Simply, an ePortfolio is a digital collection of achievements and information, produced and presented, in whole or in part, by a person. It has multiple forms and uses, but let's narrow that to how it can become the framework for the university of the future.
Here's how it would work.
For all courses and programs, intended learning outcomes (ILO), or learning objectives, would be clearly stated using all the important quality criteria, i.e., they must be measurable, achievable, observable, timely, relevant, current, complete, and rationalized (e.g., on the new Blooms Taxonomy). This is not rocket science. This is good pedagogy.
All courses and programs would set out ILO as "learning standards", with stated degrees of acceptability (from unacceptable to excellence) and with examples of required/accepted digital evidence on a rubric. Digital evidence means that a student submits their work in an electronic format, and that's not rocket science either - a paper as PDF, a video or photo album, a hyperlink to a project website. Easy. There are multiple benefits to digital evidence, i.e., it is sharable, storable, variable, authentic, creative, repurposable, re-runnable.
One function of the learning leader - the professor or instructor or teacher - is to present the learning standards and explain them fully - the terminology used, the general concepts, the obvious relationships. Ensure that the standards are understood, and then direct learners to the rubrics that tell them what they may choose to present as digital evidence of learning achievement and exactly how they will be graded. Using this approach, learners can do ongoing self-assessment and know almost exactly how well they will do on the course or program. Transparency. It works. I do this with my students in China, and coach them on self-assessment; it's an important lifelong learning skill.
Of course, another function of the learning leader is to present materials and to curate a variety of learning resources focused on the stated ILO. Since we are now in eLearning and distance delivery mode, the materials and resources can and should all be online - posted in an LMS like Moodle or referenced in a course syllabus. An important role of the learning leader is to quality assure the accuracy and suitability of recommended online resources and to be continuously enhancing the material selections. Posting video lectures is just the start of this process and it should be minimized.
eLearning can be so much more than conducting zoom lectures. In fact, it should move beyond that for all the obvious short-comings of Zoom - accessibility issues for poorer students, security challenges to privacy, questionable interactivity. It has been a short-term substitute for the regular classroom, but we need to move beyond that. ePortfolio is how.
When learners know what they are expected to learn and how they are expected to present evidence of achievement, they can, with some help and coaching, choose from countless learning environments: online materials, work experiences, community involvement, group projects, reading and travel, mentors and external experts, global media and research bodies. A third function of the learning leader is to vet the choices students are making to ensure they are on the right track, and then to provide ongoing advice and feedback.
On their own computers, incoming students are assisted to generate 2 critical files: one containing the learning standard rubric for each and all courses/programs, and one to archive their digital evidence because what they produce may be used for more than one purpose. And this archive may contain all sorts of evidence of achievements that bear no direct relationship to their courses or program YET. For example, they may be used after graduation for gaining employment or for advanced education. I tell my students to routinely post their best works in their LinkedIn accounts so that when their names are googled, potential employers will find this part positive of their digital identity. (I also tell them not to use their real names in social media because what is posted on the internet is there forever, and partying pictures have caused people to lose jobs later in life.)
The ePortfolio university achieves so many futurist objectives, i.e., it:
1. is global because it is online, geographic jurisdictions only apply to professional credentialing
2. reframes the role of professor to learning leader and lifelong learner
3. reframes the role of student to learning partner and lifelong learning
4. offers, to learning customers, transparency and accountability
5. uses the internet and digitization in creative ways
6. promotes ongoing digital skill development for everybody
7. uses eLearning tools and products to maximum advantage
8. reduces the reliance on maintaining actual facilities
9. engages fully with actual and virtual communities without the cost of travel
10. it is more cost-effective, accessible, and compatible with the new social distancing
More importantly, ePortfolio (rather than traditional teaching and assessment of learning) is a better way of managing learning at all levels.
- It is asset-based, rather than deficit-based, and failure is minimized
- It includes all forms of learning - formal, informal, non-formal, accidental and incidental.
- At one level, it is competence-based with clear evidence of capabilities. It enables skills gap analysis and planning for learning.
- At another level, it supports lifelong learning skills of inquiry and research, critical thinking, appropriate communications, effective uses of the internet, community building
I am not alone in advocating for this. My friend and colleague Ali Jafari at Indiana University has done a stellar job creating tools and processes used by many universities called Course Networking, and his mission will be complete when ePortfolios are not only a tool but an organizing framework. Troy Markowitz and Portfolium have generated great applications linking school to work with ePortfolio tools. Most forward-thinking institutions of higher education offer students tools to develop and use their own portfolios, and I applaud them! Countless professional bodies require their members to maintain an ePortfolio of competencies for license renewal. Every kid I know has a portfolio on Instagram of their "achievements" and the things that really interest them. At every university and education ministry where I have worked, I have generated a strategic plan for ePortfolio implementation - for faculty development, for assessment of learning, for use of learning technologies, for quality assurance, on and on. Still, they resist. So let's make this simple.
Let's take a set of future skills - like those developed by my friend and colleague Ulf Ehlers in "Future Skills - the future of Learning and Higher Education" and generate an ePortfolio framework for a university.
I have reservations about how these could pragmatically be taught or assessed, but simplistically speaking, the university would :
- take the 18 future skills as learning standards or intended outcomes,
- embed each and all in every program OR wrap courses and programs around each future skill
- generate a curriculum alignment of teaching and testing methods
- set out a list of resources and recommended learning environments for each
- direct learners to recommended and required materials
- establish what digital evidence would be acceptable and ensure learners had the skills and tools to produce it
- conduct an authentic assessment of the learner achievements using rubrics
Frankly, there are much easier sets of future skills with which to frame an institution, for example, a comprehensive set of Graduate Attributes that are more specific, demonstrable, and measurable. Or the 10 vital skills for the future of work, produced by Forbes magazine. Every education jurisdiction worldwide seems to be developing a set of employability skills for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and while I don't think that is the only future scenario that we can anticipate, it does focus on technical skills. I have argued that Graduate Attributes should be the core of what a university delivers to learners, and the ePortfolio is the means of managing that. There is one more thing.
Managing all of these competencies could become complex and subjective, and means of managing might be blockchain technology. If we were able to digitally classify the competencies students were required to learn, they could become crypto-competencies validated and managed by blockchain ledger tools. A university able to design and deliver this would be what I call the FuturEd ePortfolio ecosystem of crypto-competencies. Very utilitarian and not at all how some people see the purpose of a university. But I think it would be worth a try.
