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Edited by Deborah Judah, Friday, 1 Oct 2010, 19:21

The case studied was a JISC funded study based in the UK. The anticipated outcomes for the eportfolio were to widen participation in higher education in the UK and encourage the concept of lifelong learning.  The emphasis of the project was how eportfolio can support students in transition points in their education career.  The eportfolio was used to record evidence of skills or competencies and to reflect on the learning. It was hoped that these reflections would assist the students in making decisions about future study and/or to compile a personal statement. This case study was implemented in response to national policies in the UK that promote the use of progress files to “make the outcomes, or results, of learning ... more explicit, identify the achievements of learning, and support the concept that learning is a lifetime activity". It was also developed because of a commitment to two other national policies; widening participation in Higher Education and Lifelong learning. Whilst developing the template these national policies where noted as drivers for use of eportfolios in the UK.

This project was evaluated as successful with the eportfolios being embedded in the departments involved in the study, however there were some limitations.

· Engagement of all stakeholders- It is also important that all stakeholders have 'buy-in' for the use of the eportfolio including support from management for training and time needed to mark eportfolio. It was found that is important that the interface of the eportfolio product was user-friendly and that the users were interested and saw the benefit of its use.

· Time - Continued use of the eportfolio was important to gauge success. It was found that some learners did not use the eportfolio at all or only used it a couple of times.  Reasons for this were available time for working on the eportfolio.

· Technology - This included access and authentication, external firewalls and security, lack of technological experts and usability and organisational issues. It was found that some problems could be overcome with extra training of users but that extra support was needed form IT staff.

· Skills training – this includes training staff and students to use the technology but also other aspects of training. E.g. it also become apparent during this study that that ways in which students evidence and record their achievements and how is it marked is different for eportfolio compared to paper based ones.

· Ownership and control -

· Change management - It was found that if existing practises such as paper-based portfolios have been successful in the past there is resistance to change.  Also, if eportfolio are made optional students will not take up the opportunity.

 

For eportfolio use to be embedded in institutions al stakeholders have to see the benefit of the tool. Discussion online has shown that UK, Singapore and Europe have a strong government push to implement eportfolios.  However this project shows that the drivers of lifelong learning, career planning and advice are also important and perhaps these provide a greater impetus for engagement with eportfolios.

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