Lead Contact: Clem Herman

JISC Programme: JISC e-Learning Capital Programme

Lead Institution and Partners: The Open University - Faculty of Maths Computing and Technology (MCT); Institute of Educational Technology (IET); Learning and Teaching Solutions (LTS); Sheffield Hallam University - Centre for Science Education; University of Salford - School of Computing and Engineering; The Women's Workshop, Cardiff; UK Resource Centre for Women in Science; Engineering and Technology Association for Learning Technology (ALT)

 

Project Dates: October 2007 - March 2009

 

Case study tags: online learning, e-portfolios,the open university, e-portfolios for application, community of practice perspectives on e-portfolios, learner perspectives on e-portfolios, lifelong learning drivers for e-portfolios, widening participation drivers for e-portfolios

 

Background & Context

 

What is the background to the e-portfolio initiative?

 

Women returning to work after a career break face a number of barriers and often require specialist support and help in getting back into employment. This is particularly true for those who want to return to Science Engineering or Technology (SET) industries where the career structures and workplace cultures still largely reflect the assumption that employees are male and will have an uninterrupted full-time career.

The project was developed out of the RETURN Campaign which had been funded by the former Department for Trade and Industry and co-ordinated by the UK Resource Centre for Women in Science Engineering and Technology (UKRC) between 2004 and 2007.

 

An innovative aspect of this project was the consortium itself with 3 of the 5 organisations being Higher Education institutions and the other two (Cardiff Women's Workshop and UKRC for Women in SET) being small not-for-profit organisations that were new to the concept of e-portfolios and were keen to explore how these could be used within their areas of work. All 5 organisations had substantial experience of supporting women returning to SET either through distance learning, face to face counselling and advice, mentoring or other forms of advocacy. The remit of the project encompassed capacity building and skills sharing between partners.

 

What were the aims and objectives of the initiative?

 

The aim of the project was to evaluate the feasibility of developing a portable version of the Open University's (OU) e-portfolio (MyStuff) for cross institutional use, which would be piloted by women returning to Science Engineering and Technology (SET) after a career break.

 

Objectives were to:

 

• Identify the ways in which specific groups of stakeholders that work with returners could integrate the MyStuff e-portfolio into their current working practices (careers advisors, mentors and employers)
• Develop and test models of transferring e-portfolio content from OU MyStuff to other systems used by partner institutions, for example the ViewSET Moodle platform at Cardiff and Goldmine database held by UKRC
• Support 2 groups of returning learners to create and continue to use their MyStuff e-portfolios during and after undertaking an online Personal Development Planning course at the Open University
• Evaluate how learners have used MyStuff e-portfolios to support transition to employment by carrying out surveys and interviews with participants on the course and their mentors/advisers/employers after the end of the course
• Disseminate findings and results to the wider community of e-learning professionals through a series of workshops and seminars

 

How was the initiative implemented?

 

As lead partner the OU undertook project management and co-ordination of the partnership, with a strong emphasis on partnership working, building on previous working relationships, so that new developments and decisions about the direction of the project were discussed within the overall consortium framework.

The approach was very much user-focused, above all the project wanted to assess how and in what circumstances e-portfolios could be a useful tool to support women returners to SET.

 

The first step was to assess the needs of stakeholders by hosting focus groups.

 

OU carried out technical development of MyStuff e-portfolio software including adapting and updating the original T160 course for returners to SET so that learners on the new T161 course (Return to Science, Engineering and Technology) could use MyStuff to develop their e-portfolios. Cardiff and UKRC carried on their support work with these learners after they had completed the course and offered them further advice and help with returning to employment.

 

OU designed and carried out evaluation study with two groups of T161 learners to assess their responses to the MyStuff software as well as attitudes to the e-portfolio process that had been adopted within the course.

The project set out to investigate how the MyStuff e-portfolio could be used by learners as they progressed to other institutions or into employment. Therefore issues of interoperability were critical. Experiments were set up to test the transferability and usability of MyStuff data between partner institutions and existing e-portfolio systems.

Finally ALT organised a dissemination event to ensure that the wider JISC and e-learning communities were aware of the project and the issues being explored.

 

Technology Used

 

What technologies and/or e-tools were available to you or did you seek to develop?

 

• The Open University's MyStuff e-portfolio tool was central to the project
• ViewSET Moodle platform at Cardiff
• Goldmine database held by UKRC

 

Success Factors

 

What are the key outcomes of the initiative?

 

Women returners found e-portfolios useful in supporting their employability and progress back into employment- despite software limitations.

 

Successful engagement of a wide range of employers and other stakeholders, raising their awareness of, and interest in, e-portfolios.

 

Raising awareness in the community - the final dissemination event was well attended and facilitated a wide-reaching debate (contributed to by practitioners and learners) about e-portfolio use with returners.

Partner outcomes included capacity building. Partners in the project experienced wider benefits and unexpected outcomes largely related to capacity building and greater awareness of the influence of e-portfolios on their work.

Outcomes by partner:

 

Sheffield Hallam - gained a greater understanding of e-portfolios and their value to returners. Also, a greater integration of the Women in SET team into the institution with potentially greater take up of services from staff and students within the institution and potential for collaborative work with other relevant members of staff.

 

Salford University found that the cooperation between project partners encouraged sharing resources and ideas and enriched the experiences of the teams involved.

 

UKRC - outcomes included strengthened links between UKRC and Bradford College e-portfolio developers in particular, meaning potential for follow-on development of e-portfolio work within UKRC and improved sills and awareness among UKRC staff, benefiting their support and advice to women returners and other women in SET clients.

 

What follow-up activity will be/has been carried out as a result of the project?

 

Further research needs to be undertaken into the impact of the 'look and feel' of e-portfolios on their uptake and usage, for example including a comparative study that examines which system would be better for independent users not associated with an institution.

 

It is apparent that there is a need for e-portfolios, that are not institutionally driven, that can meet the needs of lifelong learners.

 

Feedback suggested that further development work should involve professional body and employer engagement. Students and returners.

 

Lessons Learned

 

What are the lessons learned from the project?

 

• Feedback indicated that further development work should involve professional body and employer engagement. Students and returners will give increased value to creating an e-portfolio when employers appear to endorse or demand them
• Speed and other technical limitations of MyStuff had acted as a barrier to greater uptake and 'stickiness'^*
• Feedback from stakeholders as well as discussions at our dissemination event also revealed growing discontent with the proliferation of different e-portfolio systems for specific user groups and the lack of transparency between them
• There is a need for systems that recognise the lifelong nature of learning and do not assume that each learning episode requires a new e-portfolio. This is especially important in the transitions between schools, further education colleges and universities
• Staff must engage fully if e-portfolios are going to be successful - this includes using them for staff appraisals, keeping e-portfolios themselves that they can use as model examples for students
• Employer/stakeholder engagement is also crucial for employability outcomes
• Standardisation/interoperability - there is a strong need to continue work in this area
• It should be a 'cradle to grave' project - work should continue on joining up e-portfolios that currently have specific target groups
• Need for work with professional bodies to promote e-portfolios
• Successful induction can help to increase uptake of the use of e-portfolios so this needs to be included in planning
• Importing/exporting contents between MyStuff and the Blackboard version used at Salford proved to be not as useful and successful as hoped for, however this had the positive effect of urging the team to look at alternative ways to host the e-portfolio data

 

^*'sticky' reference - Jalfari, Ali. (2004). The 'Sticky' ePortfolio System: Tackling Challenges and Identifying Attribute. EDUCAUSE Review, vol 39, No 4 (July/August), pp 38-49.

Further Resources

 

eReturn project website - http://ereturn.open.ac.uk

 

eReturn on the JISC Website - http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearningcapital/xinstit2/ereturn.aspx

 

Rachel Thapa-Chhetri experience of a student - personal blog at http://www.pebblepad.co.uk/kent/viewasset.aspx?oid=1894&type=webfolio&pageoid=1895

 

Rachel Thapa-Chhetri on UKRC blog (note: this leaves space 15th October 2009 and will be archived but still accessible) http://www.ukrc4setwomen.org/html/women-and-girls/blogs?id=8