National Symposium on e-Portfolios: 11th June, 2008

Current Practice and Emerging Models

Jerry Leeson

ePortfolio Classifications

• ‘ePortfolios mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people’

• Some classifications• EPICC

• Assessment, showcase, development, reflective• JISC

• Presentation, transition, learning• Becta

• Learning, assessment, presentation, transition• IMS

• Assessment, presentation, learning, personal development, multiple owner, working

Current Situation

RPL

RPL

RPL

RPL

Id7

Id1 Id2

Id3 Id4

Id5

Idnnn..

Id8

Id6

Id12Id11

Id10

Id9

Read/Write Web

• Is this my ePortfolio?

Identity• Identity is obviously a key component of an e-Portfolio

• How many student/digital identities do you have or even estimate a lifelong learner will have?

• Is there something that can be done to help manage this?• UK Unique Learner Number (ULN)

• Lifelong access to authenticated record of achievements• Australia (AAF for Higher Education)

• Identities in the AAF will be provided by IdP’s (typically Universities)

• Identity is linked to an organisation• But will be able to move from one organisation to another organisation

• Access rights largely based around the type of affiliation you have with an organisation

• Will this work (from a lifelong learner perspective)?

Impact of Web 2.0• Organisational e-Portfolios vs Web 2.0 services

• Organisational e-Portfolios• Strong integration with other aspects of the organisation (course, curriculum,

assessment etc)• Satisfy specific needs within organisational boundaries very well• What happens when learner leaves the organisation?• Who owns the content?

• Web 2.0 services• Gaining widespread support

• In preference to organisational e-Portfolios?• Not constrained by organisational boundaries• Who owns the content?• Trust?• Longevity?

• Strong support for learner-owned e-Portfolios• Learners must own and be in control of their portfolios

A services model for e-Portfolios• JISC ePortfolio Engine Reference Model

• ePortfolio described as a set of services• These services could be web services that are distributed across the

Web• An ePortfolio implementation could be seen as an aggregation of a set

of portfolio related services relevant to a particular set of needs (eg resume builder, planner, evidence store, presentation builder etc)

• Organisations and ePortfolio system builders need not be responsible for providing all the services that are required by the users

• Recognises that there is no ‘one size fits all approach’• Opportunity exists to include more generic web services to provide

some of the functionality (eg blogs, document/image sharing services etc)

• What are the policy considerations for such a model?

Service based implementation

Users

Certificate supplement?

E-Portfolio ‘engine

planning

CV builder RPL claims

reflection

evidence

networks

identity

access

Claim verificationauthoring

presentation

aggregation

Course information

syndicationArtefact mgmt

Policy and Business Issues• Guidelines for the development and provision of e-Portfolio services• Flexibility and Customisation• Storage

• Where?• How long?• How much

• Seems to be a major issue for a number of the organisational based e-Portfolios that we looked at

• Accessibility• Identity

• Learner Identity Management Framework (LIMF) / Australian Access Federation (AAF)

• Evidence• Authenticity

• Data exchange• Policies and procedures• Formats• Interoperability (data format, vocabularies, qualifications etc

• Ownership / Custodianship

Interoperability

Some Standards and specifications• E-Portfolio related standards:

• IMS• ePortfolio• RDCEO• LIP• Content Packaging• Vocabulary Definition Exchange• General Web services

• RSS, Atom• WebDAV• W3C• Microformats (eg hResume)• Shibboleth / MAMS• HR-XML• FOAF• opensocial

Thank you