail.ac.uk and do a keyword search for PDP or e-portfolio

- some Regional Support Centres have eportfolio resources to share, for example my colleague Kevin Brace HE Coordinator at RSC West Midlands maintains a useful eportfolio wiki.

Despite the diversity of the audience in terms of sectors and products used, there was a remarkable degree of common ground between delegates in discussion, and the focus was firmly on the pedagogical and staff development issues rather than on the technicalities of specific products.

The event also gave a good opportunity to look again at the JISC InfoNet Infokit on E-portfolios authored by Susi Peacock of Queen Margaret University et al. It’s excellent for dipping into for case studies, resources, ideas and guidance. If you’d like to get an overview of all the JISC funded projects and resources on e-portfolios there’s a summary here, and the JISC guide Effectice Practice with E-portfolios (2008) is also available to download.

This post is quite long enough, but there’s more I could share. I’ll be updating our RSC Wales eportfolio resource on our Moodle shortly: watch out for details later in the term. And if you’re interested in further support on e-portfolios, we’d like to hear from you! Get in touch at support@rsc-wales.ac.uk.