This Autumn we are announcing that creation of the first ‘free to use’ version of our endorsed e-portfolio for the assessment of vocational qualifications. A first reaction to this announcement might be, why are you in effect throwing away thousands of pounds of development by making it freely available? Well clearly we are doing it in a way that enables us make some income by selling our services, rather than the software, however it remains the case that someone could download our software for free, we would not get a penny back in return for all our work, so why are we doing it?
We are passionate about e-portfolios and have seen the dramatic impact they can have on learner achievement and retention. However we have been puzzled for sometime about why the take up of e-portfolios for vocational assessment remains relatively slow particularly as there are good quality products ‘out there’ including our own.
This is of course in marked contrast to the almost blanket adoption of Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) initially through the adoption of products like Blackboard and then through the massive of impact of Moodle the open source VLE.
It is the story of Moodle that has had the most influence on our taking the decision we have. We believe that the attraction of Moodle is not that there are no costs associated with implementing it. Although it is open source and therefore free to download institutions do spend money in making sure that it ‘works for them’. However what institutions like is that they own the software and they are part of a community of developers all committed to improving the management of learning programmes.
We have always been committed to this philosophy and we talk about a NOW.net community of users who we have worked with to improve our core platform.
Indeed we have sought to influence others to adopt a similar approach as a way of improving the offer to learners. I have endeavoured on behalf of this company, to persuade awarding bodies to include an e-portfolio as part of the services they provided through their registration fees. This appeared to me to both to be a good way to develop a stronger relationship with their customer base and to enhance their offer to them. It is interesting to note that one awarding body VTCT has adopted this approach. However they would appear to others who would rather go for short term profits and be making offers to the market, at if anything a more exorbitant price than previously. The new e-hairdressing log book developed by Learning Assistant/City & Guilds is an interesting approach but is it worth nearly £40 extra per candidate on top of the registration.
We do not believe that approaches like this, will encourage the mass adoption of e-portfolios for vocational assessment which is what we are committed to do hence our latest offer.
However the offer of itself will not deliver this outcome. It also needs to be accompanied by the creation of a community of developers committed to the continuous development of approaches to e-assessment required to deal with the inevitable changes in the way vocational qualifications are assessed. We hope you might want to join us. Have a look at the offer www.nvqnow.net and let us know what you think.
Tuesday, 25 October 2011
E-portfolios and Higher Education; What works?
If you google search e-portfolios and Higher Education it is surprising how many entries there are and how far they go back. Although it is a relatively recent development there are some that go back to the start of this millennium.
If you track the entries the zenith of activity appears to come around 2007/08 with lots of well attended conferences and a variety of different papers and applications. In the UK the majority of usage in the Higher Education sector appears to be for the purpose of creating Personal Learning Records. This is perhaps because of the approach of the leading supplier.
Sometimes these records are linked to assessment but great play is made on the fact that the record is owned by the learner. They can publish that record to another or allow access to it but ultimately they are in control.
This has perhaps become the nub of the debate in Higher Education. To what extent is an e-portfolio something that is solely owned by the user and therefore can only used for assessment with their permission? Or alternatively can the e-portfolio be used to manage in effect a complex set of relationships as is the case with many work based modules, with permissions set that determine who is allowed to do what with the evidence. These permissions are in effect ‘controlled’ by the assessment strategy that is in place. This use of the e-portfolio in this case can be further complicated by the need to involve others who maybe external to the University.
Take for example a Nurse Prescribing Course where although nurses come into be trained the reality is that much of their learning is managed outside the university. They make visits to different practices and they capture their own reflections on their work in practice. Furthermore they have mentors who then authenticate their work. Potentially this is a costly exercise for the university managing the paper trail and visiting placements etc. However at some Universities this has been replaced by an e-portfolio system. This is particularly by systems that can be easily customised to replicate the complexities of this assessment process.
I have often argued in this blog and elsewhere that what an e-portfolio is not the key issue. The only thing that matters is what the e-portfolio does or how it answers the So What question. So you have got this information electronically stored then what are you going to do with it? And linked to this How are you going to make it easy for the user to extract it so that they can make use of their evidence for a specific purpose?
My sense is and it is part reflected in the google search that not enough time has been devoted to that question. Instead there have been diversionary debates such as ones about interoperability which mask the key questions about what purpose has the e-portfolio being used for and is it fit for purpose. This is perhaps why the google search reveals that there are lots of entries announcing that there is an e-portfolio that you can use and then a long gap before there is any further entries about how it is actually being used.
E-portfolios are the same as any other product they are only used if ultimately it is found to be a useful activity to do.
If you track the entries the zenith of activity appears to come around 2007/08 with lots of well attended conferences and a variety of different papers and applications. In the UK the majority of usage in the Higher Education sector appears to be for the purpose of creating Personal Learning Records. This is perhaps because of the approach of the leading supplier.
Sometimes these records are linked to assessment but great play is made on the fact that the record is owned by the learner. They can publish that record to another or allow access to it but ultimately they are in control.
This has perhaps become the nub of the debate in Higher Education. To what extent is an e-portfolio something that is solely owned by the user and therefore can only used for assessment with their permission? Or alternatively can the e-portfolio be used to manage in effect a complex set of relationships as is the case with many work based modules, with permissions set that determine who is allowed to do what with the evidence. These permissions are in effect ‘controlled’ by the assessment strategy that is in place. This use of the e-portfolio in this case can be further complicated by the need to involve others who maybe external to the University.
Take for example a Nurse Prescribing Course where although nurses come into be trained the reality is that much of their learning is managed outside the university. They make visits to different practices and they capture their own reflections on their work in practice. Furthermore they have mentors who then authenticate their work. Potentially this is a costly exercise for the university managing the paper trail and visiting placements etc. However at some Universities this has been replaced by an e-portfolio system. This is particularly by systems that can be easily customised to replicate the complexities of this assessment process.
I have often argued in this blog and elsewhere that what an e-portfolio is not the key issue. The only thing that matters is what the e-portfolio does or how it answers the So What question. So you have got this information electronically stored then what are you going to do with it? And linked to this How are you going to make it easy for the user to extract it so that they can make use of their evidence for a specific purpose?
My sense is and it is part reflected in the google search that not enough time has been devoted to that question. Instead there have been diversionary debates such as ones about interoperability which mask the key questions about what purpose has the e-portfolio being used for and is it fit for purpose. This is perhaps why the google search reveals that there are lots of entries announcing that there is an e-portfolio that you can use and then a long gap before there is any further entries about how it is actually being used.
E-portfolios are the same as any other product they are only used if ultimately it is found to be a useful activity to do.
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