This document discusses how e-portfolios can help support the skills recognition process. It outlines some of the barriers people face in accessing skills recognition, such as complex documentation and negative assessor attitudes. E-portfolios provide a flexible way for learners to store and showcase their skills and experiences to employers or for recognition of prior learning applications. They streamline the assessment process and encourage the use of different evidence types. The document provides examples of what e-portfolios can look like and how learners can begin building their own e-portfolio.

1. Skills Recognition – why not
use an E-portfolio?
Alicia Boyle
Education Coordinator, Desert Knowledge CRC
Charles Darwin University
flexiblelearning.net.au

2. How many learners are accessing skills recognition?
http://www.vetpd.qld.gov.au/teaching_learning_and_assessment/resources/rpl/assessor_kits.html
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3. What inhibits people from
accessing skills recognition?
• Excessively complex and time consuming
documentation
• Negative attitude conveyed by assessors
• Lack of a mentor to assist with the process
• High cost
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4. What we need to do is change the default option
Brian Spencer of Optin Solutions in his keynote address, at a recent
RPL conference in NSW characterised the perception of RPL as
“making the least powerful person responsible for the process”, that is,
making the candidate responsible for a process that focuses too much
on collection of paperwork about past events.
His challenging proposal was to “change the default option”
that it is easier to do the course, and make recognition
the “default option” by respecting experiential learning
and assisting the candidate to become aware of their own
unconscious competence.
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5. What’s an e-portfolio - basics
• Structured, owner-driven
collections of digital
objects demonstrating
experiences,
achievements and
evidence of learning
• Quick and easy
• Store PDF, audio, video,
photographs, blogs and
more
• Capture live experience
using mobile phones and
point-of-view devices.
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6. Why would I create an e-portfolio?
• To help me address job applications
• To showcase my skills and experiences to
potential employers or professional associations
• To help me plan my personal development and
lifelong learning skills
• To help me transition from training to work or
between training providers and further education
• To support my application for RPL
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7. E-portfolios for RPL
Dynamic Interconnectedness: E-portfolios
• Cannot be just an electronic
by Hazel Owen filing cabinet – the product is
only half of an e-portfolio
• In the process of construction
owners move from what they
have learned to how they have
learned
• Construction of an e-portfolio
supports an understanding of
conceptual connections
between lifewide and lifelong
learning experiences
• The focus moves from
Hazel Owen’s Photostream@Flickr assessment of learning to
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24289877@N02/4002237037/sizes/o/in/set assessment for learning
-72157619329716903/
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8. How can e-portfolios support the RPL process?
• Templates can be used to structure the RPL evidence
• Can be customised
• Tags can help organise and find specific
evidence/artefacts
• Streamlines the assessment process
• Limits the amount of paper-based, hard copy evidence
• Encourages the use of a range of evidence types
• Discourages excessive evidence collection
• Develops and strengthens ICT skills
• Supports dialogue between students and assessors,
particularly when geographically isolated
• Can be used in conjunction with a range of other online
RPL support products – eg. online skills recognition sites
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9. What can they look like?
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10. Or like this….
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11. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination…
E-portfolio
Learner Scenario
by Hazel Owen
Hazel Owen’s Photostream@Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24289877@N02/3994705256/sizes/o/i
n/set-72157619329716903/
flexiblelearning.net.au

12. E-portfolios and Web 2.0
Hazel Owens Photostream @ Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24289877@N02/3882865079/siz
es/l/in/set-72157619329716903/
flexiblelearning.net.au

13. The best way to start learning about
e-portfolios...build your own
....and use the handout to source
more information on the web
Alicia Boyle
alicia.boyle@cdu.edu.au
flexiblelearning.net.au