1. The document discusses the potential for e-portfolios to support workforce development through a community of practice. It outlines perspectives of employers, employees, and higher education institutions regarding learning needs. 2. Key needs identified include communication, collaboration, reflection, integrating learning, evidencing work, and presenting information. E-portfolios may help address these needs by supporting distributed learners through tools like discussion boards and blogs. 3. Moving forward, the community could prioritize collaborating on conference papers, assessment issues, and other topics to support practitioners during challenging times. An upcoming meeting will set the agenda.

1. Workforce development ande-portfolios: the basis for a community of practice? Rob Ward

2. Introductions Introductions: please, in the chat box, introduce yourself saying where you are from and your interest in this Community of Practice.

3. Incentives to engage: the employer perspective… Investing in “human capital” but know that labour is mobile May want specific problems solved. May have agreement with trade union. May recognise professional bodies. May want courses to relate directly to work “bite-sized” short courses tailor-made foundation degrees.

4. The employee-learner perspective… Employees-as-learners ‘in all shapes and sizes’: Could have had a range of experiences of formal learning, some negative; May not be familiar/comfortable with technology; Could be relatively isolated: learning outside the academic institution/apart from any community of learners; May want bite-sized chunks, and to dip in and out of learning; May be seeking to balance training for next task with preparation for further career development in a rapidly changing world.

5. Possible relationships for HEIs… The solution of business problems (quasi KTP). Accreditation within an occupationally-related curriculum (FD and beyond, linked to professional competencies and professional bodies). Accreditation within a generic learning framework (accreditation of outcomes from a negotiated/personalised curriculum): Bespoke training and support, including the accreditation of employer/externally-provided training.

6. Our focus: the HE5P Project... Through a process of discussion and development with HEFCE colleagues, Centre for Recording Achievement was invited by HEFCE to develop a bid to carry out a piece of policy-oriented research into the question: “Can e-portfolios support the employer engagement agenda, and if so how?”

7. Focus for today: what resonances are there between our work and discussions in the E-portfolio Community of Practice?

8. ‘E-portfolio technology’: your responses welcome! E-portfolio technologies are especially relevant to distributed learners with multi-stakeholder interest charged with collecting a range of evidence. Answer: A –Strongly agree B – Agree C – Mildly agree D - Disagree

9. Would anyone like to take the mic and add a comment?

10. E-portfolio technology to support WBL needs particularly to be associated with communication, collaboration, reflection, integration (making connections between things), using diverse evidence and presentation.

11. Communication, (Com)Collaboration, (Coll)Reflection & integration, (Ref)Evidencing & presentation (Evid) How important is each of these in relation to your work-based learners? Rank in order of importance in chat

12. Communication – between distributed peers, tutors and workplace mentors. Clearly very important, to maximise learning (these learners may have even more to learn from peers than traditional students); to align workplace learning with institutional, employer goals with academic. Tools range from email to chat, social networking sites, discussion boards (usually within VLEs). Some ‘e-portfolio technology’ emphasises this functionality, eg ELGG.

13. Would anyone like to take the mic and add a comment or post in the chat section?

14. Collaboration – from commenting on individual work to joint creation. Very important for tutor and workplace mentor to comment on learner’s work. Peers commenting on each other’s work more problematic, varies particularly by level and discipline. Joint creation of work online still rare. Allowing commenting on individual’s work a common and expected function of an ‘e-portfolio system’, associated with users/owners being able to set permisions for viewing. Collaborative work more associated with wikis or tools like Googledocs.

15. Would anyone like to take the mic and add a comment or post in the chat section?

16. Reflection and integration. Seen as very important by some employers/ professions (but not all), esp. higher levels and professional learning, to integrate learning from workplace and from institution, and to extract learning from interaction with peers. Traditionally associated with e-portfolios (evidence base still weak). Activity of regular recording of and commenting on experiences seems to be main focus, therefore blogging tools most relevant. Several e-portfolio systems include blog. (Reflection also associated with planning and identifying skills – no generic tools?)

17. Would anyone like to take the mic and add a comment or post in the chat section?

18. Presentation – to assessors or future employers. Sometimes seen as very important, esp. if main vehicle of assessment. Usually associated with previous point (collection of diverse evidence). Sometimes important to allow viewing from diverse locations. Ability to create multiple presentations is the nearest thing to a defining functionality of an e-portfolio system? (esp.if associated with use of diverse evidence). Could be done by the creation of a website (but only a single presentation).

20. working collaboratively on assessment issues;

22. Your opportunity…. To take the mic and add a comment or post in the chat section…