UK – R J Tolley 21-Feb-08 – Recently I was reading an interesting article by Ray Tolley, who is a major advocate for an e-portfolio system.  In this article he outlines the main characteristics of an e-portfolio, many of which are evident in the Learn Skills e-portfolio system.

The key characteristics of an e-portfolio are:

1. It is portable: It cannot be located in any one institution or embedded within a proprietary VLE.

2. It is personal: It is ‘owned’ by the user and is customisable to the user’s age, stage and style.

3. It is generic: It is not modelled on any particular curriculum delivery system nor content.

4. It is Web2.0: It should be compliant with all generic formats within the application.

5. It is MIS-free: It is not ‘hard-wired’ to any institution’s MIS infrastructure.

6. It is ‘lite’: It is not a permanent repository of all of a user’s files, rather a ‘transit camp’.

7. It is lifelong: Ownership must be maintainable as a continuity, ‘5-95’.

8. It is lifewide: It is capable of being used by all ages and abilities through a wide range of assistive templates.

9. It is accessible: It must recognise common standards of accessibility in terms of both outputs and inputs.

10. It is credible: Evidence of any Summative Assessment must be linked to a secure repository ie the awarding body or a central MIAP/Minerva archive.

You can read the full article by clicking “The Prime Directives for an e-Portfolio” and also follow this by reading “Who’s hijacking our e-portfolios?” by Ray Trolley also to learn even more about e-Portfolios