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on ePortfolios and AVETRA

Yesterday I had the privilege of presenting at the AVETRA conference here in Adelaide. My talk was focussed on ePortfolio policy and interoperability. Over the last eighteen months or so I have been concerned about the lack of a systemic approach to ePortfolios as compared to other jurisdictions (in particular the EU and UK). Most ePortfolio services that I come across in Australia are organisational/institutional applications that are focussed on meeting the needs of the student/institution while they are in that institution. ePortfolios mean many things to different people and there are many definitions and uses for them but what we don't have here in Australia is something that can be used to cater for lifelong learning. In the presentation I gave I suggested that perhaps we should simply turn our attention to the Web to see what is available publicly that can be used as an ePortfolio service or set of services. There are many examples around (see Helen Barrett's ePortfolio and instructions on how to construct one for yourself. Helen Barrett is a great source of information on ePortfolios for those who are interested. The JISC ePortfolio reference model (essentially a service oriented approach) is another interesting model worth exploring. Of course there are a number of services that are not available on the Web at the moment that would be really useful for a lifelong ePortfolio. For example, accreditation verfication and authentication services are examples. It would be fantastic if I could aggregate my favourite blog services, photo/document sharing services into a spot on the Web that I have created and also include links to services that could validate my claims for awards (degrees, diplomas, certificates etc) that I have. Hopefully the presentation or the paper that I submitted will be available shortly. It was nice to attend part of the conference at least and make some good contacts who appreciated what I was saying and who may hopefully use some of the ideas to make a difference. Cheers, Jerry.

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Posted April 4, 2008