Agile Project Methodology approaches to improve eportfolio design Patrick Lynch Persefoni Stylianoudaki @thebigparticle @stylianoudaki

Presenters Persefoni Stylianoudaki and Patrick Lynch introduced themselves and talked about their own journeys of using ePortfolios and in particular Pebblepad 2

Pebblepad @ Hull Last accessed from Clipartbest (August 2016): http://www.clipartbest.com The PebblePad journey at the University of Hull started with the implementation of Pebblepad classic but it was not as successful as V3 due to a number of reasons such as: Lack of specialist support for staff and students Evaluation reports showed lack of appreciation by students Areas of implementation were limited and were lacking important structured introduction The need for a much more structured approach was identified 3

Pebblepad @ Hull Last accessed from Clipartbest (August 2016): http://www.clipartbest.com Patrick took over PebblePad directly 3 years ago and started implementing a more structured approach throughout the University His approach emerged organically into what we now describe an agile methodology And we would claim it works and people are much happier with PebblePad We measure our success here through the success of others’ implementations 4

Agile? First large workbook was for Operating Department Practice. Much of this approach can be attributed to that team as much as our own design Stakeholders were identified as very important to success, mentors remote to the University caused great concern. Buy-in was needed to make the new ODP ePortfolio work Initial demonstration of an incomplete state, but sufficient to generate discussion and feedback Agile became a recognised aspect of our approach. We became more forceful in engaging in this way, demanding stakeholder participation Creation of University of Hull’s user group to facilitate support and discussion 5

Agile terminology and roles 6

eportfolio development @Hull Agile project development Hull eportfolio development Agile cycle Curriculum development cycle Development team TEL team responsible for developing the resources and course team responsible for the delivery and assessment Scrum Master A member of the TEL team responsible for facilitating the project Scrum Team meetings Sprint + Sprint planning meetings The time between meetings of the team. This varies depending on the availability of the members Product Owner Programme leader Users Teaching staff, administrative staff, students, mentors/other assessors, external agencies etc. User stories The needs of each type of user: students, teaching staff, mentors, assessors, externals etc. Acceptance criteria Course criteria, professional requirements, mentor and student criteria 7

Project pattern @Hull? 17 steps in the paper Essentially contract, meet (scrum), agree next steps, develop (sprint), demonstrate, next steps … Always engaging as many (all) stakeholders in the process Go live Never finish refining 8

Example project Community Nursing example based on Agile methodology 9

Benefits Increases quality of final product Improves understanding amongst TEL and the delivery team Involves students as ‘partners’ Collaboratively working of all teams Better use of PebblePad options Holistic approach Faster time to market with a working solution Happy people 10

Future ready? We, and our clients, don’t know what the future will be Agile allows us to react as it unfolds Agile allows us to take advantage of glimpses of the future that make themselves visible before we lose sight of them Not only this, but agile goes someway to allowing us to try different potential futures and select the one we like. 11

Take aways During production Find a ‘buddy’ to discuss your thoughts together or to be mentored by and locate friendly faces/peers who are willing to experiment Collate user stories and/or share existing experiences and knowledge with stakeholders Ask the ‘right’ questions so that you could agree a finalised version of the acceptance criteria with the Product Owner Set up clear ‘sprints’ before starting building the prototype Demonstrate early prototype and adjust requirements if required 12

Take aways During presentation Offer continuous support to staff and students Involve students as partners – hence adjustment during presentation are encouraged rather than frowned upon 13

Any questions?