When I first started this course I tried to find a proper definition for e-portfolio. After reading Reese & Levy (2009) I found a definition that was very useful to me:”a digitized collection of artifacts including demonstrations, resources and accomplishments that represent an individual, group or institution”.
Beetham (2003) stated that an e-portfolio is simply a collection of documents relating to a learner’s progress, development and achievements”. In my opinion the Reese & Levy definition is somehow broader and makes it more understandable for me to work with. However, I have focused on the Aalderink & Veugelers (2005) paper because it is in my opinion, a good example of implementing an e-portfolio in Universities. The project provided an integrated learning management system (LMS) and an e-portfolio system (N@tschool). 7 Universities in the Netherlands worked together on a toolkit (website) with information and documents to be used at the start of portfolio implementation.
The anticipated learning outcomes were:
- to realise an environment for learning and teaching in which student centred and competence based learning becomes possible and which supports the transformation in which the students will direct more than before the learning and teaching processes.
- It should make learning and teaching more efficient and effective.
- It should support and improve students’ acquisition of competencies
- it should also bring about and support a more transparent and flexible workflow for the different stakeholders involved
Aalderink & Veugelers argue that there were differences between the two Universities, but wrote some mutual challenges regarding the implementation project:
- How to keep the different perspectives of involved stakeholders in line with each other? This concurs with the Reese & Levy paper in 2009 in which they say that the different stakeholders have different roles in the institution and that this might be an obstacle.
- Sharing of outcomes with each other is also an important element. Keep stakeholders involved
- Management support is crucial: lines of development bottom up and after decision support and facilitation must go top down. This also concurs the findings of Reese & Levy when they say that support staff needs to be trained to handle different types of problems and requests.
- Technical challenge: work with integrated architecture approaches. Give attention to open standards and interoperability.
This concurs the findings of the Becta Report (2007) as well. The authors argue that “students are becoming familiar with other repository software as well (MYSpace, Flickr, YouTube) and expect a high standard of functionality.” They continue to quote another author (Demos, 2007) who claims that “schools need to value the learning that goes on in these spaces and enable students to recognise and transfer those skills in new situations, even into formal learning.” Reese and Levy say that insufficient integration with other information technology system may inhibit e-portfolio use.
By using an integrated Learning Management System, the project tried to help the students organising and managing their learning content. The Universities acknowledged the fact that students are very well able to direct an important part of their learning. Teachers become facilitators and coaches of their learning processes.
After reading some messages in the tutor group forum for Unit 2, I have noticed that when my fellow students tried to choose an e-portfolio, they try to look for one that is either easy to use, accessible with other tools they use or meets the course demands. In other words, the choice of an e-portfolio is very personal, but is preferably an application which can be integrated with other tools and can be personalised as well.
This concurs with some of the findings of the various papers, but Beetham already made a comment about this in 2003 when she said: “There are considerably more complex requirements if the e-portfolio system is to interoperate with other systems such as learner records, virtual learning environments or assessment systems, and if it is to allow learner data to be shared with other organisations (e.g. for accreditation, transition or presentation)”.