1. ePortfolio and RPL
in Higher Education
and Lifelong Learning:
Current > Future State
Danish Study Tour
April 2013

2. Learning Agents
Accelerated learning systems
E-learning resources & services
Learning community support
Consulting
http://bit.ly/DonPresant_ePortfolio

3. Why ePortfolio?
Pervasive Digital Identity
http://lindongfromeasttowest.wordpress.com/category/digital-identity/

4. @timbuckteeth http://scoop.intel.com/what-happens-in-an-internet-minute/ 20120313

5. What is ePortfolio?
http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/infokits/e-portfolios

6. What is ePortfolio?
Grandma’s balanced view
http://electronicportfolios.org/balance/Balancing.jpg

7. Benefits of “e”
Virtual Binder for 21C
• Information Management capabilities
– Collecting, archiving, sharing, making different versions
– Multimedia evidence
• Digital technology, Internet literacy
• Learning and collaboration integration
– Online research: documents, networks
– Easy to add comments, edit, mentor, coach
• Digital Identity
– Professional Profile, Personal network
• Measurement, alignment
– Link to frameworks, rubrics, track learning over time
• Systems integration and interoperability
– Learning management systems, HRIS

8. Personal Planning and Learning
Online Locker, Interactive Workbook
• Online archive
– Personal & downloaded documents, links
• Resources for self-directed learning
– Webinars, videos, self-assessment surveys
• Learning plans and tracking tools
– Set goals and track progress to them (Learning Plans)
– Keep records of learning activities over time (CPD)
• Personal journal
– Reflect on goals and alternative futures
– Keep ad hoc “notes to self”, prepare agendas, etc.
• Ongoing Personal Learning Environment (PLE)
– “Continuous Learning Environment”

9. Employment & related purposes
Demonstrate, assess & improve Human Capital
• Qualification Recognition
– Initial, formative, summative assessment
• Academic recognition
– PLAR/RPL for courses and programs
• Career Development
– Gap analysis, exploration of alternatives, building pathways
• Employment (Web CV)
– Hiring, career advancement, team building tool for employers
• Continuing Professional Development (CPD)
– Tracking ongoing learning activities and reflection on practice
– Recertification

10. Career Portfolio Manitoba
Community-based ePortfolio
• Nonprofit partnerships of Government,
Business and Labour
• WEM: workplace education in Essential
Skills
• WPLAR: workplace Recognition of Prior
Learning
wem.mb.ca
wplar.ca

11. Essential Skills ePortfolio
Program overview
• For Adults in Transition
– Based on paper program
• Leverage the “e” factor
• Accessible and authentic ICT
– Free software, accessible hardware
• Provide ongoing learning support
– Gap training / PD for SMART goals using Moodle

12. Mahara ePortfolio
Overview
• From NZ to the world
• Free Open Source Software (FOSS)
– Free (like a puppy)
– Controllable, predictable
– Extendable, “clusterable” (Moodle, Google Apps…)
• Flexible
– Digital storytelling machine, not a “tick box”

13. Mahara ePortfolio
Under the hood
• Content Archive
– Profile, Resume, Files, Notes, Journals (blogs), Plans
• Pages, Collections
– Different content for different audiences
• Embed external content (Web 2.0)
– LinkedIn, Slideshare, YouTube, Google Apps, etc.
• Groups and collaboration
– Shared files, pages, collections
• Multi-layered sharing/privacy

14. Mahara Plugins
e.g. Europass

15. Demonstration
• Content tabs tour
• ePortfolios 4…
– Rommuel, Carol, David
• Course tour

16. Vision for Career Portfolio Manitoba
Lifelong career development
• All Manitobans
• Community-based, learner owned
• Personal and public purposes
• Lifewide: home, community, school, work...
• Based on (not restricted to) Essential Skills
• Built through partnerships of stakeholders, with
WEM and WPLAR as “anchor tenants”
• Globally aware, locally relevant

17. ePortfolios & Higher Education
Points of Convergence
• Institution/Program admission
– Assessment, gap training
• Undergraduate learning
– First year general studies
– Course specific/program wide
– Work experience, internships
• Capstone
– Graduate Attributes
– Employability (“School to work”)
• Continuing Education/ Professional Development
• Personal Learning Environment

18. ePortfolios in Action
Submission for credit
Link to Samantha

19. ePortfolios in action
Secondary to Post-Secondary
Summary Portfolio
Workbook

20. ePortfolio and RPL
Higher Ed examples in Canada
• Red River College
– Socrates
• Athabasca University
– Mahara (see exemplar)
• Thompson Rivers University
– All forms of ePortfolio
• Douglas College
– RPL as a credited foundation course with opportunity
for further credits; ePortfolio as a tool

21. Detail: RPL at Douglas College
Disability & Community Studies (DACS) Dept.
Draft document 2013

22. Barriers to ePortfolio and RPL
• Learner
– Negative preconceptions, lack of confidence
– Lack of support, uncertainty of requirements
– Time to build
• Institution
– Time to assess
– Assessor/teacher development
– Positivist mindsets
– Academic suspicion (“automation”)
– Cultural inertia

23. Benefits
• Supports undergraduate learning
– Embedded learning activities
– Portable learning archive
• Holistic view of the graduate
– Diverse evidence aligned to graduate outcomes
– Interdisciplinary, lifewide
• Supports professional identity development
– Scaffolded reflection
• Ongoing professional development tool
– Personal Learning Environment

24. Success Factors
Organizational perspective
• Burning platform?
– Program outcomes > institutional accreditation
• Principles of change management
– Accelerating vs. accepting the maxim: “change
happens one retirement at a time”
• Faculty portfolios (“eportfolio is good for you”)
– Graduate portfolios
– Hiring Portfolios
– Continuing Professional Development
• Department portfolio to support accreditation

25. Success Factors
Student perspective
• Watch the frame of reference
– Emphasize “internal” (personal values & interests) over “external”
(expectations of employers & recruiters)
• Focus on learning, not just assessment
– PLE, lifelong companion, personal narrative
– Private, shared and public space
• Start early and monitor progress
• Emphasize content over technology
• Opportunities for peer interaction
– Peer review, brainstorming, portfolio buddies, presenting portfolios
• Take small steps with lots of scaffolding
– Simple tasks to begin, provide examples
– Provide technical and content support and feedback
• Eat your own dog food (i.e. build your own eportfolio)

26. Current State of ePortfolios
Semi-Monolithic Silo
Pages
Picasa
Twitter Profile
Résumé
Slideshare
Journals
Notes
Pages
Pages
RSS Embedding
Files
Plans YouTube
CPD
Blogger
My Learning
LinkedIn
Leap2A

27. Laments of the Current State
Not exhaustive…
1. Why can’t I aggregate and use my content,
wherever it is, as I need it?
2. Why can’t I show my authenticated credentials
to whomever I choose?
3. Why can’t I authenticate knowledge and skills
that I’ve earned outside of formal education?
4. Why can’t the right employers find me? Why
can’t I find the right employers?
5. Why can’t I aggregate my skills with those of
my colleagues?

28. Future State: the Open ePortfolio
“Small pieces, loosely joined”
Government Student
Information Records
Portals
eLearning Employer HR
LMS Management
Moodle, Systems
D2L, etc.
Online Localized
Credential ePortfolio Labour Market
Verification Information
Web 2.0
YouTube Job Boards,
LinkedIn Recruitment
Twitter… Sites
Online Personal
Mentoring Networks,
Services Communities

29. Envisioning the future
Open approaches to….
1. Online Workbook/Action Planner
2. RPL Challenge for Credit
3. Employment Marketplace
4. Continuing Professional
Development

30. Online Workbook/Action Planner
Distributed Personal Learning Environment
• Knowledge Building
– Settlement, Language Requirements, Qualification
Recognition, Job Search, Required Documents
• Formative Assessment
– Self-assess readiness in above dimensions
– Share with advisors for triage and gap filling
• Gap Filling
– Plan activities, engage (F2F/online), track progress
• Preparing for Summative Assessment
– Hiring, HE Admission, Professional Registration
• Continuing Development

31. RPL Challenge for Credit
System for Higher Education
• National, open, competitive
– Institutions and learners
– Program, course level
• Credential Recognition
– Authentication, evaluation
• Full and partial credits awarded
– Lifewide skills and knowledge aligned to course and
program outcomes
– Option to fill gaps in partial credits
• National summary program outcomes
– e.g. Graduate Attributes, Essential Skills

32. Employment Marketplace
Bilateral supply and demand
• Open, competitive
– Employers and workers
• Knowledge, skills, attitudes, culture, ethics,
behaviour, geolocation
• Passive/active
• Employer/ worker competency frameworks
– Full/partial matching
• Granular social competency validation
• Full and partial apprenticeship certification

33. Continuing Professional Development
Prosuming Open Learning
• Self assess, set learning goals
– Align with professional requirements
• Track F2F and e-learning
– Formal/informal, synchronous/asynchronous
• Track professional contributions
– Research projects, presentations, articles…
• Track readings, reflections
• Daily performance support
– “iPLE”
• Earn credits from multiple sources

34. University President’s Vision 1
Alan Davis, Kwantlen Polytechnic University
BC RPL Summit presentation March 2013

35. University President’s Vision 2
Alan Davis, Kwantlen Polytechnic University
BC RPL Summit presentation March 2013

36. Genesis of the Vision
Alan Davis, President, SUNY Empire State College
“Design your own degree”
“Open SUNY” planning document 2012 p. 8

37. On the horizon
Open Badges

38. Skills marketplace
“Finnishing School”

39. What is ePortfolio?
Virtual learning companion
http://www.slideshare.net/4nitsirk/mahara-open-source-eportfolio-application

40. To discuss further…
ePortfolio & Identity Conference
• Annual gathering of thought leaders
2013 CONFERENCE THEMES:
•Open ePortfolio & open badges
•Open identity & open data
•Open learning & open educational resources
•Open assessment & open accreditation
•Open employment & open business
•Open architecture & open infrastructure
•Individual and community learning
•Identity construction
•Lifelong learning, orientation and employability
•Acquisition of 21st century skills
www.epforum.eu

41. Don Presant
don@learningagents.ca
Twitter: donpresant
Skype: dpresant