Research and Information Skills Portfolio creation 2006

What is a portfolio? A portfolio is a purposeful collection of student work that exhibits the student’s efforts, progress, and achievements in one or more areas. The collection must include student participation in selecting contents, the criteria for selection, the criteria for judging merit, and evidence of student self-reflection. A portfolio provides a complex and comprehensive view of student performance in context. It is a portfolio when the student is a participant in, rather than the object of assessment it provides a forum that encourages students to develop the abilities needed to become independent, self-directed learners (Paulson, Paulson and Meyer, in BEDEE1-V tutorial letter 104/0/2006:5)

Why Portfolio Assessment? Portfolio assessment supports authentic assessment models. Main objectives are to keep track of personal progress in the module Determine the extent of achievement Provides an opportunity to value and assess personal accomplishments Provides the opportunity to show lecturers what and how students have learnt

Putting the portfolio together Requires involvement in following activities: Deciding on tasks or goals Planning the stages of various tasks Carrying out plans and adjusting them as necessary Assessing the success of tasks

Selecting a framework Chronological – organise portfolio by date Thematic – organise portfolio around themes and functions Problem-oriented – organise porfolio around problems or issues Own organising principle – a combination of any or all of the above ways

Keeping track of the portfolio Decide on a collection device for portfolio materials (files, folders, spiral binding, etc) Keep practical element of presenting portfolio to university for assessment purposes in mind Chosen framework could serve as guideline for organising portfolio.

What items to include Indicate personal goals and objectives for portfolio development Indicate personal goals and objectives for Research and Information Skills Indicate proposed plan of action for achieving these objectives Include your reactions to our feedback Include elements of self-reflection.

Reflection What you believe is important and why What is characteristic about your learning What has changed with time What still remains to be done How different kinds of experiences have contributed to your growth and learning What personal insights you have gained from the experience How your opinions and ideas have changed, refined or not changed

Feedback Purpose of feedback is to support you. We will try to be: Specific so that you will know what we mean Sensitive to your goals and will give our views accordingly Timely in our feedback Accurate in our interpretation of your inputs.

Portfolio activities Assignment 01 Activity 1: Introduce yourself Activity 2: Decision requiring information Activity 3: Selecting a research topic Activity 4: Quantitative and qualitative research Activity 5: Reasons for literature search

Portfolio activities Assignment 01 (continued) Activity 6: Types of information sources Activity 7: Evaluation of information sources Activity 8: Practical computer skills Activity 9: Selection of search terms – one sentence summaries Activity 10: Identification of types of records and database structures Activity 11: Search strategies

Portfolio activities Assignment 03 Activity 12: Internet activities. These include: Setting up an address Finding addresses for lecturers Finding specific information on the Internet Finding information relevant to research topic

Portfolio activities Assignment 03 (continued) Activity 13: using online information resources Finding specific information using an online library catalogue Finding information relevant to research topic Finding specific information in online databases Finding research related information in online databases

Portfolio activities Assignment 03 (continued) Find relevant information related to your research topic: Explain what you searched for and how you adapted your search Indicate how you adapted your searches Include a variety of sources from the library catalogue, internet and full-text databases Provide examples of search strategies Evaluate your search results according to the criteria in study unit 2

Portfolio activities Assignment 03 (Continued) Compile a bibliography / list of reference sources by: By information sources retrieved from the internet, library catalogue and online databases Including keywords for each reference

Portfolio activities In-Text activities In-text activities are compulsory. In-text activities appear in Tutorial letter BEDEE1-V 103/0/2006. There are 11 activities. Each activity is marked with an A Each activity counts 2 marks. See marksheets in Tutorial Letter 104/0/2006 (p.36) for a list of the activities.

Exam Portfolio Submit exam portfolio to Mrs M du Preez Dept of Information Science Box 392 Unisa 0003

Any Questions?