Kunnari, Irma

Laurikainen, Marja

Oliveira Pires,  Ana Luisa

Rodrigues, Maria Rosário

English

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Supporting students’ ePortfolio process in HigherEducationunlimited.hamk.fi/ammatillinen-osaaminen-ja-opetus/supporting-students-eportfolio-process-in-higher-education/In the framework of the Empowering ePortfolio Process (EEP) project, “ePortfolios arestudent-owned digital working and learning spaces for collecting, creating, sharing,collaborating, reflecting learning and competences, as well as storing assessment andevaluation. They are platforms for students to follow and be engaged in their personal andcareer development, and actively interact with learning communities and differentstakeholders of the learning process.” (Kunnari & Laurikainen 2017, 7) With this collectivelycreated definition by partners from five different countries (Belgium, Denmark, Finland,Ireland, Portugal), we want to emphasize the ownership of students in their learningprocess and their central role in creating their own ePortfolios, which can be used asworkspaces during the learning processes and showcases, especially when trying to find ajob or connecting with the world of work (see Barrett, 2010). Digital portfolios need to bothharness the learning and collect the evidence of achievement, and the tensions that existbetween these two purposes need to be taken into consideration (Trevitt, Macduff, & Steed2014). Therefore, both the process and the products are important, and these areintertwining all the way. Students can benefit by making their learning process transparentand from the product perspective, digital platforms create new opportunities for students tobe engaged in collecting the evidence of their competences. These digital platforms alsocreate opportunities for students to collaborate and share learning between peers and/orbetween students and teachers (Rodrigues, Pires, & Pessoa 2017).Our EEP project (Erasmus+ KA2 project funded by the European Union), is focusing onpromoting student-centered education through the development of empowering anddynamic approaches to ePortfolio processes in Higher Education (HE). The commonchallenge experienced by all the partners has been that the learning and assessmentpractices in HE need to be improved. For example, students’ participation in theirassessment practices has been limited, the variation of assessment methods has been toonarrow, and the assessment of professional competences has not been connected to reallife environments. Regarding learning, Bologna has put the focus on student-centeredlearning approaches, and there is still the need to improve pedagogic practices aiming topromote students’ development and their transformative capabilities. According to Vieira,Silva & Almeida (2009), transforming pedagogy in HE is an inevitable need. Further, thedevelopment of students’ digital competences is important, as “Institutions are charged withdeveloping students’ digital citizenship, ensuring mastery of responsible and appropriatetechnology use, including online communication etiquette and digital rights andresponsibilities in blended and online learning settings and beyond.” (NMC Horizon Report2017, 24).Further, the European Commission (2017) notices the importance of digital competencesfor the citizens in coping with the invasion of technology in daily life, and member countrieshave made their own alignments for the development of digital competences. For examplein Finland, the aim for 2030 is to have 70 per cent of citizens using a digital ‘my life portfolio’1/6for life management purposes. (Foresight 2030, 2017). Introducing ePortfolios in educationfrom early levels on can be one solution to meet these challenges. EEP project is focusingon higher education but the improved process around ePortfolios benefits all levels ofeducation. Indeed, EEP aims to strengthen the alignment between learning andassessment practices and targeted competences needed for life in general and for thedemands of the world of work, and in that way to increase students’ academic success,responsibility and motivation in their learning and career management. It also promotesstudents’ active citizenship and social participation in the digital world, as well as fosterstheir relationship with themselves, with their peers and with the world of work. In thisdevelopment, we need to hear students’ own voices. What do they think about ePortfoliosand what can we learn from them to be able to improve and strengthen the empowermentin the ePortfolio process?This collection of articles presents the main outcomes from five EEP partner countries andof the second project phase, which focuses on students’ perspectives on how theyunderstand the nature of ePortfolios and how they see the benefits and challenges of usingthem. In addition, we were interested in how students experience what kinds ofcompetences are needed in the creation of ePortfolios, and what kind of support they wishto have from the teachers or the educational organization. Each partner conducted aninvestigation in their particular organizational context focusing on variety of student groupswithin their institutions, from different scientific areas, degrees and study levels. All thesedifferent examples of respondent groups from bachelor and master level students to adultstudents in continuing education programs and teacher education provide a richrepresentation of data to investigate students’ own ideas and perspectives in terms ofePortfolios.The purpose of this article collection is to share the results of these investigations onstudents’ perspectives on ePortfolio process. In each of these articles, authors discuss thefour following themes based on student experiences:Students’ experiences and perspectives on ePortfolios: how would they defineePortfolio, their previous experience in using portfolios (if any), their thoughts aboutePortfolio as an assessment toolThe triggers that support students’ engagement in ePortfolio process: thebenefits and challenges of ePortfolios, motivation to use ePortfoliosCompetences developed during ePortfolio process: general and digitalcompetences, the current level of digital skills of the studentsSupportive factors in ePortfolio process: what is needed from the teachers inePortfolio process, what kind of environments support learning, what kind of supportis needed from the educational organization, how the support from peers canimprove the learning processThese small-scale studies and their analysis are interesting cases and examples from aqualitative perspective and do not represent the entire situation of the partnerorganizations. Nonetheless, they created interesting data on both the expectations of thestudents who have never used ePortfolios and the experiences and perceptions of thosestudents who already had experiences using ePortfolios during their studies.2/6What we learnt from students’ perspectives In summarizing the findings, we can see that students had a general positive and engagedattitude towards the use of ePortfolios for learning and assessment purposes. Benefits ofePortfolios were seen as multiple and relevant for both students and their professionalcareers in the future. Students felt that ePortfolios promote their development at personaland professional levels, reinforcing autonomy and the sense of authorship, givingtransparency and visibility to the learning process and to the outcomes of competencedevelopment. These findings correspond to the previous study related to students’adaptation to using ePortfolios by Lopez-Fernandez (2009), highlighting students’ positiveopinions and self-efficiency through the eportfolio as a tool to manage their learning andassessment, and further, students feeling that an ePortfolio was valuable as a personaldevelopmental learning tool. According to our studies, the students also highlighted thecombination of ePortfolios with collaborative student-student and student-teacher ascontexts to provide relevant learning. In addition, the students felt that ePortfolios are easilyaccessible and shared with others, and their use is a low cost and sustainable process tosupport personal development and lifelong learning. In addition, Hope (2005) argues thatan optimal digital portfolio reflects the understanding and behavior of the student and this isthe reason for carefully doing the assessment. However, in our sample, the diversity ofstudents’ experiences related to the use of ePortfolios, lead to different conceptions aboutthe process and the tools: not all of them were familiar with the definition of ePortfolio andthus understood it in several different ways. Nevertheless, the general tendency was to seeit as an online student-owned learning space, based on technological and digital tools, thatcan store and share their reflections, learning outcomes, achievements and evidence ofcompetences, by using non-traditional resources — such as blogs, CV’s, web pages andLinkedIn profiles.According to our studies, students saw the benefits of ePortfolios, but there was still a needto raise the awareness of ePortfolios and to enhance students’ own authority in creatingthem. Students were sometimes confused with the meaning of ePortfolios and they did notfully understand why they should use them. Furthermore, in some cases the use ofePortfolios in the analyzed higher education settings was still emerging only and not verysystematic. There appeared to be a lack of sufficient support from the structures of theeducational programs and/or the organization. Indeed as a general conclusion, in thesesituations to give an adequate support to teachers and tutors (for example, through trainingand development opportunities) could improve the desirable changes in their practices.Further, the use of these kinds of tools should be built into the core strategy of the instituteand/or to the curricula of its educational programs. In all the articles, there are conclusionsthat are more specific and discussions to support the more comprehensive use of digitalportfolios.Regarding the competences needed in creating an ePortfolio, students revealed two-foldeddevelopment needs: firstly, operating in digital environments and secondly, creatingcontent, namely various evidences of competences. On one hand, the students stated thatit is possible to create ePortfolios with the basic ICT knowledge and skills, at the same timerating themselves globally with a medium/intermediate level of expertise. On the otherhand, they recognized that the process of ePortfolio creation has contributed to the3/6development of a much wider and complex range of competences: organizational skills,systematization, reflection, critical thinking, creativity, collaborative and communicationskills, amongst others (see also Barrett 2010).According to our study, the main challenges related to the use of ePortfolios were the lackof digital confidence of students (and teachers) and technical constraints of the platformsas well as the digital support from the guiding teachers, the educational programs and thewhole institute, which makes the use of ePortfolios unstructured and not reaching its fullpotential. In addition, the support from the teachers in guidance of content making andgiving feedback was sometimes seen as a bottleneck, which seems to be mainly becauseof time management or resource issues. Furthermore, some students found it challengingthat their ePortfolio content should be open: indeed it should be respected that not allstudents want to publish their ePortfolios. One solution could be to separate the roles ofePortfolios as described in the beginning of this article: workspace with reflections ofpersonal learning process could be private or shared with a restricted group of people, andshowcase could be more open demonstrating the competences of the student.The articles in this collection provide different aspects of ePortfolios from the perspective ofdifferent kinds of students. They demonstrate how students perceive ePortfolios, theirbenefits and challenges, and what the process of using ePortfolios requires from theteachers, educational programs and organizations.The next analysis in the EEP project is currently already under process and it will focus onthe ideas and expectations of the world of work – do they think ePortfolios could be anasset in recruitment, what kind of an ePortfolio would they want to see and do ePortfolioshelp employers to choose more suitable workforce to better match their needs. Then again,the third and final EEP analysis will tackle the issues of teachers’ guidance process relatedto ePortfolios, which has already been addressed in the students’ answers and comments.As expected, the students found the teacher’s role in the process rather crucial and reliedsignificantly on the support of the teacher. However, peer guidance and assessment can beequally beneficial for the students and easier to achieve on time and at a deeper level. Inaddition, peer feedback can be as motivating as the formal feedback from the teachers.This peer participation and sharing of ePortfolios is one area that could be furtherinvestigated in the upcoming analysis.ReferencesBarrett, H. (2010). Balancing the Two Faces of ePortfolios, Educação, Formação &Tecnologias (Maio, 2010), 3 (1), 6–14. Submitted: December, 2009 / Approved: March,2010. Retrieved 12 December 2017 fromhttp://eft.educom.pt/index.php/eft/article/viewFile/161/102European Commission (2017). Digital Competence Framework. Retrieved 12 May 2017from https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/digcomp/digital-competence-frameworkForesight 2030 (2017). Retrieved 15 August 2017 from 26-31.//tulevaisuus.2030.fi/en/working-life-in-the-future/life-management-online/index.html4/6Hope, J. (2005). Student PORTFOLIOS: Documenting Success. Techniques MakingEducation and Career Connections, 79(5).Kunnari, I. & Laurikainen, M. (2017). Collection of Engaging practices on ePortfolioProcess. Retrievedfrom https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxEnFq7yUumMUGV2V2VxVmNaNFU/viewLópez-Fernández, O. (2009). Investigating university students’ adaptation to digital learnercourse portfolio. Computers & Education, 52(3), 608–616.NMC report (2017). Horizon Report. Retrieved 12 May 2017 fromhttp://cdn.nmc.org/media/2017-nmc-horizon-report-he-EN.pdfRodrigues, M. R., Pires, A. O., & Pessoa, A. M. (2017). O papel da interação entre pares eda tecnologia na aprendizagem: perceção de estudantes do Ensino Superior. In M. J.Gomes, A. J. Osório, & A. L. Valente, Challenges 2017 Aprender nas nuvens – learning inthe clouds, 993–1006. Braga: Universidade do Minho.Trevitt, C., Macduff, A., & Steed, A. (2014). [e] portfolios for learning and as evidence ofachievement: Scoping the academic practice development agenda ahead. The Internet andHigher Education, 20, 69–78.Vieira, F., Silva, J., & Almeida, J. (2009). Transformar a pedagogia na universidade?Possibilidades e constrangimentos. In Flávia Vieira (ed.) Transformar a Pedagogia naUniversidade – narrativas da prática. Santo Tirso: De Facto.AuthorsIrma Kunnari, Principal Lecturer, M.Ed, PhD Fellow ineducational psychology, School of Professional TeacherEducation of the Häme University of Applied SciencesMarja Laurikainen, Education Development Specialist (GlobalEducation), MBA, School of Professional Teacher Education ofthe Häme University of Applied SciencesAna Luisa de Oliveira Pires, Teacher and Researcher, Ph.D. inEducation, College of Education of the Polytechnic Institute ofSetúbalMaria do Rosário Rodrigues, Teacher, Ph.D. in Multimedia inEducation, College of Education of the Polytechnic Institute ofSetúbal5/6Reference to the publication:Kunnari, I., Laurikainen, M., Pires, A. O., & Rodrigues, M. R. (2017). Supporting students’ePortfolio process in Higher Education. HAMK Unlimited Journal 12.12.2017. Retrieved[date] from https://unlimited.hamk.fi/ammatillinen-osaaminen-ja-opetus/supporting-students-eportfolio-process-in-higher-education This material is CC licensed Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0International.Empowering ePortfolio Process»6/6

Supporting students’ ePortfolio process in Higher Education

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Supporting students’ ePortfolio process in Higher Education

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