INTENTIONAL INTEGRATION OF E-PORTFOLIOS
This toolkit has 6 areas to guide people towards e-portfolio adoption at a post secondary institution: Initial Planning Goals & Groups, Technical Considerations, Imagine More Ideas, Seek New Understanding, Formal Implementation, Review & Wrap-up.
Major underpinnings include theories of design, change management, systems, leadership, human-centered innovation, and project management.
Initial Planning: Empathize
Rationale for E-portfolios in Post-secondary Programs
This e-portfolio toolkit was created to assist coordinators and faculty who are adopting e-portfolios into their programs. It will assist the coordinator in their central role to consider the systems view of the innovation, to understand the complexities, identify and address the barriers, and reduce the resistance to change (Conway et al., 2017).
Goal Identification
This is a key primary step in adopting new technology. The guiding team to establish goals should include anyone who will assist with, set-up, assess, or instruct about the use of e-portfolios (Al-Haddad & Kotnour, 2015).
Who might be part of this guiding team?
- Program Faculty
- Program Advisory Committees
- Registrar Systems Representatives
- Program Coordinator
- Learning Technology Support
- External Bodies for Assessment
Aligned with the values of connection and relationship reciprocity, there may be some roles and people who are less directly involved but will be required to change their functions to support the e-portfolio adoption into the systems of your institution. Surveying for organizational readiness will support successful implementation (Al-Haddad & Kotnour, 2015). Cast the net broadly for this stage to bring people into facilitating the goals of your e-portfolio integration.
Sample goals:
- Release a prototype e-portfolio program by September 2023 using WordPress to enable learners to demonstrate learning through authentic learning artifacts.
- Complete a feedback cycle on the prototype by December 2023.
Facilitation for developing goals for e-portfolio institution adoption
Step 1 - Create a shared vision to minimize barriers to change (Conway et al., 2017).
- Liberating Structures Facilitation of Goals for Successful E-portfolio adoption:
- Using Triz https://www.liberatingstructures.com/6-making-space-with-triz/, you could follow a process such as the two samples below:
Step 2 - Identify obstacles and potential areas for short term wins (Weiner, 2009)
- Use when your stakeholders are attempting to articulate the functional needs to implement e-portfolios into the institution.
- What I need from you: Liberating Structures WINFY-https://www.liberatingstructures.com/24-what-i-need-from-you-winfy/
Technical Considerations
“Identify institutional resources (human, technical and financial) that are available to support learning technologies design, application, and assessment.” - Learning Task Force (2014)
Some sample consideration based on personal experience and communication with Liesel Knaack (Personal Communication, October 1, 2021) include:
- Safety/Privacy Considerations
- Institutional Support
- Program Cost Considerations
- Sample Project Management Tools
Safety/Privacy considerations
- How long do the e-portfolios remain at the institution after graduation?
- Can students access the e-portfolios to transfer into their own domains and at what point is that required?
- Where will students receive technical support for the technology; within the existing support systems of the institution or externally?
- How long will the institution have responsibility for the e-portfolios on their servers?
- What data analytics are we collecting?
- How are we communicating with students about the data we are collecting?
Institutional Support
- What technologies does the institution support as part of the learning ecosystem?
- Where will students access information about how to work with the technology; from people or from pre-developed learning solutions?
- Are there existing support resources within the institution, or will new resources and/or outsourcing be required?
- What partnerships are already in place to support the technology (E.g., BCNet)?
- Has accessibility been considered, for example Universal Design for Learning (UDL)?
Program Cost Considerations
- Private providers (E.g., Pebblepad charges a fee)
- Open Source Wordpress opened tech group free or by donation
Sample project management tools
- Risk Response Template
- Quality Management Plan
- Risk Response Template
- RACI Chart Template
Imagine More Ideas: Ideate
The process of ideation helps teams to transition from identifying problems to exploring solutions. In higher education, ideation includes a systems view that understands the institution's complexities (Conway et al., 2017), and an understanding of potential barriers. In this phase, teams use a variety of ideation techniques to generate ideas through various iterations for example using Imagine Activities from the Frog Collective Action Toolkit (2019). A diversity of ideas is welcome, where the scope and magnitude is wide and there are no bad ideas. Ideation actively engages teams through shared knowledge and creative expression, extending thinking beyond the norm to drive innovation and reveal unexpected outcomes (Doorley et al., 2018).
Example of Ideation of the E-portfolio:
- Sustainable student success: how to ensure students are engaged and supported. Possible Response: instructor availability, office hours for check-ins, whole-group sessions, peer and team working opportunities.
- Considerations for accessibility? For example, what may have worked for students in-person such as access to materials and teacher input as well as immediate feedback may problematize implementation of, and student participation in, the e-portfolio. Considerations for accessibility and inclusivity would depend on learner-instructor interaction (Bates, 2015) as well as access to devices and internet.
Seek New Understanding: Prototype
“The creation of a prototype is a primary mediator between the designer's cognitive model of a concept and its materialization in the physical world.” - Real et al., 2021, p.1304
Prototyping is an integral phase within the design process that enables teams to creatively engage with the problem and to move from conceptualization to a tangible product (Dam & Siang, 2020). In this phase, teams engage in shared collaboration with end users and stakeholders to learn, empathize, and understand their needs to inform design using various methods. This is an iterative process, where new learning can be applied to build upon previous prototypes. Prototyping allows teams to effectively discern what works, what does not, and what may be useful in another iteration. Prototypes can take many shapes, forms, and have varying fidelity levels.
Prototyping is a valuable and necessary process, as it can extend research and reveal assumptions or biases that may be limiting creativity (Dam & Siang, 2020). Testing your prototype allows your team to experiment with potential solutions and identify impacts. Through the testing process, teams are able to refine solutions (Doorley et al., 2018).
The e-portfolio, for example, is a High-Impact Practice (HIP). A High-Impact Practice (HIP) is a type of intervention to increase student engagement and performance (Schmidt & Graziano, 2016), when effectively implemented produces rich learning experiences (Eynon & Gambino, 2017). There are three types of e-portfolios: the Professional Portfolio, the Learning Portfolio, and the Assessment Portfolio (Clemson University, n.d). The e-portfolio is a rich learning experience in that it is a digital record keeping system providing a “longitudinal place where students can store authentic artifacts of their work” (Center for Engaged Learning, 2016, 0:24). Specifically, the Learning Portfolio for higher education when well-designed can be an active learning tool (Wang & Wang, 2012), and an assessment and evaluative tool (Ciesielkiewicz, 2019; Lam, 2021). The implementation of this tool requires well-designed instruction, institutional commitment, and institutional readiness.
If you would like to learn more about the e-portfolio as a High-Impact Practice, please see the video below:
Formal Implementation: Roll-out
The keys to successful implementation include thorough initial planning, plus strong leadership, communication, and monitoring. An effective change leader casts a long vision with a scope that encompasses the past, present, and future. Reflective, transformational, and servant leadership all position a leader well to implement change, given that they support awareness of context, situations, and self with the goal to improve circumstances (Castelli, 2016; Julien et al., 2010).
Conway et al. (2017) emphasize that leaders should view the context of change as a complex system, as opposed to a simple, linear process. The implementation stage of a project may be the most time consuming in some cases, and the steps incorporated may include managing the scope, resources, timelines, quality, human resources, risks and contingency plan, procurement, and ongoing communication as part of stakeholder management (Watt, 2014). Progress reports and team meetings are valuable tools to support monitoring progress in all areas, and this allows for effective adjustments, as needed. Adjustments and updates to the project plan may be required in the event of issues that may impact timeline, budget, quality, adoption, etc.
What are some of the key features and resources necessary for implementation?
- Project plan
- Communication with all stakeholders as identified in the initial planning and goals
- Documentation, including: updates noted on project plan, if adjustments are required; progress reports, both written and meeting minutes; budget plus associated documents such as invoices from procurement; and surveys for feedback.
In addition to these practical aspects, it is also important to monitor adoption of new technology. One may anticipate an adoption curve such as Everett Rogers’ Adoption Curve (Conway et al., 2017, p. 10) in which there are a few early adopters, majority mid-timeline adopters, and a few late-adopters; however, leaders should be prepared to make efficient adjustments to support successful adoption.
In the example of implementing a new e-portfolio program, leaders should monitor adoption as the change is introduced and implemented, and be prepared to adjust in an agile fashion. Agile design is adaptable and less taxing on resources than more traditional, large-scale models (Bates, 2015), so it may serve well in the context of rapidly changing technology and smaller organizations. It allows leaders to pivot quickly if they encounter issues such as competing incentives, regulatory barriers, budgetary constraints, market readiness, etc. (Conway et al., 2017). It is important to follow the roll-out stage of a project with review and wrap-up.
Review & Wrap-Up
“It ain’t over till it’s over.”
The words of Yogi Bera (1973) apply aptly to the final phase of implementing new digital technologies. It may be tempting to consider a project done at the end of the roll-out stage; however, one must finish well with a final phase of review and wrap-up. This stage may include some of the following:
- Review product(s) against established criteria for quality control and make any necessary corrections.
- Finalize and hand-over final products and paperwork.
- Get formal acceptance of product(s).
- Complete contract closure and secure final payment(s) if needed
- Release any resources such as materials, staff, or third party services.
- Gather feedback from all stakeholders on product(s).
- Analyze how the project went including things such as trust levels, schedule and budget adherence, risk mitigation, procurement, and customer satisfaction.
- Report to senior management.
- Archive all documents.
- Support the product, if appropriate.
Clearly, there is still important work to do following the roll-out of a new product, but the final review and wrap-up steps may vary, depending on the specific characteristics and context of a project.
In the case of implementing an e-portfolio program at a post-secondary institution, the majority of stakeholders and resources may be internal which simplifies some aspects of this final stage; however, feedback and ongoing support may be more substantial. Some suggested follow-up steps might include:
Step 1 - Review the new e-portfolio program against the goals and criteria established in the project plan and get formal approval for adoption from senior administrators.
Step 2 - Provide ongoing support (see Institutional Support in the Technical Considerations section above).
Step 3 - Collect feedback and other data from stakeholders in order to evaluate impact and continue refining the e-portfolio program.
In conclusion, we acknowledge the complexity of both the contextual system and the process of implementing new digital technologies (Conway et al., 2017). This is not a linear process, as evidenced by the overlap and connections between different sections. We invite you to engage with this toolkit as you consider your own organizational context.
References
Al-Haddad, S., & Kotnour, T. (2015). Integrating the organizational change literature: a model for successful change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 28(2), 234–262. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOCM-11-2013-0215
Baker III, F. W., & Moukhliss, S. (2020). Concretising Design Thinking: A Content Analysis of Systematic and Extended Literature Reviews on Design Thinking and Human‐Centred Design. Review of Education, 8(1), 305-333. https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3186
Bârgau, M. (2015). Leadership versus management. Romanian Economic and Business Review, 10(2), 197-204. https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/leadership-versus-management/docview/1700066847/se-2?accountid=8056
Bates, T. (2019). Teaching in the Digital Age—Second Edition (2nd Edition). Tony Bates Associates Ltd. https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/teachinginadigitalagev2/
Castelli, P. (2016). Reflective leadership review: a framework for improving organisational performance. Journal of Management Development, 35(2), 217-236. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMD-08-2015-0112
Center for Engaged Learning. (2016, July 27). George Kuh on ePortfolio as High-Impact Practice. [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r9WuHB_Yo0&feature=youtu.be
Ciesielkiewicz, M. (2019). The use of e-portfolios in higher education: from the students' perspective. Issues in Educational Research, 29(3), 649–667. https://www.iier.org.au/iier29/ciesielkiewicz.pdf
Clemson University. (n.d.). The what, why, and how of ePortfolios. https://www.clemson.edu/academics/programs/eportfolio/information.html
Conway, R., Masters, J., & Thorold, J. (2017). From design thinking to systems change: How to invest in innovation for social impact. Royal Society of Arts, Action and Research Centre. https://www.thersa.org/globalassets/pdfs/reports/rsa_from-design-thinking-to-system-change-report.pdf
Dam, R. F., & Siang, T. Y. (2020). Design thinking: Get started with prototyping. Interaction Design Foundation. https://library.parenthelp.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/www.interaction-design.org_.pdf
Doorley et al. (2018). Design Thinking Bootcamp Bootleg. https://dschool.stanford.edu/resources/design-thinking-bootleg
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Eynon, B., & Gambino, L. M. (2017). High impact eportfolio practice: a catalyst for student, faculty, and institutional learning (First). Stylus Publishing, LLC. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/royalroads-ebooks/reader.action?docID=4787234
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Schmidt, L. C., & Graziano, J. (Eds.) (2016). Building synergy for high-impact educational initiatives: first-year seminars and learning communities. National Resource Center for the First Year Experience & Students in Transition. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED573736.pdf#page=29
Wang, S., & Wang, H. (2012). Organizational schemata of e-portfolios for fostering higher-order thinking. Information Systems Frontiers, 14(2), 395–407. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-010-9262-0
Watt, A. (2014). Project Management (2nd ed.). BCcampus. https://opentextbc.ca/projectmanagement/
Weiner, B.J. (2009). A theory of organizational readiness for change. Implementation Science, 4(67). https://doi.org/10.1186/1748-5908-4-67
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