ePorfolio pilot study & beyond “a vehicle for a learning journey through life” “an additional personal marketing tool” (Owen & Hastings, 2006) Alfredo Gaitan, Rob Manton & Maja Jankowska (CETL)

Institution wedded to Blackboard Decision taken 2006 to use Blackboard based ePorfolio Background

Institution wedded to Blackboard Decision taken 2006 to use Blackboard based ePorfolio Background

Psychology –17 2nd year volunteers (all female) –Linked to personal tutor scheme. –Assessed formatively Computing –100+ 2nd year students on PDP module –Required to submit assessment using ePortfolio for PDP module. Study details

The process nw2w3w4w5w6w7w8w9w10w11w12w13 Survey 1 * Training Focus group 1 Implementation Interviews Submission eportfolio Focus group 2 Survey 2 * * Open to all Level 2 students. Computing Psychology

Survey 1 (online): Inventory of Academic/PDP practices & use of electronic resources 21 practices

Sample (Survey 1) SubjectFrequency% Computing Psychology Total AgeFrequency% Cumulative Percent Total SexFrequency% ValidFemale male Total ModeFrequency% Full time Part time 54.3 Total CountryFrequency% 1. UK EU Overseas Total

General picture from Survey 1: CompPsychDiffTotal Type of PDP practice MSDM M Collect/archive Record learning experiences Reflective thinking Reflective writing Publish/share =Never, 2= Once or twice, 3=Rarely, 4=Often, 5=Very frequently Table 1. Frequency of types of PDP practices that can be supported by the Content Collection and eportfolio that are part of BREO (Pre-pilot).

General picture from Survey 1 Table 2. Importance attached to PDP practices that can be supported by the Content Collection and eportfolio that are part of BREO grouped by types. CompPsychDiffTotal MSDM M Collect/archive Record learning experiences Reflective thinking Reflective writing Publish/share = not important at all, 2= important, 3 = neutral, 4= important, 5=very important

Specific results (example) Figure 1. Students recording their learning experiences

Focus groups 1 & 2 Survey 2 (brief summary) Issues Blogging tools not yet effective Security Insufficient IT skills (e.g. images) Support and help Time required Differences between users Challenges (for tutors and students) Features (mostly beneficial), also in interviews Access anywhere Archiving (Paperless, safety) Ease of use (mixed) – ‘gets easier after a while’ Career PD (reflection) Self-presentation/sharing

Experience (interviews) THEMES: 1.Self –Discovering interests –Developing Self 2. Reflection –Descriptive/ evaluative –Ongoing/ summary reflection (when) –Concurrent (in task)/ subsequent (outside task and tool) (where)

3. Attitude to PDP: from perceiving it as intimidating towards liking it 4. Career –produce CV, online, flexible CV –anticipating future (awareness of employment requirements) 5. Publish –‘self presentation’ –to show I’ve done it –to apply for a job, show at interview, send to potential employers Experience (interviews)

6. Share –yes/ no –Sharing technical knowledge Getting ideas from others (design and structure) Giving and receiving guidance

Different users = different levels of engagement Kate: didn’t understand it ‘(…) I’m doing my work as normal and (…) as a word document’ Martha: didn’t realise the potential so haven’t done much with it Mia: did it at the last minute because I had to Bob: ‘Not for me – for them younger, inexperienced students’ Bill: I’m doing what I’ve been told to do Alice: good only for storage Lou (mature student): ‘I’m not very IT literate so I’m quite overwhelmed by the whole technology’’ Tom: easy, simple, saves time Lee, Ben : good for career purposes, online CV Ken, Tim: good for PDP Ina, Jo: exploration and fun finding the way

Method of assessment Computing Submission of reflective summary to Turnitin Grademark system for online feedback and marking

Method of assessment Psychology Formative feedback based on given criteria

Blackboard based ePortfolio The Good…  Content collection/ web folder  Integration with VLE  Can be extended with custom HTML  Good tools to organize received portfolios into folders..The Bad and the Ugly  Poor blog support  Image handling confusing  Comments only added at portfolio level  Permissions problems mean some content not available

Changes planned for Introduce in level one (this is the way we do PDP – make it a habit) Encourage two way conversation between tutor and student (encourage tutors to engage via blogs) Encourage use of multimedia elements (or else why bother to do it this way?) – links to video, audio Use to support dissertation students – store work in progress and facilitate contact with supervisor

What actually happened ~20% of submitted portfolios not fully accessible due to permissions fault We ended up using blogs to facilitate the two way conversation (worked pretty well, comments added after each article – not possible in ePortfolio) We used blogs for supporting dissertation students

Changes for Find ways of gathering and storing assessments and feedback (e.g. electronic submissions, Turnitin Grademark). Change to Pebblepad!

Pebblepad based ePortfolio The Good…  Much better blog support  Intuitive to create after initial confusion over naming  Good easy to use design choices The Bad and the Ugly  Difficulty loading images  Not clear how to manage received portfolios (gateways?)  HTML customization tricky

Questions????