UTS is in the early stages of adopting the Blackboard Portfolio. This presentation considers the potential of portfolios for developing authentic assessment and discusses the current uptake, issues and challenges faced in achieving the portfolio's potential. Our rollout of the Blackboard portfolio comes at a time of sharpened focus on authentic assessment. At UTS this focus is embodied in Learning.futures, an initiative that incorporates practice-oriented learning, authentic assessment tasks, development of graduate attributes beyond disciplinary knowledge and significant opportunities for students to receive feedback. The adoption by masters' programs in Nursing, Pharmacy, Education and Data Science and Innovation has been encouraging and these courses are engaging with the portfolio in a range of interesting ways _ from whole course professional identity development to showcasing clinical experience and curating content for potential employers. After an incident free initial implementation in February 2015, students have encountered a number of issues with the software. These yet to be resolved issues have coloured the experience for participants. The portfolio has promise but also many challenges and this presentation invites comment and discussion on three key areas: - Managing Faculty collaboration/assessment across whole programs - Provision of scaffolding in developing students' portfolio skills - Provision of support for both students and staff in managing the software. Delivered at Innovate and Educate: Teaching and Learning Conference by Blackboard. 24 -27 August 2015 in Adelaide, Australia.

1. Assessment, ePortfolios and Blackboard
Leslie McInnes
Educational Designer , University of Technology Sydney

2. Overview
• Authentic learning and the ePortfolio
• The UTS context
• The portfolio and current uptake
• Challenges
• The software
[Get ready for an interaction at https://respond.cc ]
2

3. Authentic Learning
3
“There is a tremendous difference between learning about physics and
learning to be a physicist” Bruner, as cited by Lombardi (2007, p.2)

4. Components of Authentic Learning
4
• authentic context & authentic activities
• access to expert models
• multiple roles and perspectives
• collaborative knowledge construction
• reflection, articulation, coaching and scaffolding
• authentic assessment
(Herrington, J, 2006)

5. Authentic Assessment Involves
Integrated assessment is “woven seamlessly into a major task in a
manner that reflects real-world evaluation processes”. Lombardi (2007, p.3)
5
Assessing attributes, analytic skills and problem solving skills in real-
world scenarios rather than solely assessing knowledge acquisition.

6. Authentic Assessment & ePortfolios
“Assessment as learning promotes an approach in which the learning
activity and assessment task are one and the same, and authentic
assessment design incorporating group work, problem-based, online
and portfolio assessment enable the development of generic
capabilities to be embedded in the discipline. “ (Coleman, K & Allen, B 2011)
6

7. Authentic Assessment & ePortfolios
7
“Instead of conceptualising each unit of study as being separate and
individually defined .. the students in this case study have indicated
that through the construction of their ePortfolios they have begun to
view the Bachelor of Education Program as a holistic learning
experience.” (Pelliccione & Dixon, 2008)

8. Authenticity and ePortfolios
Portfolio skills rate highly as authentic real world skills
8
– Utilising feedback and reflecting
– Purposefully curating
– Gathering evidence and experience
– Articulating, justifying and modifying a position over time
– Developing a professional identity
– Identifying and understanding longer term goals

9. Institutional Drivers at UTS
9
Graduate attribute project
Learning2014
Learning.futures
Physical spaces
internships
scenarios
collaboration
situated learning
cross disciplinary
learning
formative feedback
graduate attribute
alignment
portfolios
developing a professional
self
peer assessment

10. Collaborative theatres
10

11. Group work teaching spaces
11
Future Spaces Now
http://www.uts.edu.au/sites/default/files/FutureSpaces2ndEditionWeb%5B1%5D.pdf

12. Super lab and simulation
12
Super lab and Forensic science unit
http://newsroom.uts.edu.au/news/2015/04/super-labs-living-labs-and-simulated-crime-scenes-fuel-uts-science-education-and

13. An Institutional Response
UTS is responding to drivers of change with an overall strategy
13
• learning.futures involves institutional engagement with faculties to
foster the creation of more authentic experiences embedded in curricula
– internships and other collaborations with industry
– collaborative, cross-disciplinary problem based tasks
– development of the self as a professional from 1st year onwards
– ePortfolios – especially those developed over whole programs
Is UTS unusual?
https://respond.cc – 86270 - Results

14. ePortfolio platform at UTS
14
• not because it is beautiful
• integrated
• embeds well within existing assignment tool
• students can capture feedback and other artefacts
• alumni access
• UTS ePortfolio history
• Why Blackboard?
• Which ePortfolio platform does your institution deploy?
https://respond.cc - 7507 – Results

15. UTS Uptake 2015
Unexpected early postgraduate interest
15
– Pharmacy
– Education
– Data Science and Innovation
– Business
• Range - from whole course professional identity development to
showcasing clinical experience & curating content for potential
employers
• Undergraduates from Nursing and Midwifery Spring Semester

16. Uptake table
16
Cohort Autumn 2015 Spring 2015
B. Nursing (2400) n/a Yes – with limitations due to software bugs
B. Midwifery (600) n/a Yes – with limitations due to software bugs
Business Management
(240)
ePortfolio trialled with a lot of
support
Engagement aborted due to software bugs
M. Pharmacy (70) Clinical 1 – support required
due to software failures
Clinical 2 – support required due to software
failures
M. Data Science and
Innovation (35 + 20)
2 subjects – one program wide Engagement aborted – due to software failures
M. Teach (40) 1 subject – looking for synergy
across program
Being promoted for future deployment across
more programs
Law – (1330) On hold?

17. Assessment task analysis
17
• development of reflective practice towards professional readiness
• development of skills in curation and synthesis
• collection of requirements for professional accreditation
• creation of a resource toolkit along with skills in goal setting
A beginning……
Evidence of authenticity

18. Debriefs
• re-education of students to a new tool
18
• too many bugs and lacking in flexibility and design
• limited ability to become inventive
• too much clicking to see an artefact
• engagement with a perceived ‘soft’ skill
• integrating across a program is a challenge
• can be used to connect with the clinical ‘black hole’

19. Challenges
The portfolio has promise but also many challenges
19
• Managing Faculty collaboration/assessment across whole
programs
• Provision for scaffolding the development of portfolio awareness –
to develop curation and critical skills early in the process
• Provision of support for both students and staff in managing the
software

20. And about that software…..
Our list of woes:
• Image embedding
• File attachment within a section
• Audio embedding
• Support nightmare
• Huge deterrence factor – avoidance
20

21. • The authentic learning/authentic assessmnet landscape
• Potential for the eportfolio in this context
• The influence of the institutional response at UTS
• The platform
• The uptake in 2015
– Assessment tasks
– Challenge
– The software
21
Recap

22. 22
What is happening for you?

23. References
• Allen, B. & Coleman, K. (2011). The creative graduate: Cultivating and assessing creativity with eportfolios. In G. Williams, P.
Statham, N. Brown & B. Cleland (Eds.), Changing Demands, Changing Directions. Proceedings Ascilite Hobart 2011. (pp.59-
69)https://www.academia.edu/1070111/The_Creative_Graduate_Cultivating_and_assessing_creativity_with_eportfolios
• Brown, J.S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher, 18(1), 32-42.
• Herrington, J. (2006). Authentic E-Learning in Higher Education: Design Principles for Authentic Learning Environments and
Tasks. In T. Reeves & S. Yamashita (Eds.), Proceedings of E-Learn: World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government,
Healthcare, and Higher Education 2006 (pp. 3164-3173). Chesapeake, VA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in
Education (AACE).
http://www.editlib.org/p/24193/
• Lombardi, M. (2007). Authentic Learning for the 21st Century: An Overview. ELI Paper. EDUCAUSE
http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/PDF/eli3009.pdf
• Pelliccione, L. & Dixon, K. (2008). ePortfolios: Beyond assessment to empowerment in the learning landscape. In Hello! Where
are you in the landscape of educational technology? Proceedings Ascilite Melbourne 2008.
http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/melbourne08/procs/pelliccione.pdf
23

24. Wish list
• Please provide the ability to organise files within the My Artefacts folder. Currently there
is no ability to create subfolders, load from Webdav or to organise content systematically.
• Please provide the ability to browse both the My Content and My Artefacts areas when a
user wishes to embed images, videos and files within sections of portfolio content.
Currently a user can only upload these objects from the Browse My Computer button as
show below:
• Please provide the ability to copy pages between portfolios or to copy and rename whole
portfolios. Currently if a user wishes to create a special purpose portfolio and re-use
elements from another portfolio this is not straightforward. A user would need to copy
and paste between portfolios which is laborious and prone to error.
• Please provide more customisation options for portfolios. Currently the pre-existing
ability to add a banner has been removed and there are very limited colour schemes and
tab layouts available.
24