The Flourish project aimed to ease administrative burdens for teaching staff at the University of Cumbria by implementing an e-portfolio system called PebblePad. The project focused on five key areas: annual appraisals, a teaching certificate program, professional accreditation, sharing conference learnings, and team building. While terms like "e-portfolio" versus "personal learning system" were debated, key findings showed that staff adoption of PebblePad encouraged use by students and that senior management buy-in was critical for meaningful use. Transitioning paper processes to electronic required addressing anxieties and skills gaps among staff.

2. Flourish – funded by the JISC Users & Innovations Programme Duration - Two Years (March 2007- March 2009) For more details go to http://www.flourishproject.org Or email [email_address]

4. Our aims: to ease the administrative burden facing teaching and learning support staff at the newly formed University of Cumbria allow staff to use an e-portfolio to record and reflect upon their CPD

5. We used PebblePad who were also our project partners

6. Five key areas of activity: Annual appraisal PgC in Learning and Teaching in HE Professional Accreditation Sharing learning from conferences Team Building

7. Unresolved issues around the terms we used – e-portfolio or personal learning system?

8. Key findings The introduction of a PLS for staff CPD does encourage academic staff to use an e-portfolio with their students. Reassuring, as the ethos underpinning the project was that staff had to engage if students were going to use an e-portfolio effectively

9. Senior management support is critical to the success of whether staff use a PLS in a meaningful way Embedding the use of a PLS involves negotiation & discussion with a variety of institutional departments

10. Formal paper-based processes do not necessarily transfer successfully into an online environment. Transferring activities from paper-based processes to electronic ones can reveal anxieties and skills deficiencies that were often otherwise masked.

11. Introducing and embedding a PLS into a professional course can substantially change the learning activities, leading to re-design of activities In the long term a revision of the learning outcomes is possible.

12. http://www.flourishproject.org Links to sample e-portfolios from staff Links to animations Final report to download