Overview
The ePortfolio software currently used on the Undergraduate curriculum has been developed in-house to support the Year 5 requirements to encourage structured reflective writing, to provide a mechanism to get feedback on that writing and to provide assessment tools that allow online submission and marking. At time of development no COTS product could be identified that fulfilled these requirements.
The system has been developed with significant influence from blogging engines, but adding additional structuring and tools to facilitate the guided reflection the Year 5 programme wished to cultivate. The portfolio also has a strong concept of privacy, with student content being private unless they choose to share it. However, they are free to share their content with anyone.
The portfolio provides an online rich text editor (similar to a blogging engine) with the ability to attach files and images. To support reflective writing, the ePortfolio includes a mechanism to provide templates to the students to provide structure and guidance. The templates are loaded into the rich text editor (if a student selects one) and the student can then work within the template to create their content.
Students can organise their content using keywords (tags and groups) and can share their content with anyone else by using the person’s email address to invite them to view items of content. This use of email address allows users without Cardiff University login details to also gain access to the system.
The ePortfolio uses groups to provide organisation within the portfolio and providing a subset of students with access to specific templates, information and assignments.
System Usage
To-date the ePortfolio is only used in Year 5. It was initially introduced to support students on their Medicine in the Community placement. Since then the system has been rolled out across the whole of Year 5, with requirements to produce reflective content for all three of the Year 5 clinical placements. The system has undergone a number of revisions to support this expansion and to resolve technical problems experiences by students on placements where there is either poor or no Internet connectivity.
The Medicine in the Community placements are the only placements using the submission and marking tools built in to the ePortfolio.
System Administration & Support
System administration has become simpler and less time consuming as the system has developed and become more robust and user friendly.
Main areas of administration are:
Configuration of the Groups for each of the placements during each academic session. This is usually a matter of copying groups from the previous year and adding students to the appropriate groups.
Occasionally additional templates or resources have to be added to groups to meet the changing requirements of the course.
Support for Students
Sometimes students change the order of their rotations requiring their access to groups to be modified. Other technical problems do occur occasionally, which require investigation.
Support for NHS Staff
NHS staff access the ePortfolio through the email invitation system. When they are invited to view a student’s content they receive an email informing them of this. The first time they access the system they are required to activate their account, providing a few personal details and a password.
Once this has been completed they can log in using their email address as a user name and the password they generated during activation. This process can sometimes cause problems (missing emails, forgotten passwords, misread emails etc.), and it is necessary to diagnose and resolve problems with NHS staff accessing the site. The System Administration tools provide information on the state of an account (e.g. whether it has been activated or not) as well as the ability to reset a password (there is also an automated password rest function available from the log in screen).
Future Plans
A number of initiatives within the School will have significant impact on the future of the current ePortfolio system:
The Harmonisation programme is looking to blur the lines between the fifth year of the undergraduate course and the first year Junior Doctor programme. Use of the ePortfolio system currently used by the Junior Doctor programme within Year 5 is strongly being considered.
The C21 curriculum redesign programme is generating a lot of interest in ePortfolios across the curriculum. At present discussions are fragmented and there is need to ensure discussions about an ePortfolio and the associated requirements are curriculum-wide to ensure any solution is used and applied consistently across the curriculum and that the purpose of the portfolio is well understood by staff and students.
Along with the discussions above about use of an ePortfolio there is a real need to look at the ePortfolio from an educational and a student perspective. It is vital the purpose of the portfolio is clear and well communicated and it is not just a tool used for administrative benefits.
