Progress File to ePortfolio

1. Progress File to ePortfolio • The Dearing Reports of 1996 and 1997 prompted a burst of activity • Sponsored 1st by 5 DfEE projects in HE • Then by JISC initiatives in F&HE • This Lifelong Learning Programme is at the point where Progress File became ePortfolio.

2. The Tipping Point • Government will provide all learners with a personal learning space • All the projects in this programme demonstrate a service for this space • ePortfolio will be a key element • A means of integrating the services learners require throughout life

3. Practice and Policy • How does our current work on practice contribute to policy? • What work is now required of us to ensure implementations of policy are well founded? • The scenarios of practice each project has developed set out a landscape • In which scenarios of policy can be developed

4. The Scenario • I want us to turn the world around: - • You are a civil servant • The minister wants every learner to have a personal learning space • You have already briefed her/him about eAssessment and pathways • Now (10.00) s/he wants you to update a high level meeting on ePortfolio at 16.00

5. Preconditions • Broadly, Dearing seems a success (but flawed) • There are strong producer led PDP initiatives (but few demand led) • There is little connection with reducing the assessment load or pathways • There is soft evidence for the utility of PDP, and hence ePortfolio, but little hard evidence. • You turn to the Lifelong Learning programme report, in particular the projects’ scenarios.

6. Scenarios of Practice • The project scenarios show common patterns of behaviour and process; • If a pattern is shared, so may the ICT supporting the behaviour / process; • The complexity and hence the cost of implementation will be reduced; • And the practicability of Lifelong Learning increased • A tick in favour of ePortfolio

7. Interoperability & Diversity • The project scenarios are accessible & tell me what the projects achieved; • They contain common patterns but are diverse and could be customised to meet different needs; • I need to be able to look in more detail at the services lying inside the black boxes but this looks very promising • Double tick

8. Scenarios of Policy • As an aspiring Civil Servant I’m very interested in the scenarios of policy coming out of DEMOS and OECD • I can see a direct correlation with these scenarios of practice; • They set the landscape within which I could develop scenarios of policy; • I especially like the propositions about reuseability and granularity/integration • I could verify policy with this approach

9. Stakeholders • The stakeholder stuff in the practice scenarios is particularly useful; • With this I can give the minister the landscape in which I can develop scenarios setting out policy options; • There’s a neat potential iteration between policy and practice scenarios that can ensure personalisation. Tick2

10. A Golden Scenario? Unfortunately Not!

11. Centralised / Distributed • The minister likes the ULN • But there are risks in a centrally provided personal learner space • Does the LL programme confirm that UKLeaP will work so we can offer a distributed architecture for ePortfolio? • Only 2 institutions have trialled UKLeaP • (But one of them is UCAS) • A question mark or a cross.

12. A stimulus • This is my Big Proposition: - • Scenarios offer a process by which practice and policy may iterate… • …and a means of verifying the utility of ePortfolio implementations. • But each scenario will hold propositions by which its success may be judged. • What are the propositions and criteria by which our own work should be judged?

13. Issues for Discussion • What are the propositions that we should build into our next cycle of work? • How will we verify how they are achieved? • How should this inform Govt Policy… • And the policies of our own institutions?