Establishing an e-Portfolio Community of Practice - #AeP2
Australian e-Portfolios Symposium 2009 - Establishing an e-Portfolio community of practice – was held at Queensland University of Technology, Kelvin Grove Campus on 9 – 10 February 2009
“Findings from the research undertaken as part of the Australian ePortfolio Project revealed that there was a high level of interest in the use of e-Portfolios in the context of higher education, particularly in terms of the potential to help students become reflective learners who are conscious of their personal and professional strengths and weaknesses, as well as to make their existing and developing skills more explicit. There are some good examples of early adoption in different institutions, although these tended to be distributed across the sector. This means that e-Portfolio practice in Australian universities (and Vocational Education and Training - VET) is currently fragmented.
The goal of the AeP2 Symposium was to begin to bring together the different pieces of the e-Portfolio puzzle to build a cohesive composition that will benefit individual students, the quality of learning and the value of higher education outcomes.
There is scope for those involved in e-Portfolios to establish a community of practice (or indeed communities of practice) that will provide valuable channels of communication between those people with shared interests and ideas, and encourage scholarship and research. The AeP2 Symposium represents an important first step in this process.”
http://www.eportfoliopractice.qut.edu.au/symposium2/index.jsp
This Symposium brought together the experienced and the eager to learn ways to support e-portfolio activity in Australian through a community of practice (CoP).
The Symposium was kick started by Wijnand Aalderink, University of Groningen, and Marij Veugelers, University of Amsterdam – who facilitate the e-portfolio arm, NL Portfolio, of the Dutch platform organisation for IT in Higher Education - SURF Foundation - who shared their experiences in community building in Holland, including:
15 ways for community building:
- organise a roundtable discussion to definition the focus areas and explore the potential
- establish a community develop project and make an action plan with reachable target update yearly
- appoint community manager
- create an addressable community of experts key players (linking pins) in member organisations
- identify key players to develop a community of practice at their own institutions
- facilitate a dissemination website and organise activities for a larger circle of people that is active or interested
- involve stakeholders from working field, other educational sectors, and tool developers
- explore and connect to international development
- organise expert meetings on specific topics
- capture your national e-portfolio landscape
- do a gap analysis - what do we know? what to explore?
- launch an applied research project - how will this work or going to work?
- “have a look in my kitchen” – visits to see what others are doing
- start working groups for areas of mutual interest
- present at other conferences ie IT in education, educational quality, lifelong learning, employability
Rob Ward, Director, Centre for Recording Achievement, UK – offered his wisdom on e-portfolio communities of practice in the UK, using the example of how the Centre for Recording Achievement (CRA) has developed into a CoP – as it never set out to be one.
CRA’s initial aim was to facilitate the recording of achievement for learning and promote a set of principles for lifelong learning and how that learning occurred ie learning how to learn, and discovered that an e-portfolio created rich pictures of graduates’ achievements.
Rob views the CRA’s model of a CoP as being based on Etienne Wenger - theory of CoP – whereby individuals come together around a “passion for something”, and which consists of:
- the Domain: - the what? – ie a focus of learning;
- the Community: - the who? – the people involved; and
- the Practice: - the how? ways to learn and develop together.
Community building activities used by CRA include:
- Residential seminars
- PD days
- sub-group activities – regional groups, technical-related, project focused
- User support groups
- e-Lists – info and resource sharing
- Newsletters
The Panel discussion around ‘CoP – Development and Sustainability’ involved Wijnand Aalderink, Marij Veugelers, Meg O’Reilly (Southern Cross University), Kim Hauville (QUT), Carole McCulloch (Macro Dimensions) and Allison Miller (Australian Flexible Learning Framework).
This group shared ideas on how an e-portfolio CoP could be facilitated at various levels through face to face gatherings of ‘paper bag’ lunches or wine and cheese events, to the use of virtual meeting spaces to bring people at great distances together. The group also acknowledged that an appointed facilitator to manage the communication and activity of the group works well, and in the long term, formation of a ‘Society’, with a ‘committee or board’ could help with the sustainability of the group. Individuals also recognised that sharing resources, ideas, checklists, manuals, examples etc which helps others get started, develop and grow their e-portfolio experiences is vital.
To create a visual representation of a CoP - numerous balls of coloured wool was thrown amongst the crowd - linking everyone together.
The remainder of the Symposium centred on the sharing of good practice and current e-portfolio activity in the higher ed and VET sector – also important is fostering a fledging community of practice.
The Australian e-Portfolios Project has established an e-Portfolio Practice community of the Australian Learning & Teaching Council website at: http://www.altcexchange.edu.au/eportfolio-practice. Folk interested in participating in an e-Portfolio Community of Practice are encouraged to register, join and participate.
How could a VET e-portfolio Community of Practice help you/your organisation?
How could you help a VET e-portfolio Community of Practice?
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