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Christian Voigt

Learning & Teaching Unit

University of South Australia

A question of purpose: Community-embedded ePortfolios

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Background & My Motivation

• AD: Involved in various ePortfolio projects in an advisor role (learning technologies)

• All projects required a substantial additional investment (new tool, new concept)

• Motivational issues insufficiently addressed(abstract >> concrete)

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Outline

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Existing Guidelines

Existing Guidelines

Critical Issues Critical Issues

AudienceAudience Engaging ePortfolios Engaging

ePortfolios AudienceAudienceAudiencesAudiences

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Existing Guidelines

Classified by stakeholders • Educators – Best practice guidelines

– Collecting, planning, selecting, reflecting …

• Users – Support guidelines – Embedding multi-media, managing access-rights,

establishing means of communication

• Sponsors – Evaluation guidelines – Maturity levels: scrapbook, CV, mentoring, authoritative

evidence

• SW providers – Development guidelines ASCI

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Critical Issues 1: Pedagogical foundation

• Reflection (How do ePs support reflection?)• Assessment (What do we assess?)• Graduate qualities

– Do students have the necessary meta-cognitive skills so that grad quals can guide their use of ePortfolios?

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‘ Weatherproof ‘ ePortfolios

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Critical Issues 2: Long term vision

“life-time personal web space”

• Ownership model: trust, legitimacy of interventions

• Business model: longevity, separation of data & tool

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Community

embedded ePortfolios

ePortfolio(s)

LMS

Lecturer(owns course design)

Student(owns Portfolio design)

Primary Author

Visitor

Visitor

• Lecturer is accountable• Primary motivations are

grades & passing• Systems can provide

authoritative information (Links to grade books, placement systems, etc)

• Student is accountable• Primary motivations are personal

development & external feedback• Claims are not institutionally

endorsed (though might be linked to grade books, placement systems, etc)

Primary Author

Employers

Registration Agencies

Communities of Practice

Peers

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Community embedded practices

• Forming identities– Historical, institutional & sociocultural influences – Communities can enable a dialogue around these influences – Helps to understand (a) one’s own approach to learning and/

or field of study (b) others

• ‘Self-critical’ reflection– Different communities have different views– Helps to understand levels of complexity and counteracts

‘old patterns of interpretation’

• Networking (incidental practices) – Creating opportunities – Strength of weak ties

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Conclusion

• Potential Benefits – Purposeful networking component could become major

attractor

• Educational implications– product, process, audience – shift in emphasis: personal repository vs network

• Technological implicatons – Interoperability between eP services

(same or different tools)– Networking related features

(community members, following changes in networks)

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Outlook

• Bottom up approach (first)• Designing comprehensive learning ecologies

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Virtual Physical

Short-term(<1 year)

Long-term (> 1 year)

Networking eP s

(Course level)

Dedicated Student Lounge Lifelong eP s

(Program level)

Temporary Student Space

Solution Space