Keynote address to the ePIC 2013 conference, London, July 10, 2013, in which I apply principles from eportfolio research to open digital badges and learning analytics to identify future directions and points of connection

1. LINKING UP
INNOVATIONS IN
ASSESSMENT:
EPORTFOLIOS,
OPEN BADGES, AND
LEARNING ANALYTICS
DARREN CAMBRIDGE @ DCAMBRID
AMERICAN INSTITUTES FOR RESEARCH
EPIC 2013, LONDON, 10 JULY 2013

2. OPENING
IDENTITY PATHWAYS

3. EXPANDED MEANS
Eportfolios Digital
Badges
Learning
Analytics

4. SCALE OF REPRESENTATION
Macro
Eportfolios
Mezo
Digital Badges
Micro
Learning Analytics

5. COMMON GOALS
Enable decisions more grounded in evidence of
learning and identity
(with the assumption that they are inextricable)
Make that evidence richer and more diverse
(with the assumption decisions will be more valid)

6. IDENTITY & PERSONALIZATION

7. FOUR PROPOSITIONS
1. Reflection on pieces of evidence within an eportfolio
and on the eportfolio as a whole provides information for
assessment that isn't available by other means.
2. For meaningful assessment, interaction of pieces of
evidence within an eportfolio is more important than
single pieces of evidence.
3. The material practice of eportfolio composition
generates distinctive knowledge about learning.
4. Eportfolios enable meaningful comparison of
student learning without standardization.

8. Proposition Principle
Reflection Learners are key interpreters of
evidence of learning and performance
Interaction Focus on relationships rather than
individual nodes
Materiality Pay attention to embodied
consequences
Comparison Promote standards for dialogic
interpretation of evidence rather than
for evidence itself

9. LEARNERS AS INTERPRETERS:
CURATING BADGE BACKPACKS

10. LEARNERS AS INTERPRETERS:
PEER AWARDED BADGES

11. LEARNERS AS INTERPRETERS:
MyDataButton

12. LEARNERS AS INTERPRETERS:
PERSONAL ANALYTICS

13. RELATIONSHIPS NOT NODES:
EMERGENT PROFESSIONAL
PROFILES
Pre-defined
links to
standards or
activities
Stipulated
Individual
patterns based
on observed
success
Emergent
Group
patterns
based on
observed
success
Collective

14. RELATIONSHIPS NOT NODES:
SOCIAL LEARNING NETWORK
ANALYSIS

15. RELATIONSHIPS NOT NODES:
EPISTEMIC NETWORK ANALYSIS
STEM professions defined by SKIVE
Skills, Knowledge, Values, Identity, Epistemology

16. EMBODIED CONSEQUENCES
Digital badges:
Focus on audiences
as was well as issuers and earners
Learning analytics:
Research use
by actual decision makers and its effects on
learners

18. Our goal is to develop an understanding of validity
that begins with the questions that are being asked;
that can develop, analyze, and integrate multiple
types of evidence at different levels of scale; that is
dynamic in the sense that questions, available
evidence, and interpretations can evolve dialectically
as inquirers learn from their inquiry; that allows
attention to the antecedents and anticipated and
actual consequents … and that situates the
assessment in the broader context in which it is
used.
A validity theory can also be construed as
the representation of an
epistemology—a philosophical
stance on the nature and justification of
knowledge claims—which entails a
philosophy of science.
Moss, et.al., “Validity in
Educational Assessment”

19. STANDARDS FOR
INTERPRETIVE DIALOG
Hermeneutics and deliberative
democracy theory as alternative
epistemologies for validity
theories 
Set standards for how we hold
discussions about evidence to
make decisions rather than about
what evidence to consider
Badges and learning analytics as
heuristics, mediators of meaning
making conversations
Need tools and techniques for
interpretive discussion

20. PRINCIPLES OF
DELIBERATION
Publicity
• Deliberative system
which informs and
holds accountable
Inclusiveness
• All impacted by
decisions can
participate
Reasonableness
• Economy of moral
objections
• Respect for reasonable
disagreement
Provisionality
• Openess to changing
positions and decisions

21. BETTER TOGETHER
Badges and learning analytics can enrich eportfolios through
new types and structures of evidence
algorithmically identified patterns
Eportfolios offer
authenticity for legitimacy and commitment
integration for context and meaningfulness
direct contribution to learning through compostion

22. CONTACT
Darren Cambridge
American Institutes for Research
@dcambrid
dcambridge@air.org