tech-ed collisions

Australian ePortfolio Project - final project report released

I've been looking forward to this one for a while now. The Australian ePortfolio Project (AeP) is an ALTC funded project to "investigate ePortfolio practice in the higher education sector in Australia, in order to provide strategic and practical guidance about the use of ePortfolios in academic institutions." From its website, the project aims to:

* Analyse ePortfolio practice in the higher education sector in Australia and internationally * Review the range of ePortfolio applications used in universities * Identify significant issues related to ePortfolio use in Australian education * Examine the potential relationship with current National Diploma Supplement / Australian Higher Education Graduate Statement project * Consider the impact of ePortfolio use on student learning outcomes * Recommend ways to share excellent practice in the implementation and use of ePortfolios * Identify opportunities to advise and support further development of ePortfolio initiatives in the higher education sector * Establish a project website to facilitate national and international sharing and discussion of ePortfolio issues * Develop an ePortfolio community of practice initiative to support the future use of ePortfolios in Australia * Consider the future policy direction required to engage and inform ePortfolio adoption in academic institutions * Position Australia on the international ePortfolio scene through leadership in research into ePortfolio practice in Australia * Host a two day symposium to facilitate the sharing of ePortfolio experiences both in Australia and overseas.
The final report was released on 22nd October and is available here. It identifies four areas where strategies could be introduced to develop eportfolio practice, which are:
  • government policy
  • technical standards
  • academic policy
  • learning and teaching
There are a number of recommendations in the report which, if followed would support strategies in these areas. While the project has a natural focus on higher education, it is broader than that and some/many of the recommendations are valid and appropriate for a wider context which is where I am interested (eportfolios for life-long learning). For example, the policy recommendations include engagement by Government Departments with industry, professional and employer bodies to develop a common understanding of eportfolios in relation to employability skills. Strengthening the relationship between the VET, school and higher ed sectors is also encouraged to support lifelong and lifewide learning needs. The Australian Higher Education Graduation Statement also gets a mention - I think services around verification and authentication of claims in eportfolios are a great way of enhancing the credibility of portfolios and would provide a very valuable service. I am also interested in the recommendations around standards. Support for international standards and specifications in relation to eportfolios is also recommended. This is an important area for me. I believe eportfolios have tremendous potential for us when viewed from a lifelong perspective. To realise even some of this potential, the e-portfolio needs to extend beyond the boundaries of the educational institution. I have discussed this many times before and there are plenty of well-known and respected people out there promoting models of eportfolios based upon services that can be aggregated to build portfolios of choice. Institutional eportfolios do have their place though so to support lifelong needs, content within them needs to become truly portable. Ownership needs to be sorted out and simple methods for supporting interoperability with other eportfolios and related services need to be implemented. While I would love to see something like the recent call in Holland for all workers to have access to an eportfolio implemented (I am sure that would support current challenges and agendas here) in Australia, making eportfolios in general more interoperable is a good starting point. There are a number of recommendations around better supporting teaching and learning in relation to eportfolios that also deserve serious consideration. For them to be effective, e-portfolios cannot be tacked on to courses/curriculum etc - they need to be fully integrated and part of a teaching and learning practice that is appropriate to a 21st century (digital world). To do this, further research will be needed and support/training mechanisms put in place too. The report goes on to propose a number of potential models for the future. These are:
  • a national eportfolio for all model
  • a locally driven eportfolio model
  • a Web 2.0 model
  • a zero-action model
These are described in the report in detail and perhaps the one thing that I would like to consider would be a hybrid model. National schemes can be problematic for us in some ways however I think there is a place for certain types of eportfolio services that could be made available nationally or systemically. The Graduation Statement for example, would make a great plugin service that an eportfolio application could integrate with and I am sure there are plenty of others. If we do nothing (the zero-action model), the Web 2.0 model will have an impact as learners (that means potentially, all of us) seek to fill in the gaps in existing eportfolio implementations (the Web 2.0 model is with us anyway and for many, is seen as a more attractive alternative to institutionally bound offerings). The AeP final report is the culmination of a lot of work and should be read by anyone with an interest in this area. While I have wandered all over the place (off on tangents etc) in this post, I really recommend reading it if you are serious about eportfolios.

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