EPICS and Beyond…

1. Simon Cotterill School of Medical Education Development University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK ePET portfolio http://www.eportfolios.ac.uk EPICS Regional ePortfolio http://www.epics.ac.uk CETL4HealthNE http://www.cetl4healthne.ac.uk JISC EPICS and Beyond…

2. Background: Personal Development Planning (PDP) SST (Student Support & Tutoring) 1st Newcastle-Nottingham PARs project, 1998-2000 • Internet-PARs • 2 DfES funded projects • PDP focus • Based on the • personal tutor model • ePortfolios • FDTL-4 project • PDP in curriculum context • Evidencing outcomes • Less emphasis on the tutor model 2nd Newcastle-Nottingham PARs project, 2000-02

3. Design new components for your course -create proformas via simple Web forms. -or using Open Source software Select components for your course (eg. CV, learning diary, SWOT, meetings etc) Specify Skill-sets / Learning Outcomes Customise look-and feel, terminology and text Build on core features, including: • Content sharing – add formative comments & dialogue • Integrated action planning • Uploading files • Access policies to support assessment (if required) ePET Portfolio (‘software to match your pedagogy’)

4. Speech therapy Generic tools Postgrad Research

5. Recent projects • Building on 3 collaborative projects (FDTL-4 & DEFS) • FDTL Transferability (ePortfolios @ St George’s) • Dental ePortfolios Consortium • Postgraduate & CRS (University-wide, Newcastle) • A number of other collaborative projects JISC Projects • ePortfolio Extensions Toolkit (ePET) • Involvement in 3 Regional ePortfolio pilots (FE & HE): • EPICS (North East) • IAMSECT ‘Shibboleth’ single sign-on project Centre for Excellence in Healthcare Professional Education (CETL4HealthNE)ePortfolio support for a number of strands in a HEFCE funded CETL in Health (North East)

6. ePET – Interoperability Project • Funded as part of the JISC DEL programme • http://www.eportfolios.ac.uk/ePET • Aims: • Consolidate and document the ‘generic’ ePortfolio and make it freely available to the JISC community. • Develop a standards compliant Web Services interface to the ePortfolio.

7. - ePET has been designed so that it has the potential to support a range of different specifications e.g. • Learner Information Package (LIP) • UK Learner Profile • Enterprise / Content Packaging • ePortfolio (early stage of development) • -Dictionaries can be created for different specifications. • -New portfolio tools created by third party developers can mapped to the dictionary(s)

8. ePET – RESTian Approach • Using REpresentational State Transfer (REST) which is: • is an architectural style for large-scale software design (Roy Fielding, 2000). • uses a small, globally defined set of Http Methods: (GET and POST, and secondarily PUT, DELETE, etc) • Unique resourse identifiers (URIs) for both artifact-resources as well as distinct application-states

9. ePET – RESTian Approach #2 • explicit rather than implicit • uses hyperlinks as the "engine" of application-state transitions: • URI = /epet/scheme/component/-parameters • /epet/LIP1/all/-/target_user-n1stu • /epet/LIP1/cv/-/target_user-n1stu Request Dictionary Look-up ‘Intermediate’ LIP XLST >true LIP Send XML (eg. via SSL)

10. EPICS - North East regional collaboration around e-portfolio progression pathways with illustrative studies Part of the JISC Distributed e-Learning Programme. Partners include: 5 HEIs FE colleges (OWL network) JISC Regional Centre Case studies -demonstrate feasibility / scalability -supporting life-long learning http://www.epics.ac.uk

11. EPICS Overview • Pedagogy • established a Regional Forum for PDP • Governance • developed ‘5Ps’ model for analysing policy, practice etc. • Technical • 5 case studies – interoperability FE/HE • Shibboleth – single sign-on

12. EPICS Interoperability • Case study (FE -> HE) • Student initiated transfer • IMS LIP via XML-RPC feed • Currently via remote login • -soon authentication c/o Shibboleth single sign-on

13. ePET -> Blackboard Portfolio • ePET export Zip (IMS-LIP) • Bb import Zip file • XSLT transform to HTML + files • Blackboard Portfolio -> ePET • Problematic: Bb little support for LIP • ISP needs to standardise tags • Export to ZIP • Import into ePET as files • +some XSLT where IMS LIP tags have been used

14. Educational Benefits of Interoperability • Continuity in life-long learning learning • School HE Continuing Development • Explicit recognition of prior learning • Focus on continuous development, not episodic learning • Integration with the wider MLE Life-long ‘personal learning space’ Serial transfer of data Aggregators of multiple portfolios / blogs Alternative models • Portfolio learning triggered by events in the VLE / MLE • Integration with other systems • eg. portfolio record generated by admin systems after attending a workshop = prompt for reflection

15. Event-driven data transfer e.g. Postgraduate Research Students (Newcastle University) Portfolio Workshop Booking System Workshop attendance is confirmed by an administrator. This initiates secure transfer of course attendance record(s) to the ePET portfolio (IMS LIP). Learner(s) choose to accept the record and can add additional personal reflective notes, cross-references etc.

16. JISC – SURF Meeting, Nottingham 2006

17. Evaluating the use of hand-held computers to access electronic portfolios and clinical guidelines in a wireless environment for undergraduate medical education Cotterill SJ, Jones S, Walters RA, Horner P, Moss JD, McDonald AM On behalf of the CETL4HealthNE Pilot with 31 students started March 2006

18. Further information:http://www.eportfolios.ac.ukS.J.Cotterill@ncl.ac.uk Cotterill SJ., McDonald AM., Drummond P., Hammond GR. Design, implementation and evaluation of a ‘generic’ e-portfolio: the Newcastle experience(ePortfolios 2004, La Rochelle) Paper available at: http://www.eportfolios.ac.uk Centre for Excellence in Healthcare Professional Education (CETL4HealthNE) http://www.cetl4healthne.ac.uk Director: Prof. Geoff Hammond G.R.Hammond@ncl.ac.uk