E-portfolios for PDP An overview of student and staff perceptions across subject areas Federica Oradini and Gunter Saunders Online Learning Development University of Westminster

Introduction How ePortfolios have been used at Westminster Perceived benefits from staff and students Frustrations Conclusions

Year 3 SABE Student

Background Blackboard been used for 5 years 15 study skills type modules across UG levels ~2000 students and 25 staff involved All experiencing ePortfolios for the first time All portfolios were assessed

ePortfolios across subjects

Common content

Supporting the students Lecture Workshop 1 (face to face 1hr, 20 students per lab) Workshop 2 (face to face 1hr, 20 students per lab) Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 Week 7 Week 8 Week 9 Week 10 Week 11 Week 12 Workshop 4 (face to face 1hr, 20 students per lab) Workshop 3 (face to face 1hr, 20 students per lab) Online support: screenshots + instructions Narrated video guides

The students From 7 subject areas Majority IT literate - 75% said were confident with prior skills Most work at home 63%, at university 37% Generally positive about their e-portfolio. Opportunity to think more/reflect Recognise/understand their achievements Plan for future career or understand job opportunities/career path better Determining strengths and weaknesses

Variation in views across years In Year 1 30% cited value with regard to employment compared to 60% in year 3

Students – the net generation? 66% used images 5% audio 5% video Reasons for not using multimedia: Lack of confidence in the value of using multimedia for assessment Lack of IT skills Prior learning experiences How do you prefer expressing/recording ideas or thoughts % preferred Text72 Drawings/graphs/tables20 Audio1 Video7

Students – one size fits all? Do you prefer expressing yourself in electronic format? 60% computing students 36% social science Should ePortfolio be used more widely? 70% computing students 26% social science Clearly not – ePortfolio assessment must suit the students tasks and skills to be developed

Year 1, Social Science student Hard to create an ePortfolio? Benefits? PDP useful? Overall thoughts

ePortfolio examples in BB/Web

And….. ePortfolio narrated video, year 3 student

Tutors ePortfolios useful to the course? - 100% Yes Helps monitoring of progress Formative and summative feedback Easier submission for students Students found ePortfolio interesting and motivating The tutor can view and scroll work quickly Save paper work/handouts Reduced paper to carry Accessible from anywhere It provided templates to scaffold students progress Saved time when collecting work Develop students IT skills Enabled students to be more creative Helped identify struggling students for additional support

Assessment How where the e-portfolio received for marking? On a CD 30% Assignments function 60% Shared in Blackboard 10% 91% Marked on screen 9% on paper 40% found on screen was challenging, tiring and time consuming Feedback 40% via 10% through BB 10% handwritten on sheets 20% face to face 20% did not say

Frustrations Sharing - Students did not share the eportfolio early enough Student did not build their eportfolio gradually Comments are not flagged with alerts Submission- As the eportfolio cannot be “frozen”, students were asked to download the eportfolio onto a CD as a zipped file but this caused some technical problems Feedback and marking – Ideally they would like to be able to leave comments on the final submitted version Activity design – It is felt that a very careful re-design is necessary as evidencing for eportfolio is not as straightforward.

Conclusions Need support at key points Students need encouragement to take advantage of multimedia Must tailor activities and assessment to students and learning outcomes Flexibility allows students to take ownership Allowing some flexibility for tutors will motivate and help in the implementation