This document discusses using ePortfolios to help adults develop employability skills. It describes how ePortfolios can be used to showcase skills, collect work samples, and connect to networks. Mahara is presented as an open-source ePortfolio tool that can integrate with other systems like learning management systems and job boards. The benefits of ePortfolios for adults include skills assessment, career planning and development.

1. Employability
ePortfolios with
Mahara
A Community-Based Solution for Adults
WPLAR
July 26, 2012
Don Presant

2. Human Capital Technology
• eSourcing/eRecruitment tools
– Résumé Importing/Exporting/Searching
– Assessments & Applicant Screening
– Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS)
• Onboarding (orientation) tools
• Performance/Talent Management Systems
– Workplace learning, human capital development
• Human Resource Management Systems
(HRMS/HRIS)
Adapted from http://www.recruitersnetwork.com/software/index.htm

3. Employers
Human Capital Management

4. Web 2.0, social software
“Publish yourself”
Sarah Stewart
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-t2dXPb9Wc8&feature=related
Theo Ramsey
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT1XYjZcmck

5. Sourcing - just use Google?
Sourcing on a Budget
Glenn Gutmacher 2007 Arbita02

6. Mining the Internet
Arbita01 p2

7. Changing models of learning
Bersin & Associates © July 2009 Bersin03 p4

8. One page version…
http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/infokits/e-portfolios

9. ePortfolios and resumes
(Courtesy FuturEd)

10. Benefits of “e”
• Information Management capabilities
– Collecting, archiving, making different versions
• Integration with Internet skills
– Online research: documents, networks
– Internet literacy
• Easy to share
– “one to many”, digital copies, links to specific pages
• Collaboration
– Easy to add comments, edit, mentor, coach
• Measurement
– Link to frameworks, rubrics, track learning over time
• Easy to illustrate/demonstrate with multimedia
• Can integrate with other ICT systems
• Builds personal network, grooms digital identity

11. Applications for Adults
• Pre-employment
– Getting hired
• Workplace development
– Career advancement, performance management
• Recognition of Prior Learning
– Challenge for credit
• Continuing Professional Development
• Knowledge portfolios
• Life portfolios

12. Career Portfolio Manitoba
Current stakeholders: WEM & WPLAR
• Nonprofit partnerships of Government,
Business and Labour
• WEM: workplace education in Essential Skills
• WPLAR: workplace Recognition of Prior
Learning
wem.mb.ca
wplar.ca

13. Regional solutions
Inspiration for Manitoba

14. Vision for Career Portfolio Manitoba
Career development for life
• For all Manitobans
• Learner owned
• Lifelong
• Lifewide: home, community, school, work...
• Based on (not restricted to) Essential Skills
• Built through partnerships of stakeholders, with
WEM and WPLAR as “anchor tenants”
• Globally aware, locally relevant

15. RESEARCH PROJECT
ePortfolio for Skilled
Immigrants and Employers
Pan Canadian
Employer Focus Groups
Jan-Feb 2006

16. Benefits of ePortfolio
• Pre-employment
• Recruitment
• Human Capital Development
– Employee Development
– Performance Management
– Talent Management
– Succession Planning

17. Employer feedback
ePortfolio as a tool to describe skills and knowledge
• Majority in favour
– “digital matching service, living document, screening tool,
digital evidence of credentials and experience”
• Benefits:
– Accessible documents of work accomplishments vs. credentials
– Pre-employment bridging tool, linked to LMI
– Help standardize the language of competencies
• Acceptance Factors
– Accuracy, consistency, ease of use
• Potential Issues
– Time for creation and processing, privacy, content
maintenance, system integrity, overall responsibility...

18. Employer feedback
On the advisability of a broad ePortfolio system
• Good timing
– Rising skills shortages, immigration levels
• Current examples
– Job Banks and PSC system
• Benefits
– Good potential: niche sectors, skill sets, countries
– Transparent tool for diversity and equity
– Early adopters could have hiring advantage
– Ease/improve recruitment, reduce wrong hires
• Potential Barriers
– Cost, regulatory body acceptance/validation, privacy,
ownership, process inertia, consistency

19. Employer feedback
On the advisability of a broad ePortfolio system
• Acceptance Factors
– Simplicity, accessibility, usefulness as a screening tool, trust,
confidentiality, standards, integration, flexibility, extensibility,
government support, marketing, training
• Solutions
– Fit eP into existing interviewing and hiring practices
– Incremental approach with action research to measure benefits
– Make eP mandatory (!) with allowed exceptions for
inclusiveness

20. Featured elements
• Portfolio building course
– Video tutorials, support
• Templates
– Pages (soon collections)
• Job Match Summary
• Fictional exemplar
• Extensive use of Web 2.0
– YouTube, Screenr, LinkedIn…
– Embed.ly as the glue

21. Don Presant
don@learningagents.ca
Twitter: donpresant
Skype: dpresant

22. ADDITIONAL SLIDES

23. The “Mahoodle” ecosystem
INSTRUCTOR LED
Export artefacts
(learning products)
“Single Sign On”
Submit for recognition
Links to artefacts & views;
assignments, evidence for outcomes
USER DRIVEN

24. The “Mahoodle” ecosystem
Blended learning
•Synch/asynch, in class/online
•Exposition
•Assess for comprehension
•Build knowledge
INSTRUCTOR LED
Export artefacts
(learning products)
s
ct
fa
te
“Single Sign On”
ar
er
h
Submit for recognition
Ot
Links to artefacts & views;
assignments, evidence for outcomes
USER DRIVEN
Mahara tools:
Blog, forum, views
Human capital Collect, Select, Reflect…
Employability
Networks Artefacts, commentary, dialogue
Skills transfer
Peers, mentors
KSA asset building Other Web 2.0 tools:

25. Showcase and assessment

26. Lifelong journey ownership
“Small pieces, loosely joined”
Government Student
Information Records
Portals
Employer HR
LMS Management
Moodle, Systems
D2L, etc.
Online Localized
Credential ePortfolio Labour Market
Verification Information
Web 2.0
YouTube Job Boards,
LinkedIn Recruitment
Twitter… Sites
Online Personal
Mentoring Networks,
Services Communities

27. On the horizon
• Self directed course, mobile access
• Spin-offs
• Open Badges

28. Useful links
• Career Portfolio Manitoba
– http://careerportfolio.mb.ca
– http://bit.ly/eP_example
• Workplace Education Manitoba
– http://wem.mb.ca
• WPLAR
– http://wplar.ca
• Mahara User Group Canada
– http://mahara.org/group/view.php?id=1008
• This presentation
– http://bit.ly/aaeebl2012_dp

29. Adults in Transition
Use cases
• Immigrants
• Twenty-somethings
• Return to workers
• Displaced workers
• Career shifters
• Mature workers

30. Different learning needs of
adults?
• Relevance
• Assessment, accreditation
• Intervention window
• Urgency
• Vulnerability

31. Canada’s Essential Skills
Contextualized by workplace occupation…
1. Reading text
2. Document use
3. Writing
4. Numeracy
5. Computer skills
6. Oral communication
7. Thinking skills
– Problem Solving, Decision Making, Critical
Thinking, Job Task Planning and Organizing,
Significant Use of Memory, Finding
Information
1. Working with others
2. Continuous learning

32. Essential Skills ePortfolio
Program overview
• Adapt an existing
paper curriculum
• Leverage the “e” factor
• Embed authentic ICT skills
– Useful software, accessible hardware
– Digital identity literacy