PortisHEad: portfolios in successful Higher Education admissions

Abstract

The PortisHEad project developed tools to support applications to UK higher education through learner-owned e-portfolios; including the ability to target unique e-portfolios to different institutions. The original demonstration tool helped address the recommendations of the Schwartz report for fairer admissions to higher education. However, despite good learner feedback and a strong sectoral imperative, the tool was not implemented by UCAS, the application service. Despite the withdrawal of UCAS from the project the remaining partners developed a generic application toolkit which allows any e-portfolio user to auto-complete educational or employment-related ‘application-type’ forms using learner-owned data from their e-portfolio. The toolkit is consistent with the ‘thin e-portfolio model’ propounded by the JISC-funded e-Portfolio Reference Model project. It uses an ‘open standard’ web-service which is easily implementable by ‘form-owners’; access to data is managed by the learners and remains secure. The toolkit is easy to deploy and has already generated significant interest not only from admissions tutors but also for its utility to teachers and staff developers. This paper points to how learner-controlled technologies, and learner-owned data, can be meaningfully utilized to engage with intra- and extra-institutional systems using open standards and web services. It also illustrates that technological difficulties are less critical than organisational ones