Qualifications Free(d) for All

There has always appeared to be a hidden ‘scandal’ about the way that qualifications are developed and then marketed in the UK. Registration and examination fees have grown incrementally each year, to the point where some High schools are spending the same amount on exam entries than they do on the salaries of five teaching staff.



This would be just about legitimate if the money from the fees, was ploughed back into the education system, however the truth is that there are cases where the money has disappeared directly into the pockets of individuals.


There was a point where this looked like it was all getting sorted out. The previous government had introduced the Qualification Credit Framework. Underpinning this approach was the notion that units of learning were to be shared and therefore the ability of awarding bodies to ‘own’ and market qualifications was starting to be eroded. However one of the first actions was to remove the quango responsible for the implementing the QCF and declare that the business of developing and designing qualifications should again directly be the responsibility of awarding bodies.


So cue for big celebrations amongst all the large awarding bodies because they can again sit back and watch their profits again start to steeply rise. However there are dangers to the market economy and there is news that there are new players starting to enter it, who are beginning to challenge some of the ‘big players’. Losing the ability to award qualifications for a small sector like for example furniture skills, may not fundamentally shake their foundations but like a small hole in the dam it has the potential to have a significant impact, not least in demonstrating that all Goliaths have their David.

Hunt for the missing JISC funded e-portfolio initiative.

Ever heard of LIPID; PortisHEead; ePISTLE; FILE-PASS; ELP; Flouish; Reflect 2.0; PDP4XL2; PC3; SRC; Co-genT; EPPSME; SAMSON; TELSTAR; FASTTECH; MABLE; and PIOP Phase 2 and 3?


Perhaps more importantly do you know where any of them that are currently been used and have had a significant impact on the use of e-portfolios to support the delivery of HE and FE programmes? By significant impact I mean being used across an institution or even a whole faculty or department?

The common feature of all these projects is that according to JISC, all these projects use Pebble pad as their e-portfolio and the subject of investigation or development. In some cases the investigation is wide ranging such as examining the use of e-portfolios by SMEs. In other cases the focus is very narrow e.g. LIPID is about exploring how to take data from the student management system used by Wolverhampton University and make it available via a web service to the Pebble Pad e-portfolio system.

Just for information Pebble Pad was developed by Wolverhampton University but became owned and marketed by a commercial company called Pebble Learning.

I am sure the majority of the money that JISC awarded all these projects went directly to the HE and FE institutions involved and not to a commercial company and I am sure all the money was used and accounted for properly, however it seems right for JISC consider, as is the case with all educational institutions whether they pass the value for money test?

I welcome the fact that all this money has been invested in e-portfolios but to return to the theme of the last blog ‘So What?’ The real question for JISC, amongst others to answer, is have the projects they have been funding been seeking to answer the right questions?

The E-Assessment or the So What question?

This week sees the 10th anniversary of the international ePortfolio & Identity Conference and welcome and the second ePortfolio World Summit. It should be a time for celebration however if you read reports like the one below on the LEAP 2A specification for e-portfolio data exchange http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/elearning/Leap2AReviewReport_Final_1.3.p then you would have to conclude that the e-portfolio movement is in real danger of losing its way if it has not done so already. The report is littered with examples of interesting initiatives but the authors find it difficult to come to any conclusions because of the lack of users.



It is worth asking why this is the case when intuitively the development of e-portfolios is an idea that makes such apparent sense. There are potentially huge savings in people’s time and in resources however that is if you consider that the primary purpose of e-portfolios is to support assessment.


The reality will be that at this 10th conference there will be little attention given to this subject and instead there will be the normal focus on e-portfolios and their role, as providing people with their digital identity and then the inter-operability and ownership questions that flow from this.


I have always been baffled by why interoperability is such a big issue for the e-portfolio community. It does not appear to be such an issue for the Apple and Microsofts of this world, who particularly in the case of Apple delight in ‘forcing’ software developers to create applications that work on their devices only.


Is interoperability really such a fundamental issue when individuals are happy to put their content in different places, provided that it can be easily exported to other places and where appropriate links can be made to enable their data, so that it flows between different systems using API links.


With respect of ownership, is it so critically important that the owner is always in total control of their data, particularly when it is being used as part of an assessment. Surely one of the big benefits that e-portfolios bring to assessment is the way that they make the whole process more transparent, to those that have the rights to view evidence because of their role in the assessment process.


So it is not surprising that if all e-portfolios are about is creating digital identities, then users are saying So What and not using them. From our perspective if you do create e-portfolios that have a real purpose, often in the context of assessment and where that e-portfolio is supported by an admin tool that enables you to control who does what and when, then they are used.

Can an e-portfolio really help?

I have been Chair of Governors at a large High School for the past five years. One of the initiatives we have introduced is for Governors to have direct access with departments in the school. This week I had the priviledge of listening to an revealing discussion between two of the more experienced teachers in one department. They have been responsible for helping develop study and thinking skills across the school. Their reflection was that having done this for a couple of years, they prehaps had disadvantaged their students because whilst they had really become engaged in learning, they may have unwittingly walked out the classroom without the information they needed for their exam.

There were real echoes here with the e-portfolio debate, around the question of just how useful they really are. Is an e-portfolio something that encourages individuals to discover and capture using multi media a variety of learning experiences or is it a means for individual's learning to be assessed for a specific purpose.

Of course there had can be elements of both however if an e-portfolio is being used for assessment there has to be a real sense that records should be opened to others for external scrutiny. There are of course questions about how this is done, but in all the systems we have designed there is always the fundamental pedagogical question that needs to be addressed, which is who owns the portfolio. If it is fully owned by the individual then how reliable is the assessment?

I can imagine the cries for those that espouse the benefits of livelong learning portfolios who will argue the importance of holding your learning documents in one place. However how many of us really need this and furthermore when do we actiually look at work we created in our various historical learning episodes.

If you don't face this fundamental question of ownership then e-portfolios creators will be constantly haunted by the So What question. Is this all about just creating a more interesting storing space than an attic.

We are very clear e-portfolios are there for a purpose. To actively support people with their learning journeys through the provision of interactive learning plans; an easy means to gather evidence and where required to put permissions in place for others to interact with the portfolio.

If they are not we might be reflecting like the teachers about whether we have actually missed the point. Like it or not examinations and assessments exist and well designed e-portfolios can help.

What's the future for m-learning in the next 18 months

The pace of developments in mobile technology means it is hard to make judgements about how this will impact on learning and ePortfolio applications. The only sure thing is that it will have an impact.



Our philosophy has always been to create solutions that can be as ubiquitous as possible so that they can be used across the full range of computer software and accessible from all browsers. We have recently been applying the same approach to mobile devices. As a result many of our clients sites are now accessible from most of the browsers operating on modern mobiles. We have also started to create custom interfaces for some clients that work better on mobiles.


The only challenge we have is with i-based applications like the iPhone and iPad which can be used to access our sites however there is a challenge around uploading files. Put very simply iOS runs browsers in a very tight sandbox, access to files held locally on the device is not possible from a browser. The only solution is to create bespoke “applications” which can be installed on a iPhone/iPad which do allow access to local files. One of our clients has asked us to develop an application to allows users to be able to attach from iOS based devices.


There is much to admire about Steve Jobs. His design principle of keeping solutions simple is one to which we aspire. Our sites should be intuitive enough to use without the need to read a great manual. We however do not want to follow his approach of creating a ‘closed’ community, even if we admire the fact that it has been a great business model.


Consequently the question about what will happen to Apple post Steve Jobs is an interesting one for us. Our current view is that Apple will do the same again in the phone market that they have done in the PC market i.e. become a choice based on design/brand rather than cost and functionality. We are pretty sure that Androids growth will hit their bottom line as they lose market share. It is also conceivable that they will lose income from application sales and iTunes particularly if another music/entertainment supplier comes into this market offering more competitive rates.


We also think that it is possible that Amazon might start hitting Apple hard with the Kindle Fire, although we are concerned that Amazon they have a modified version of an earlier version of Android which would appear to be heavily tied to their "platform" and as such is not open as we would like.


Microsoft release Windows 8 next year will also be significant. This is being designed to run on PCs, Tablets and Netbooks and for the first time not tied into the x86 chip (Intel/AMD) but will be ported to run on ARM processors which are cheaper and less resource hungry.


So what do we think will happen over the next 12 to 18 months? We think there is a real chance that Apple will lose market share unless is does something drastic around the pricing of its products. They have done it before in the portable music player market which they now dominate. There is talk that Apple is currently looking to secure a large supply of 7" screens, the gossip being that they are going to come out with a lower spec iPad to try and stop Amazon and the Kindle Fire becoming a threat. They have the early adopters and now need the mass market.



Amazon is probably the one company that can take Apple on in this space, they have the client base, they have the content, and they have the global reach, their product price point with the Kindle Fire looks spot in to take tablets to the mass market.


It is not surprising HP dropped their touch Pad pretty much after launching it when you consider this market, however there are rumours that they will come out with a new offering and we are pretty sure it will be designed to compete at a lower price point. It was interesting to see they could not sell the touchpad at £400 but they went like hot cakes at £89.


Our sense is that Kindle Fire, when released internationally, will start a new wave of tablets hitting the market that are better priced for mass adoption. Increasingly the PC we all own will be used for serious work where a keyboard and the fine control of a mouse is required with tablets becoming the way we interact with technology in the home environment. Already we find an increasing number of people using their smart phones to “check” things out while in the living room and this would be so much better on the larger screen the tablet will provide. We think the Kindle Fire might have it right, it’s not all singing and dancing but it does do what most of us want for ad hoc use, read my email and check the web while relaxing at home.


With Apple, Goolge, Microsoft and now Amazon all seriously entering this market we could finally see the mass adoption of the tablet in our home and business environments. This could have a major impact on the portability of electronic devises to support learning and assessment.


Let’s watch this space.

First free to use NVQ/QCF e-portfolio; so why are you really doing it?

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.

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.