ePortfolios Australia Conference 2010 ePortfolios Australia Conference 2010

The ePortfolios Australia Conference 2010 (Melbourne, 3 to 4 November 2010), has issued a call for papers on the use of electronic portfolios in the vocational education and training (VET), higher education (HE) and adult and community education (ACE) sectors. Abstracts for Full papers, Works in Progress reports, Case Studies and Posters are due 4 June 2010

ePortfolios Australia Conference 2010

Submission for proposals

The theme of the ePortfolios Australia Conference 2010 is Widening participation - engaging the learner (see: http://www.flexiblelearning.net.au/e-portfolios-australia).

Submission of proposal:

The ePortfolios Australia Conference 2010 Organising Committee invites the submission of proposals for:

• Full papers or Works in progress reports (peer-reviewed); full papers or works in progress reports of research findings and progress;
• Case studies (abstract only); discussions of key directions and findings of action research or current practice and ;
• Posters (abstract only): highly visual media communicating information about an innovation, tool, process or development.

Session duration:

• Paper presentations and Case studies: 25 minutes
• Posters: Posters will be displayed for the duration of the conference. There will be an hour allocated in the programme when poster presenters will be available near their posters to interact with conference participants.

Proposal themes:

Papers, reports, case studies and posters should relate to one or more of the following sub-themes:

• Key government educational initiatives:
  • Quality outcomes and standards;
  • Learner mobility and transitions between educational sectors; and
  • Supporting learners accessing the Compact for Young Australians and Retrenched Workers initiatives;
  • Learner study experiences, retention and course completions.

• Responsive learning and assessment practices:
  • Learning outcomes and reflective skills;
  • Recognition of prior learning (RPL), workplace learning and assessment processes;
  • Assessing graduate attributes and employability skills;
  • Discipline-specific initiatives;
  • Work-integrated learning, fieldwork and practicum experiences.

• Career pathways and lifelong learning:
  • Continuing professional development (CPD) leading to professional standards, reaccreditation and/or workforce development;
  • Gaining employment
  • Supporting non-traditional learners
  • Improved partnerships with industry;
• Implementing e-portfolios - successes and sustainability:
  • E-portfolios in the Web 2.0 environment
  • Technical standards supporting e-portfolios
  • Challenges and opportunities in e-portfolio implementation
  • Accessibility and e-portfolios
  • Sustainability and e-portfolios
  • Communities of practice
  
  

Papers, reports, case studies and posters not falling under these sub-themes may also be submitted for consideration, but should justify how the proposal complements the 'Widening Participation' conference theme.

Guidelines for Proposals:

Full Papers and Work in Progress reports are proposed by submission of an abstract (up to 400 words), and the full text of the paper which must be no more than 4,000 words including, appendices and references. As a general guide, a full paper should include an introduction, literature review and methodology, results, discussion and conclusions. Full papers are subject to double blind peer-review as required by DEEWR. Authors of successful submissions will be able to make minor corrections to the paper before final submission.

Case Studies are proposed by submission of an abstract (up to 400 words). Abstracts are subject to review by the ePortfolios Australia Conference 2010 Organising Committee.

Poster Presentations are proposed through submission of an abstract (up to 400 words). Posters are subject to review by the ePortfolios Australia Conference 2010 Organising Committee. Display versions should be sized between A3 -minimum and AO - maximum. You are not required to submit your 'Display' version; simply bring it with you to the Conference. Presenters are required to be in attendance with their poster during the allocated formal presentation period, to explain, discuss and to answer viewers' questions. While every effort will be made to ensure the safe handling of posters, the conference committee takes no responsibility for loss or damage of posters.

Paper submission process:

Please submit papers and abstracts to studenteportfolio@qut.edu.au by the due date as detailed below.

Due dates:

Abstracts (for Full papers and Works in Progress reports, Case Studies and Posters) - 4 June 2010

Author notification of acceptance - 2 July 2010

Full papers (final version) due - 2 August 2010

Review feedback notification - 6 September 2010

Final submission - 4 October 2010

Paper submission enquiries:

Please forward all enquires about the submission process to: studenteportfolio@qut.edu.au

From: Call for Papers, for ePortfolios Australia Conference 2010

Some suggestions for ACS in 2010

The first meeting of the Canberra Branch of the Australian Computer Society for 2010 was devoted to hearing suggestions from the members. Here are some suggestions I made:

• Make web site mobile okay: Currently the ACS home page scores less than zero out of 100 on the W3C mobileOK Checker: "This page is not mobile-friendly!". I suggest aiming for a score of 80/100 on the mobile tests for the ACS web pages. This would be a way to curb the web designers enthusiasm for putting too much stuff on the pages. It would also make the ACS look trendy, by having a web site which works on iPhones and the like. Obviously the ACS should also fix the minor accessibility problems, as indicated by an automated TAW Test. Designing web pages which work on smart phones and which meet accessibility standards, so as to comply with Australian law, is not too difficult and I teach it to the ANU students. To be fair, other IT professional bodies do not rate much better. The ACM home page scores only 1/100 on the mobile tests and only slightly better than ACS on accessibility.
  
• Social networking for professionals: The ACS is using social networking for teaching online courses. This could be extended to all members, with online forums and activities. ACS should divert a significant amount of resources to this. At the national level I suggest diverting 75% of what is currently spent on publications, meetings and marketing to online interaction. There is little point in spending effort on meetings and bits of paper which few people attend or take notice of. The ACS could use a mix of the software which it already has installed for education (Mahara ) and external sites, particularly Linkedin.
• Support for meetings: Using the online tools discussed above, I suggest we should have an online component to all meetings. When there is a branch meeting, members should be invited to discuss the topic online, before, during and after. This can also allow for more fluid and more far reaching meetings. Last year I helped Senator develop her "Public Sphere" format for events. On a smaller scale the first Bar Camp Canberra is on at ANU this Saturday. This is a sort of make it up as you go along conference, using of online resources.
• Digital CVs: ACS education is providing "e-portfolios" for students, as do some other education providers. I suggest ACS provide certified e-portfolios for members. This would be a web page about the member's qualifications and experience, testified to by ACS. This could then be used when they apply for a job or course. The ACS is already checks and records the member's credentials.

E-portfolios for Vocational Education

The Australian Flexible Learning Framework have announced some very small grants for E-portfolio Implementation Trials in 2010 ($25,000 in total for three trials). Also there are: VET E-portfolio Data Protection Assessment, Verification of Learner Information Investigation, and the VET E-portfolios Roadmap.

It should be noted that these are vocational training initiatives funded by a consortium of the federal and state governments for TAFEs and other Registeed Training Organisations (RTOs). There are also e-portfolio initiatives within the higher education sector, funded by the federal government. So university courses already make use of e-portfolios, such as the ANU Engineering Internship (ENGN3200), where this makes up 20% of the assesment.

Implementing ICT in Australian education and training

Education.au has produced a series of reports for Australian Government on the use of technology for education. There is "strategic ICT advisory service 2009:key messages" giving an overview and summary of recommendations. Unfortunately like the individual reports, this is a hard to find, hard to read PDF document. At 15 pages the key messages document is a bit long. I have extracted the recommendations below. Education.au needs to provide a web page with a guide to their material, not longer than two A4 pages, with hypertext links.

While it might still be necessary to produce a couple of pretty looking printed copies of such reports for PR proposes, these are a waste of time and money for actual practical use. Government policy makers have entered the digital age and are capable of using web pages. It is not necessary to give them electronic documents in PDF format which closely mimic paper reports.

In my policy development work I have found that if you provide policy advisers easy to read simply formatted electronic material, your recommendations are more likely to adopted. This is because the busy advisers can more easily understand what you are proposing and if they like it, can simply copy and paste from your document into their report. In contrast Education.au's PDF reports are hard to read on screen and can't easily be copied from.

One of the lessons from the success of the Internet is that the use of this technology comes from actually using it. Education.au have written an excellent set of recommendations, but have not really taken them to heart by providing them using the technology they are recommending be used. Education.au needs to lead by example, if they want their recommendations to be credible.

Summary of recommendations

The SICTAS project

Education.au was commissioned by the Australian Government’s Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) to undertake the Strategic ICT Advisory Service (SICTAS) project during the 2008 – 09 financial year.

The purpose of SICTAS was to provide DEEWR with strategic advice to assist policy makers in the development of policy and programs to support the implementation of ICT in Australia’s education and training sectors.

The SICTAS project was commissioned as a response to the complex environment in which policy makers are currently working. The environment is made complex by a range of factors including Australia’s political structure of cooperative federalism, the range of approaches required to address the needs of multiple sectors within education and training, and the rapidly changing technological environment.

Education.au developed a program for the SICTAS project that incorporated a range of inter-related activities. These activities were designed to respond to DEEWR’s requirements for advice relating to the implementation of ICT across all education and training sectors, and to engage with stakeholders in the sectors, both through providing avenues for them to contribute to the thinking underpinning the investigative research program and through publishing and broadly promoting the findings.

SICTAS activities included the following:

• an investigative research program that delivered five published reports on topics, including
  • ICT in collaborative teaching and learning
  • site-blocking of Web 2.0 tools and services
  • national software infrastructure with an emphasis on gaining the most benefit for education and training from Web 2.0 tools and services
  • professional learning for in-service teachers in schools
  • e-portfolios as lifelong learning and career development tools beyond education and training
• a think tank program that engaged leading thinkers across the education and training sectors, incorporating online discussion and a national symposium
• a report on emerging technologies that synthesised the findings of the investigative research program and the think tank around the implications of new and emerging technologies for
  • learning and learners
  • professional learning
  • infrastructure for supporting implementation of ICT in education and training
• two short papers, referred to as hot topics, that provided information on issues arising during the course of the project including
  • a set of case studies to build a model of characteristics of successful ICT support for the implementation of ICT in schools and VET
  • a review of the approach to embedding the use of ICT in teacher training for pre-service teachers.

...

Summary of recommendations

Collaboration in teaching and learning

The Collaboration in teaching and learning report, focused on collaborative learning as it relates to ICT.

Collaborative learning is a broad term for educational approaches involving joint intellectual effort by students, or students and teachers together. Considerable evidence has been found for its educational benefits, and the success factors required to support it have been identified.

This investigation finds that effective collaborative learning using ICT is dependent on services and skills that are not specific to collaborative learning, but are essential for the provision of ICT in
education more generally. The report provides a number of recommendations that focus on leveraging from the considerable investment by the Australian Government in ICT for education and training to provide benefits across all sectors and to support the delivery of education options to disenfranchised groups such as remote and regional users.

Recommendations

Provide access to post-secondary education options for remote and regional users leveraging the investments being made through the schools-focused DER and existing broadband initiatives.

Extend the digital education revolution concept to the VET and University sectors.

Task a national body to work through national partnerships to reduce fragmentation of effort, and making best use of the investments made in ICT in education at a broad level, and collaborative learning in particular.

Embed new media literacy skills into Australia’s national curriculum in a consistent way independent of specific technologies.

Web 2.0 site blocking in schools

The rapid emergence of Web 2.0 has presented the education and training sectors with a dilemma. On the one hand, Web 2.0 tools and services provide rich opportunities to improve student learning by significantly contributing to personalised, collaborative learning and supporting the development of internet literacy. On the other hand, teachers and school policy makers face a number of challenges in regard to effective use of Web 2.0 in teaching and learning, ranging from lack of teacher knowledge, confidence and expertise in the use of Web 2.0 tools and ervices to the inflexibility of site blocking policies and systems.

The Web 2.0 site blocking in schools report investigates current practices across schools with relation to site blocking and makes a number of recommendations related to the role of the Australian Government in policy development and implementation and in the establishment of national collaboration to showcase and share best practice in the development of tools and techniques in Web 2.0-aware content filtering, tools and safe access to rich media content.

Recommendations

Establish a national collaboration to identify, promote and share best practice in the development and implementation of Web 2.0-style collaborative online learning policies within schools.
Establish a national collaboration to showcase and share tools and techniques in Web 2.0-aware content filtering, tools and safe access to rich media content.

Towards a 21st Century national software infrastructure for education

This investigation builds upon the Collaboration in teaching and learning and Web 2.0 site blocking in schools reports and provides a picture of the essential elements of national software infrastructure for education and training.

An overarching focus of the SICTAS project has been on the need for a culture that embraces and seeks to benefit from ongoing technological change. Accordingly, the Towards a 21st Century national software infrastructure for education report emphasises infrastructure that supports and enables the integration of Web 2.0 tools and services and new and emerging
technologies ongoing.

The Towards a 21st Century National Software Infrastructure for Education report provides an analysis of current national infrastructure and identifies gaps and opportunities for integration of existing services and projects. The recommendations are focused on the three key elements of national software infrastructure – software services, interoperability standards, and governance, leadership and operations.

Recommendations

Add support for learner-centric identity and collaboration services to the existing national software infrastructure.

• Commence trials to inform the development of integration of strong authenticated trust services (as currently provided by the Australian Access Federation) with Web 2.0 user-centric identity and social networking services.
• Extend the Australian Access Federation (AAF) into a national cross-sectoral service for Trust, Identity and Access Control.

Commence trials to inform development of a national Web 2.0-enabled collaborative interoperability service.

Develop an ongoing national collaborative capability to sustain and enhance the national software infrastructure in a rapidly changing technology environment.

Teacher professional learning: Planning for change

...

The investigation into teacher professional learning for in-service teachers looked at the challenges for schools in integrating ICT into teaching and learning, and was informed by input from one of the tankettes. The report includes case studies of four schools (including public and private, primary and secondary) which are addressing the challenges of providing appropriate professional learning for teachers to encourage an integrated approach to using ICT with their students.

The Teacher professional learning: Planning for change report states that professional learning for teachers needs to be supported by the establishment and maintenance of ICT standards in schools for both students and teachers and makes recommendations that indicate the importance of the Australian Government’s role in developing a national approach in this area.

The report also recommends the development of a national strategy for professional learning, citing the example of LearnScope, the professional learning program for the VET sector administered through the Australian Flexible Learning Framework (Framework).

Recommendations

That the Australian Government take a leadership role in collaboration with the jurisdictions to develop a national professional learning strategy for schools, based on sound research into good practice school improvement. That this strategy frames the Australian Government's support for ICT-
related professional learning.

That the Australian Government takes a leadership role, through the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority and in collaboration with the states and territories, to develop
and maintain ICT standards in schools. The standards should build on existing state, territory and other jurisdiction plans and provide a common language and direction for the integration of ICT in the school curriculum.

That the Australian Government take a leadership role, in partnership with other education authorities and entities, in implementing and maintaining the ICT competency framework for teachers as described in the Raising the Standards18 report. A key component of the described framework is teacher standards.

The Government should task AICTEC, through its advisory bodies, to develop teacher ICT standards for:

• pre-service teachers
• practising teachers
• school leaders
• teacher educators.

E-portfolios beyond education and training

A large amount of work has already been and is currently being undertaken around the use of e-portfolios within education and training. This investigation has sought to provide insight into use of e-portfolios in Australia’s current economic climate, where policy makers are challenged regarding how best to support and manage Australia’s workforce.

E-portfolios arguably become most important as they are used to help prepare and support transitions. These may be transitions within educational settings, between education and employment (and vice versa), or changes in employment status.

The E-portfolios beyond education and training report provides case studies of a number of international examples of the use of e-portfolios to assist people in the workforce and in career development. It makes recommendations that include enhancing current national infrastructure to enable Australians to use an e-portfolio to enhance career development, lifelong learning, and
workforce participation.

Recommendations

Expand Myfuture to include the following:

• the types of e-portfolio services offered by Careers Wales
• features that address labour market adjustment issues, particularly the needs of workers dealing with unemployment and trying to get back into the workforce
• multiple user interfaces to support different audiences
• appropriate communications tools for collaborative reflection in professional development.

Fund e-portfolio trials in areas of particular relevance to Australia.
Fund interoperability trials between the recommended ‘Myfuture’ e-portfolio and existing Australian institutional e-portfolios.

Annual report on emerging technologies: planning for change

The Annual report on emerging technologies: Planning for change report is the culmination of SICTAS’ investigative research program. It incorporates and extends the recommendations made in the preceding reports and includes strategies and actions that support the recommendations.

The work of this report is informed by the tankettes, the symposium and submissions from invited peak bodies.

Extensive research is already available into particular technologies through such projects as Horizon. Accordingly, the Annual report on emerging technologies: Planning for change focuses on the implications of continuous and rapid technological change for learning and learners, for professional learning and educators, and for national infrastructure and policy makers.

The report’s recommendations highlight the Australian Government’s crucial role in providing strong and visionary leadership and coordinating development of policy and programs to support the integration of ICT in education and training. The focus is on how to leverage extensive work at national and jurisdictional levels to provide benefits for all users of education and training across Australia.

Recommendations

Implement an ICT in teaching and learning continuum so that learners’ new media literacy skills and abilities are augmented as they move through the education sectors.

Task a national body to support national collaborative partnerships to reduce fragmentation of effort, and make best use of the existing and future investments made in ICT.

Commit to providing ongoing resourcing and funding to maintain, sustain and enhance a technology rich environment for the education and training sector.

Develop and implement a national approach to software infrastructure that minimises the barriers to effective use and sharing of resources, and maximises access.

Address the complications of Australian copyright law in a way that encourages sharing and exchange of resources in the education and training sector, including the implementation of Creative Commons across Australian education and training.

That the Australian Government take a leadership role in collaboration with jurisdictions, sectors and educational institutions to develop a national professional learning strategy based on sound research into good practice.

The Australian Government take a leadership role, in partnership with other education authorities and entities, in implementing and maintaining the ICT competency framework for teachers as described in the ‘Raising the Standards’ report, but look to apply this to teachers in each of the education sectors.

A key component of the described framework is teacher standards. The Government should undertake to task AICTEC, through its advisory bodies to develop teacher ICT standards for:

• Pre-service teachers
• Practicing teachers
• School leaders
• Teacher educators
• VET teachers
• University teachers.

Hot topics

The SICTAS project team undertook two rapid response papers on issues arising during the course of the project. The reports provided some directions for the future.

Hot topic: ICT teaching and learning support services

This report uses a series of case studes to develop a dynamic and responsive ICT service model that attends to the day-to-day user demands and the ever-changing ICT environment, but at the same time, maintains standards and security.

Conclusions

The essential and interrelated components of this model are:

1. Sound governance: the ICT unit is represented in and accountable to the highest level of management in the organisation.
2. User-centred culture: the ICT unit adopts a responsive service-oriented mode of operation, following ITIL standards.
3. ICT staff competence: ICT staff are selected on the basis of their competency and capacity to embrace change.
4. Robust infrastructure: the infrastructure is stable, secure, reliable and modular, to enable growth with ever-increasing levels of demand.
5. Open and flexible adoption of software applications: Open Source technologies are critically evaluated and embraced where appropriate.
6. Secure Internet access.
7. Robust and responsive technical operations: central to this is an online and phone help service desk to manage help requests.
8. Vigorous user digital literacy training and mentoring: a continuous, decentralised and highly targeted training regime.
9. Robust communication.
10. Sound performance measures: the performance of the ICT is reviewed regularly against an agreed set of standards and resources allocated accordingly.

Hot topic: ICT in pre-service teacher training

This hot topic investigated the current experience of student teachers in applying ICT in pedagogy, any barriers to using technology at University, challenges in the practicum and ways to improve their experience of ICT in their pre-service.

Conclusions

The evidence presented in this paper strongly points to fundamental systemic flaws in the pre-service teacher education system in Australia in terms of developing teacher competence in embedding ICTs in pedagogy and practice.

The report proposed future directions related to

• a suite of virtual world schools as teaching and learning simulation environments
• individual on-line identities
• e-portfolios
• research and infrastructure
• accreditation and registration
• private sector engagement. ...

From: "strategic ICT advisory service 2009: key messages", Education.au, 2009

Reports on ICT and education from Education.au]

Here are some of the recent reports from Education.au as part of its Strategic ICT Advisory Service for the Department of Education Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR). These reports are intended for senior policy advisors in Australian Governments. The reports are likely to be of interest to educators as well. Unfortunately each report is written as a standalone PDF document, making them harder to use:

1. Annual Report on Emerging Technologies: Planning for Change
2. Towards at 21^st Century Software Infrastructure for Education
3. Eportfolios beyond education and training
4. Teacher Professional Learning: Planning for Change

Australian E-portfolio Plan

A "VET E-portfolio Roadmap: A strategic roadmap for e-portfolios to support lifelong learning" (640 kbytes PDF, 16 June 2009) has been released by the Australian Flexible Learning Framework. This provides a useful 26 page overview of what electronic portfolios are, how they are useful in education and how they can be applied in Australia. Unfortunately AFLF published the plan as a difficult to read PDF document, rather than web format (excerpts appended).

AFLF is a state and federal funded body to support e-learning and has issued a call for participation in a VET E-portfolios Showcase in October 2009. Unfortunately the VET and higher education sectors are not coordinating their e-learning initiatives in Australia, with the federal government funding the wasted duplicated effort resulting from this. This is mostly the fault of the universities, who have difficulty accepting that the TAFEs are more advanced in e-learning than the universities are. This is dispite some reports recommended cooperation, such as QUT's "AeP ePortfolio Project - Final Project Report" (August 2008) which said something similar from the university point of view. This creates problems for organisations, such as ACS, which are involved in both vocational and masters level postgraduate education.

Contents
Section 1: Introduction 1
What is an e-portfolio? 2
Why are e-portfolios important to VET learners? 2
What is an e-portfolio system? 3
Activities or processes for a VET e-portfolio system 4
A reference model for VET e-portfolio systems 4
Section 2: VET E-portfolio Roadmap goals 6
Section 3: VET E-portfolio Roadmap key outputs 8
3.1 National guidelines for VET managers of learner information 8
3.2 Functional specifi cations for e-portfolio system implementers and developers 9
3.3 Strategies for embedding e-portfolios into VET 9
Section 4: VET E-portfolio Roadmap implementation strategy 10
Roadmap implementation strategy 10
Section 5: Getting involved 14
The role of jurisdictions and RTOs 14
For more information 15
Appendix 1: Summary of the VET E-portfolio Roadmap 16
Appendix 2: Key national policy drivers 19
Appendix 3: Defi nition of e-portfolio system services 21 ...

Appendix 1: Summary of the VET E-portfolio Roadmap

Portability
Goal 1: Enable portable e-portfolios and associated content to effectively support learner transitions and lifelong learning.

Requirements: A learner should be able to access and develop their e-portfolio throughout their lifelong learning journey. This will require them to be able to move their e-portfolio between various e-portfolio systems.

Strategy: A technical method for associating competencies, employability skills and other relevant frameworks/classifi cations to e-portfolio content/evidence will be investigated and recommended for the VET sector.

Import/export functional requirements for e-portfolio systems will be recommended and agreed nationally.

The use of a VET person profi le to facilitate the portability of e-portfolios which is interoperable with specifi cations such as auEduPerson8 specifi cation will be investigated.

Verification
This roadmap was commissioned by the Australian Flexible Learning Framework’s national E-portfolio business activity1
in 2008 to assist in the development of work to suppsaining system.

Goal 2: Enable electronic verifi cation of educational qualifi cations, membership of professional associations or trade/occupational licensing information.

Requirements: The ability to electronically verify evidence will help to streamline applications for employment, course admissions and recognition of prior learning processes.

Strategy: Existing systems for validating claims including Qualsearch9, Purple Passport10 and Digitary11 will be evaluated for their potential suitability in an Australian VET context. The Australian Graduation Statement for Higher Education and European Diploma Supplement will also be considered as part of this investigation.

Privacy
Goal 3: Ensure that personal data is protected and under the control of the e-portfolio owner.

Requirements: There are legal requirements for privacy which, along with agreements on ownership of content, need to be clearly articulated and addressed in e-portfolio implementations.

Strategy: Generic legal advice will be sought regarding privacy issues and the roles and responsibilities associated with the delivery of e-portfolio services.

Information and advice on privacy and ownership policies will be researched and guidelines for RTOs and developers of e-portfolio systems. This information will be based on best and emerging
practice in this area and use-cases illustrating common issues and scenarios will be provided.

Ownership
Goal 4: Ensure key stakeholders, including e-portfolio owners (learners) and organisations hosting e-portfolios systems, understand their copyright and intellectual property (IP)
obligations.

Requirements: Copyright and IP considerations can affect the access and usage rights for a range of different types of e-portfolio content.

Strategy: Guidelines concerning the management of copyright and IP in e-portfolio implementation will be developed for the VET sector. In particular:

• guidelines on licensing of materials and usage of third party materials
• guidelines on appropriae content.

The E-portfolio business activity will monitor relevant developments such as Creative Commons Australia, in particular ccLearn initiatives.12

Access control
Goal 5: Enable effective authentication methods for third parties seeking access to sensitive personal information.

Requirements: Effective digital security facilitates learners’ privacy rights under law, allowing only authorised access to protected content and services.

Strategy: A set of representative VET use-cases for identity, authentication and access control will be developed based on further stakeholder consultations. Although focused on e-portfolios, an identity framework for the VET sector will need to be broader in scope.

A trial of a user-centric identity framework approach such as OpenID or Information Cards will be undertaken.

The sector will also need to engage in related activities such as the higher education sector, auEduPerson and the work of the schools sector in developing a localised version of the SIF data model13 to form a common agreement on data attributes for students. (see actions under Portability above).

Guidance and support for RTOs implementing e-portfolio systems will be provided.

Infrastructure
Goal 6: Advocate the availability of suffi cient web connectivity, appropriate access devices, and suffi cient digital infrastructure.
Requirements: Access to appropriate infrastructure is required to support widespread adoption of e-portfolios within the sector.

Strategy: Infrastructure requirements for learners, e-portfolios and e-portfolio systems to support lifelong learning will be communicated to RTOs, jurisdictions and federal government (including the Digital Education Revolution initiative) and other relevant stakeholders.

Storage
Goal 7: Establish a shared understanding of storage issues and requirements for e-portfolios in VET.

Requirements: Storage agreements need to take into account that some e-portfolio content will be stored in the e-portfolio system, whilst some content will be stored in other systems or on the
internet.

Strategy: Guidance on storage of digital content for e-portfolios will be developed and agreed upon. This guidance will be informed by a number of key resources including higher education
sector’s Australian E-portfolio Project’s e-portfolio toolkit14 and JISC e-portfolio15 resources. It will be aimed at balancing the needs of learners, RTOs and the requirement for longevity of
e-portfolios.

Guidelines on supporting the longevity requirements for e-portfolios will be developed.

Embedding
Goal 8: Establish a strategic approach to developing effective e-portfolio practice.

Requirements: The uptake of e-portfolios as a teaching, learning and recognition tool needs to be accompanied through professional development, adequate business structures and support.

Strategy: The Framework’s E-portfolio business activity will play a central role in supporting the establishment and facilitation of communities of practice to provide assistance, dissemination of
information and a mentoring role for new users.

The business activity will also seek FLAG16 and AICTEC17 support to advocate the establishment of a cross sectoral working/reference group that focuses on issues such as policy, professional learning, standards and advocacy at national level to support a standards-based approach to e-portfolios across the sectors.

Transitions
Goal 9: Promote e-portfolio good practice which supports learner transitions and key national policy drivers such as RPL (recognition of prior learning) and fast-tracking apprenticeships.

Requirements: E-portfolios provide a means for presenting a variety of evidence from formal and informal learning environments which have been acquired through workplace and life-wide experiences.

Strategy: Pilot projects within the VET sector will be encouraged to further develop an understanding of the technical and policy requirements of learner transitions.

The COAG RPL community will be engaged to ensure e-portfolios support RPL processes. ...

From: "VET E-portfolio Roadmap: A strategic roadmap for e-portfolios to support lifelong learning", Australian Flexible Learning Framework, 16 June 2009

Moodle and Mahara in Adelaide

Greetings from the Australian Computer Society office in Adelaide where I am taking part in an e-learning course. The ACS is using Moodle extensively for its professional certification course and is intending to use Mahara. While conventional distance education courses using Moodle on the web are working well, the issue is how to introduce more reflective learning and self assessment. The students report what they are doing at work and reflect on its role in their future development. E-portfolios are frequently cited as the way to do this, but up until today no one has to explain to me exactly how they would be used.

Moodle Journals

So far we have been introduced to the Moodle Journal feature. This seems to be a lightweight e-portfolio which might be used for a single course or even a brief part of the course, such as a week. However this is not the sort of long term ongoing record of work, which some thing like Mahara would be used for.

The interesting part for me is how to introduce structure to the journal and how much structure should be provided. To just give the student a blank text editor window doesn't seem enough. The journal can be pre-loaded with a list of topics, but there is no support for an analysis of what the students put under those categories.

Moodle Workshop

The next activity addressed was the Moodle workshop module.This allows for peer assessment; that is other students assess the student's work. A random group of students can be allocated to assess others work, so for example each student might be required to assess the work of five others and be assessed by five (but five would be a lot).

Deadlines for submission of the student work and the assessment can be set separately. This way the students cannot see the other student's assignment before they submit their own. Text and files can be uploaded as part of the submission. It is important to describe clearly what the student is to do.

The proportion of grading from peer assessment can be set (so the peer assessment might be 20%). Examples can be provided to the students as to what to do. There is an option for the student to assess their own submissions. The assignments can be made anonymous and the assessor (which would be normally used).

Mahara

Mahara is an open source e-portfolio products developed with funding from the New Zealand government. Mahara complements Moodle, by providing social networking features orientated towards the student, rather the instructuor. Mahara is similar to Facebook in its features, but has the advantage of being an educationally orentated facility which can be more safely provided within an institution.

Mahara has an export/import function so that, in theory the student can take their portfolio with them from institution to institution. It supports some interchange formats (such as LEAP2A specification). There are also discussions in Australia between education facilities for common portfolios. In the case of the ACS interchange with Australian universities would seem an advantage. The ANU is looking at Mahara and it seems to be favored by the vocational training sector.

Mahara appears to have limitations compared to products such as LinkedIn, as an example the user has to enter their employment history in cronological order as it can't be sorted automatically or rearranged. Being open source there is work going to to fix this and to alloow export and import to systems such as LinkedIn. An obvious one for Australia would be export and import to the systems which the ACS and unviersites provide and to systems such as the Australian Government's GAM system used for assessing research grant applicaitons. At present the professional has to manually enter their details into each of these systems. Being able to enter the data once and export would be useful.

The information about the student is entered by the student in Mahara. A simple way to verify claims about educational and other qualifications mentioned was for the institutions to provide a URL on testimonials which can be entered to verify the details. This is a much simpler approach that proposals for digital certificates on e-portfolios which were previously proposed (and it is the technique I suggested the ACS use).

Mahara also includes facilities for blogs and to import from external bloggs using an RSS feed. One issue this creates is keeping your professional persona separate from your private one. In my case my blog has a mix of items, only some of which are relevant to my work. I would need to create a filter, perhaps using Yahoo Pipes, to supply only the professionally relevant material for the e-portfolio.

Mahara has provision to create groups of people with a common interest. ACS with its

ICT Environmental Sustainability Group and EdNa with its Edna Groups have used Moodle to create groups, but this takes some mangling of Moodle's functions. Mahara would seem to have more potential.

DimDim

In passing dimdim was mentioned. This is an open source web meeting product, similar to Wimba Classroom. The comment made was that this was developed in India and so is designed to work with low speed dial-up Internet connections, whereas the commercial web meeting products emphasize video and require a broadband connection. This product might be of use for disaster management for this reason.

Trainer

The training was provided by BrightCookie. This is one of two well known Moodle support companies based in Adelaide.

E-portfolios for Vocational Education in Australia

The government funded Australian Flexible Learning Framework have released a report on "E-portfolios for RPL Assessment". E-portfolios are a way for a student to document their experience systematically to have it recognised formally (the ACS uses e-portfolios as part of its Computer Professional Education Program). The media release accompanying the report ("E-portfolios support COAG initiative") had a little too much "spin", linking it to a supposed Council of Australian Governments initiative. Unfortunately I was unable to find any mention of the claimed initiative on the COAG web site, even after I fixed the broken link in the media release. However, any failing in the media release should not be allowed to detract from the well written report, or its useful recommendations.

Summary of recommendations

1. The Framework should seek closer collaboration with the COAG (Council of Australian Governments) RPL initiative to ensure the benefits of e-portfolios for RPL are widely communicated and supported in the VET sector.
2. Examples of the use of e-portfolios to support ‘live’ evidence generation in the RPL process which involves a variety of RTOs, RPL candidates and industry contexts should be trialled, documented and shared.
3. The potential of an assessor’s or ‘group’ e-portfolio which integrates RPL, evidence validation and results recording should be investigated.

From "E-portfolios for RPL Assessment - Key findings on current engagement in the VET sector", by Wendy Perry for the Australian Flexible Learning Framework, March 2009

Emerging technologies for education

The Department of Education Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) has tasked the Strategic ICT Advisory Service (SICTAS) to report on the policy implications of emerging technologies for education. Submissions have been invited from education and training bodies by April 10, 2009.

The key investigations are:

1. Collaboration in Teaching and Learning
2. Education Workplace capability
3. e-portfolios
4. National software infrastructure
   

SICTAS is convening a national forum and a symposium:

1. three online Tankettes
2. national Symposium
   

They also have a project blog.

e-learning and e-portfolio workshops around Australia

edna, the government backed network for education and training, are running e-learning and e-portfolio workshops around Australia, March - June 2009, for a modest $66 fee. These might be a bit basic for experienced e-learning designers, but should be a good introduction:

Canberra workshop, Wednesday 8 April 2009
Online registration form

Centre for Teaching and Learning

51 Fremantle Drive, Stirling
http://www.det.act.gov.au/teaching_and_learning/professional_learning/ctl

Parking:

Registration is from 8.30am

* Workshop booking terms and conditions
* Register online
* Download brochure

8:45am Registration
9:00am Session 1: Keynote and sector workshops

* Welcome
* Keynote:
Presenter:
* Sector breakout networking session
Meet with edna support staff and delegates from specific education and training sectors for a tailored overview of edna services and communities of practice.

10:30 - 11:00am Morning tea
11:00 - 12:15pm Session 2

* Finding free stuff
* Cultural bridges
* Hands on me.edu.au

12:15 - 1:00 Lunch
1:00 - 2:15pm Session 3

* e-portfolios
* Integrating ICT in learning
* Moodle basics

2:15 - 3:30pm Session 4

* Local showcase
* edna RSS toolkit
* No walls: web conferencing

3:30 - 4:00pm Close and Questions
Evaluation of session.
Summing up.
Future directions for edna and personal learning action.

---

Review of Australian Higher Education

The Federal Government's Review of Australian Higher Education is due to report by October. The Discussion Paper (June 2008) touches on the high cost of e-learning:

Universities are also confronting the very major costs of moving to computer-mediated, electronic and flexible delivery modes, while at the same time attempting to sustain, as far as possible, their campus-based and face-to-face teaching approaches. While there may arguably be some downstream savings from increased use of ‘e-learning’, there are enormous transitional costs in creating digital libraries, converting existing courses and developing new ones, and establishing new electronic infrastructure. International evidence also suggests that these costs will recur frequently due to the rate of change in technology and student expectations for both e-learning and face-to-face teaching.

One way for universities and other tertiary institutions to lower the cost is to share infrastructure. Universities already do this for their Internet access via AARnet. The TAFEs are cooperating with e-learning content via the Australian Flexible Learning Framework. However, the TAFEs are tending to charge small amounts of money for other TAFEs to use their courseware. This is restricting the use of the content due to the need for accounting, without providing significant revenue. The federal government could change its rules to encourage tertiary institutions to develop free open access courseware. As an example some federal funding could require open access results as a condition of funding. The government could also offer the TAFEs a one off fee to make the existing courseware open access.

The distinction between vocational and the rest of the higher education sector for funding of the development of e-learning content, tools and training could also be removed. Te vocational education sector in Australia has a coordinated approach to e-learning development, with cooperation encouraged by federal government funding programs. In contrast the universities each have their own overlapping uncoordinated and competing programs. This is a waste of public money. The federal programs should be modified to encourage cooperation between universities and with the vocational sector (which has much to teach universities).

Vocational and university sectors have separate e-portfolio programs. These could also be usefully brought together.

In addition the universities could be encouraged to work with professional bodies. As an example the ACS is working on global standards for education of ICT professionals. This will likely include e-portfolios, as well as curriculum standards.

I am not sure that cooperation by universities with each other and with the vocational sector is the "big, bold idea" which Professor Bradley, review chair, is looking for, but it might help.

E-portfolios for professional education in Australia

ACT CIT hosted an excellent free session this morning on e-Portfolios, as part of the Australian Flexible Learning Framework. The most important news is open source e-portfolio software "Mahara", from New Zealand, which interfaces to Moodle.

Thursday 14 August, 10.30am - 12.30pm - E-portfolios with guest presenter Allison Miller (E-portfolios business activity manager) hosted by the Australian Flexible Learning Framework.
To register > email Kerry Manikis before cob Monday 11 August
Further information > E-portfolios Network, RPL Online Network (RON), Leonard Low's E-portfolios slideshow and Mahara (open source e-portfolio tool)

From: Australian Flexible Learning Framework ACT, 2008

Before the session, I was sceptical as to if there were going to be standards and software for e-Portfolios and if vocational trainers and universities would cooperate to use compatible systems. I came away from the morning with most of my questions answered and ready to recommend the implementation of e-portfolios to my colleagues.

Electronic portfolios (e-portfolio or digital portfolios) are an electronic collection of samples of evidence of a person's experience and learning. They may be web based. There has been interest in E-portfolios from universities and the vocational education sector as a way to provide non-paper evidence of what students have done. This goes beyond the usual cryptic academic transcript. But the main interest from government is to have educational qualifications in a digital form which can be electronically verified.

There are business and technical overviews, software and standards available from the Australian Flexible Learning Framework. Also there is an e-Portfolio blog, with updates.

E-Portfolios are likely to come in different favours depending on the educational sector and discipline. The vocational (TAFE) sector and fine arts people at university are likely to use e-portfolios as a way for the student to show their work. Science disciplines at universities are more likely to see it as a way to provide an index to official transcripts and lists of publications.

The ACS already has a system it uses for recording qualifications and experience of its own members. With some open source software being available, it should not be too hard to offer an ePortfolio for each of the 13,000 members.

In its simplest form the ePortfolio could be an extra report generated from an existing database of membership information. The e-Portfolio could be presented on screen as a web page, in a printable format and electronic export formats. The printed and exported ePortfolio versions could have a web address in them which could be used to validate the information.

Technically the ePortfolio is not difficult to implement. What will be harder are the procedures and legal implications from providing the information.

E-portfolios for vocational education

There will be a free event on E-portfolios for vocational education, at the CIT Reid Campus, 14 August. This will feature Allison Miller, Business Manager, E-portfolios - Managing Learner Information and CIT Children's Services e-learning innovations project, Lisa Beattie and Aaron Pont.

Thursday 14 August, 10.30am - 12.30pm - E-portfolios with guest presenter Allison Miller (E-portfolios business activity manager) hosted by the Australian Flexible Learning Framework.
To register > email Kerry Manikis before cob Monday 11 August
Further information > E-portfolios Network, RPL Online Network (RON), Leonard Low's E-portfolios slideshow and Mahara (open source e-portfolio tool)

From: Australian Flexible Learning Framework ACT, 2008

Electronic portfolios (e-portfolio or digital portfolios) are an electronic collection of samples of evidence of a person's experience and learning. Usually they are in the form of a web page. There has been interest in E-portfolios from universities and the vocational education sector as a way to provide non-paper evidence of what students have done. This goes beyond the usual cryptic academic transcript. But the main interest from government (and fundingr) is to have educational qualifications in a digital form which can be electronically verified.

QUT ran an Australian ePortfolio Symposium in February 2008. The US approach to ePortfolios is to have companies or consortia of educational institutions provide them. An example is Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium (CTDLC)'s ePortfolio. EIfEL (European Institute for E-Learning), has been working with HR-XML.

Australian Universities are working as the Australian ePortfolio Project, with government funding. AeP surveyed me about potential use of ePortfolios. I pointed out that ACS is working on international accreditation for ICT professionals this has recently received support from Microsoft. The ACS already has a system it uses for recording qualifications and experience of its own members. It is likely that something similar will be used internationally. The ACS exposes some of the information in its system to other members and more limited information to the public via a member's list and consultant's directory. I have suggested the ACS provide an ePortfolio, as an option for members, from the same data, using the standard format. The ACS just needs to format the data in the correct format for this.

Professional bodies have have to check the experience and qualifications of members and many now have schemes for members to report their ongoing education (such a s ACS's PCP program). It would seem a small extra step to make this information available in an a e-portfolio format.

In addition commercial web services, such as Linked-In, provide the information which members provide , marked up in a machine readable format.

How to write a business case for e-learning without really trying

Today I took part in a free workshop on How to write a business case for e-learning, sponsored by the Australian Government. This was worthwhile and the Government is handing out various grants to encourage e-learning and has on-line resources to help.

I peddled across the Canberra CBD from ANU to the Canberra Institute of Technology, which only took ten minutes. CIT have an impressive campus at Reid, complete with a cafe which was just getting fresh muffins out of the oven. ;-)

The program was:

12.00 - Registration with arrival tea and coffee
12.30 - Part 2: Information session on Framework funding opportunities in 2008
(a) national funding for an Industry Integration of E-learning project
(b) state/territory funding for an E-learning Innovations project
13.40 - Afternoon Tea (20 mins)
14.00 - Part 1: PD Workshop - How to write a business case for e-learning (1.5hrs)
(Includes hearing from a previous industry e-learning demonstration)
15.30 - Event concludes

The program had been rearranged at short notice due to staff availability, but still worked out well. The first part was a slightly bewildering introduction to the Australian Flexible Learning Framework e-learning initiatives. Many of the people present were from TAFEs and were familiar with the terminology, I was less so. To add to the complexity, some of the initiatives are administered on a state by state basis. However, the introduction made it all reasonably clear.

There are many useful resources and tools about e-learning on the web site. Some of these which sound interesting are "The Knowledge Tree" E-learning Journal. There is a part of the web site for each state, such as ACT. There are professional development events held in the ACT on e-learning (confusingly called "e-pd in the @CT"). CD-ROM of ARED software were handed out. This was used to create the online materials for the workshop. This was not a good advertisement as the materials for the workshop online were not particularly good. The online text was too small to read and the downloaded version was missing a link to some of the material need for the workshop. Also the Australian Flexible Learning Framework people seem to have a thing about the London underground, using its schematic maps as a metaphor, which probably seemed like a good idea but does not work well.

Production of e-portfolios and support for Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) are eligible for funding. Also selection of customization of existing e-learning content. Organizations do not have to create whole courses from scratch.

The main aim of the next round of government funding from 2008 is-learning embedded in industry (previous phases were: 2000 Capability, 2005 Client Engagement). It therefore provides the funding to business, but who then partner with a training provider.

One issue which came up several times is copyright. The Commonwealth requires the copyright on materials created in a funded project to be transferred to it. Under the standard Australian Government copyright conditions this precludes the use of the material, without permission and payment of a fee. I asked about this and it seems that the material in this case is available for free use, but the Commonwealth does not seem to have used a standard open access license. As a result it is unlikely the material will be found and if it is will be used.

The Commonwealth should change its policy for the Australian Flexible Learning Framework and adopt a standard license, such as Creative Commons. This would greatly increase use of the materials, as they could then be found with a web search and it would be clear they were available for use. As it is I would be reluctant to recommend participation in any of these programs. Perhaps with a new federal government it is time to suggest that the federal government adopt a policy of giving away IP, rather than restricting access and trying to make money from it.

One TAFE Industry project was highlighted. This had a few interesting points: iPods were used for delivering material. The issue of Copyright came up again, as did the availability of bandwidth for using online systems.

After afternoon tea we used "clickers" (as used in audience response). These are hand held devices with a telephone type keypad issued to each participant. The facilitator puts up a list of questions on screen and each participant presses a key to respond,. The system tallies and displays the responses as a bar graph. The units were Response Cards from Response Innovations, but there are numerous such devices available. CSIRO has produced a free system called Votapedia, which uses mobile phones.

One issue which came up was the difficulty of finding a return on investment for small non-profit community projects that might need training. Another was the flexibility of the program: after saying capital equipment was not funded, a budget including 16 mobile phones was shown, this had been accepted as the phones were integral for the project.

I had some difficulty with the workshop exercise, as the template which was supposed to be provided online was not included in the text accessible version. I reported the problem and it should be corrected soon. But a problem remains of needing to use the text accessible version: it would be preferable if the primary version of the course was accessible so I didn't need to use a different version which needs to be separately maintained.

Some ways the programs could be applied in Canberra may involve government agencies, rather than private companies. Agencies are eligible to take part, either as the business partner or as a training organisation. This is an interesting option, as I have been involved in delivering university courses, but some of that content would also be suitable for vocational courses.

Apart from the useful content of the workshop, the way it was conducted to demonstrate some of the e-learning techniques was very useful. The use of online materials and interactive electronic class room aids was very useful. However, the problems with these also highlighted the costs and risks involved in the use of the technology. When the web site and the clicker work, they are very useful, but when they do not work, this is very disruptive to the learning process.

Australian ePortfolio Symposium 2008

QUT are running an Australian ePortfolio Symposium at their Kelvin Grove Campus in Brisbane, on 7 - 8 February 2008. The idea of an electronic portfolio (digital portfolio) is to have your educational qualifications and similar in a digital form which can be electronically verified. At present employers, universities and registration authorities have to spend a lot of time and effort checking if paper certificates are genuine.

The US approach to ePortfolios is to have companies or consortia of educational institutions provide them. An example is Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium (CTDLC)'s ePortfolio. EIfEL (European Institute for E-Learning), has been working with HR-XML.

Australian Universities are working as the Australian ePortfolio Project, with government funding. AeP is now conducting telephone interviews about potential use of ePortfolios.

The ACS is working on international accreditation for ICT professionals this has recently received support from Microsoft. The ACS already has a system it uses for recording qualifications and experience of its own members. It is likely that something similar will be used internationally. The ACS exposes some of the information in its system to other members and more limited information to the public via a member's list and consultant's directory. I have suggested the ACS provide an ePortfolio, as an option for members, from the same data, using the standard format. The ACS just needs to format the data in the correct format for this.