Integrating ePortfolios – guiding questions and experiences
John Milne
Centre for Academic Development and eLearning
Massey University, New Zealand
Eva Heinrich
School of Engineering and Advanced Technology
Massey University, New Zealand
Isabelle Hoong
Institute of Food Nutrition and Human Health
Massey University, New Zealand
This paper presents a case study of the use of an ePortfolio in a human biology distance course foster student learning. An academic developer used a guided question approach to help the lecturer consider pedagogy, administration and student support of the ePortfolio activity. We present student feedback of their ePortfolio experience and the summative assessment for the ePortfolio activity. We consider the challenges of introducing ePortfolios in a single course.
Keywords: ePortfolios, implementation, design, student learning
Introduction
The term ‘ePortfolio’ is often used to express with one word an approach to learning that builds on collection, selection, reflection and sharing (Mason, Pegler, & Weller, 2004). ePortfolios are used in the context of lifelong learning, referring to the duration of the learning process, its life-wide and self-directed nature. The importance of lifelong learning is widely recognised (Friesen Anderson, 2004). This applies in general to all members of society, all learners and students. The tertiary sector has been aware of the importance of lifelong learning in principle for a long time but only, over the past years, has increasingly become aware of the need to actively support its students. For example, graduate profiles for degree programmes describe the skills, including lifelong learning skills, and competencies a graduate will possess. Traditionally, these graduate profiles are developed by academic committees and stored in safe places, never to be looked at again by either teaching staff or students. The current climate of renewed emphasis on lifelong learning skills (see for example the strategy documents of the New Zealand Tertiary Education Strategy, TES, 2008), has affected a shift in thinking. The graduate profiles have been taken off the shelves and skills and competencies are matched against learning outcomes, integrated into teaching and presented directly to students. As part of this move many tertiary institutions have investigated the use of ePortfolio systems, taking advantage of their strengths in reflective and lifelong approaches to learning for students.
A big challenge for the tertiary institutions arises from the holistic nature of skills and competences and the typical structure of degree programmes. Skills and competencies like ‘ability to work in a team’, ‘ability to solve complex problems’ or ‘awareness of the professional responsibilities of an engineer’ need to develop over a long period of time and from a range of experiences in a variety of contexts. This suggests an approach that accompanies a whole degree programme across all courses taken in each year – something an ePortfolio approach is very compatible with. Yet, the typical structure of a degree programme works against such an approach. Programmes are divided into separate courses, adding up to something like 24 courses over a three year degree programme. Each course commonly has about 3 to 4 assessment points, further guiding the students towards a fragmented approach to their studies. The academic teams designing degree programmes will have taken a holistic approach to their disciplines and will have carefully considered that all areas of graduate profile and subject knowledge are covered. Yet, for the student’s eye this design is not visible and the degrees appear as collection of separate units. It has long been known that assessment is one of the strongest drivers for student engagement (Black & Wiliam, 1998; Crooks, 1988). Students typically haste from assessment point to assessment point without being motivated to step back and look at their disciplines, or even their own development towards fulfilling their graduate profiles, in a holistic and critical way. To address these issues of lifelong learning, graduate profiles and degree structures tertiary institutions are increasingly turning towards approaches using ePortfolios (McAllister, Hallam & Harper, 2008). Additional evidence for this comes from the level of participation at the Australian ePortfolio Symposiums 2008 and 2009, http://www.eportfoliopractice.qut.edu.au.
In this paper we discuss the use of an ePortfolio in a single course in human biology. We outline aspects of institutional ePortfolio support and the level of intervention at either degree programme or course level. We introduce a set of guiding questions to help design the ePortfolio intervention. We provide student responses to the ePortfolio work and evaluate both the intervention and the guiding questions against the context of the degree structures.
Institutional ePortfolio support and level of intervention
The typical approach in a tertiary institution is to use eLearning tools that are supported at an institutional level (JISC, 2008; JISC, 2009; AeP, 2008). There are many different types of ePortfolio solutions, ranging from Web 2.0 tools to institutional ePortfolio systems. Whatever the system chosen, an institutional system is characterised by an institution wide access, some form of central control over system parameters and user community, and central services in terms of security and safety. In an institutional context the use of an institutional system is likely and we assume this for our further considerations. In particular, the availability of an institutional system implies access for all staff and students linked to the institution.
We briefly want to look at three aspects of support, namely technical, pedagogically and policy. Technical support will cover issues like creation of logins, troubleshooting and instruction material on the technical use of the system. Once an institution has adopted an ePortfolio system it is likely to have established some form of pedagogical support. A team of educational developers will be informed on how to use the ePortfolio system in pedagogically valuable ways. In terms of policy the institution will have made a commitment towards reflective and lifelong learning approaches.
In the case study, the institution supported ePortfolios in a number of ways. The university provided the software and chose to host it externally so that students could access it after they finish their study at university. The central helpdesk knew about ePortfolios so they could support students with any technical issues. Staff had access to pedagogical expertise and support. A Pro Vice-Chancellor supported the project and a lifelong learning policy was in draft form.
Once institutional support is in place actual ePortfolio interventions can be planned and implemented. A promising approach is to do this on degree level. This means to look at a degree programme in its entirety, and deliberately integrate ePortfolio activities throughout the different year-levels and individual courses. Such overall planning has the advantage of being able to transcend course boundaries and look at skills and competencies as directed by the graduate profile holistically. Further, it is possible to integrate the activities into the overall assessment for the degree programme, contributing to student motivation. Unfortunately, such an approach has difficulties on a practical level. The revision of a degree programme and subsequent implementation takes several years. It requires a programme committee that places a high value on ePortfolio approaches. All lecturers involved in course, at planning and teaching levels, need to support and participate in the ePortfolio concept as all courses will contain ePortfolio activities. So far we largely have seen such programme level approaches in education, for example in the teacher education degrees (Bhattacharya, 2009; Lamont, 2007; Maher & Gerbic, 2009).
At our own institution, like at most institutions in Australia and New Zealand, the commitment to ePortfolios on degree programme level is the exception. While we enjoy a reasonable level of institutional ePortfolio support, we are faced with the question of how to implement ePortfolio activities. A number of our lecturers believe in the ePortfolio approach and do not want to wait until the programme committees and colleagues around them are ePortfolio ready. We have been charged within our institution to work with these lecturers and facilitate a ground-level adoption of ePortfolios. To advance this process we have developed a set of guiding questions, aimed at assisting motivated individuals with the introduction of ePortfolio activities. We have trialled these questions and report on our efforts in the following sections.
Guiding questions for ePortfolio adoption on single course level
In the introduction of any eLearning technology in a teaching context, it is essential to put pedagogy first. Technology is not to be used for its own sake but in a supporting and facilitating capacity. Pedagogy therefore stands on the forefront when we talk to lecturers about the introduction of ePortfolio activities. In our conversations with lecturers, we have come across two main situations. Firstly, we find that lecturers are already doing a reflective type activity with their students, but are looking for ways to improve this activity. An example is the use of weekly logs or diaries in paper form. The students are already encouraged to reflect on their progress and provide peer feedback, but moving towards eLearning technology will assist: capturing reflection in an ePortfolio environment retains the individual focus, but vastly improves handling, accessibility and sharing. Secondly, we see that lecturers are aware of the need for improvements in a specific area but have not found the mechanisms for implementation. While technology should not be driving learning design, we find that sometimes the availability of technology allows stepping forward and tackling some long-standing issue. An example in this area is the need for student reflection on formative feedback received in response to assignment work, which we will describe in more detail in our case study. To assist in our work of discussing ePortfolio opportunities with lecturers we have developed a set of guiding questions (Figure 1). We use these as the backbone of our conversations with lecturers, helping us to guide and address the important issues.
Pedagogy1. What do you want to improve or focus on?
2. What existing elements will you modify? Outline how they will change?
3. What new elements will you design and integrate into existing structures? Describe the new elements.
4. What are the intended learning outcomes for the ePortfolio activity?
5. What are the benefits of using an ePortfolio approach?
Administration
6. In which context do we want to do this? (programme, paper, part of a paper, degree requirements outside of paper)
7. What is the timeframe? This should include lead-in time and duration of the work.
8. How many students are involved?
9. Who is going to be involved? (Other lecturers, administrators, etc)
10. What are the consequences of the changes in terms of formalities, information given to students?
Support
11. What technical and instructional support does the lecturer need?
12. What support will the students need to do the tasks (e.g., how to reflect)?
13. What level of familiarity do the students have with using e-learning systems?
14. What technical support will they need?
15. Does the approach fit into a wider picture of lifelong learning support?
16. How will you explain to students the value of the approach?
Evaluation
17. How will we measure if the approach has been successful?
Figure1 : Guiding questions to support lecturers who plan to use ePortfolios
While pedagogy is the guiding principle, we are well aware of the realities of tertiary teaching. The questions of administration and support need to be addressed for any teaching initiative to be successful. To discuss these questions the wider institutional context is important. We build here on the assumption that an institutional ePortfolio system has been selected and that institutional support on technical, pedagogic and policy level is provided. To a certain degree questions on pedagogy, administration and support are intertwined. For example, pedagogy might necessitate a time consuming feedback loop that can only be implemented with a restricted number of students and the availability of dedicated resources. We want to give some examples of the types of issues to be considered. ePortfolio use requires network access. In New Zealand, eLearning courses are classified as web-supported (student use is optional), web-enhanced, or web-based (student use is compulsory), specifying the degree of network access students must have to participate in the course. Students must be advised of the course classification before enrolment so they can ensure that they have the required level of access. This implies a considerable lead-in time for the introduction of an ePortfolio activity into a course. The amount of assistance students will need for accessing and operating the ePortfolio system will depend on their familiarity with eLearning tools. Writing reflections is quite challenging and students may require guidance in this area. It is important that we clarify such needs ahead of time to schedule the right support resources. If this does not occur, then a pedagogically valuable approach may prove unsuccessful in its implementation and has a negative impact on future initiatives.
The last section of our set of guiding questions (see Figure 1) deals with the very important aspect of evaluation. How do we know if the activity we have introduced into a course is successful? How do we define success? We see a wide range of possible answers, from a less ambitious ‘how many students have participated’ to the very involved ‘what was the benefit to student learning’. The questions tie in closely with the goals set for the intervention. The consideration of evaluation right from the start helps in clarifying the goals.
Case study of a specific science course
An ePortfolio activity was introduced for the first time into a first year course called ‘Human Bioscience: Normal Body Function’. This course is a foundation course for students studying towards Health Professional degrees such as Nursing, Midwifery, Health Sciences and Sports and Exercise. The ePortfolio activity was introduced over the summer semester 2008/9 via distance mode delivery of the course. The number of students enrolled was 193. The lecturer in charge of the course was new to ePortfolio work but could see the potential benefits for student learning and was very interested to participate. An analysis of the context of the course provided the following parameters: it had to be assumed that the level of familiarity of the students with eLearning technology was fairly low; the distance mode of the course meant that no face-to-face support sessions were possible and that any support had to be provided via distance; the lecturer was willing to invest some extra time into the ePortfolio activity but had a quite busy schedule herself; the two colleagues involved in the course were open towards the ePortfolio idea but did not want to be directly involved in this first iteration.