Sustainable ePortfolio practice event recap
On Thursday 25 August, academics and learning designers from Deakin and the University of Melbourne met at Deakin Downtown where they joined colleagues across Australia and New Zealand for an interactive online workshop on building sustainable ePortfolio practices.
Digital ethics principles for ePortfolios
Hosted by ePortfolios Australia in partnership with the Association for Authentic, Experiential & Evidence-Based Learning (AAEEBL), the workshop focused on AAEEBL’s Digital Ethics Principles for ePortfolios. Facilitators Christine Slade (University of Queensland), Sarah Zurhellen (Appalachian State University) and Megan Mize (Old Dominion University) led a series of discussions prompting participants to reflect on the ‘visibility of labour’ around the creation, support and advocacy of ePortfolios and how this labour might be resourced, recognised and rewarded.
Workshop highlights
Participants noted the need for collaboration in the design and support of ePortfolio practice, to bring together different areas of expertise and to ensure that ePortfolio activities are designed with a course- or program-wide approach.
Suggestions for facilitating this collaboration included taking advantage of course review and accreditation processes, embedding ePortfolio activities iteratively across courses so later units can take advantage of the insights and lessons learnt in earlier units, building communities of practice, and sharing examples and templates.
The importance of evaluation, iterative improvement and review after a full ePortfolio cycle was emphasised. Opportunities for recognition and reward included HEA Fellowships, promotion and appraisal processes, although participants noted the need for greater recognition by universities of the collaboration, learning design and student support and feedback involved in ePortfolio practice.
Find out more
- Check out AAEEBL’s Digital Ethics Principles for ePortfolios.
- Find out about upcoming ePortfolios Australia events.
- Learn more about using ePortfolios and PebblePad in your teaching practice.
- Join our new Tools 4 Teaching Network on MS Teams to be part of our community of practice.