1 / 20

Insights into electronic portfolio interoperability

This article explores the interoperability of e-portfolio systems for lifelong learning. It discusses specifications, definitions, representations, and architectures of e-portfolio systems. It also examines various e-portfolio items and their review process. The article touches on semantic interoperability and current specifications. It delves into the development and revision of standards and examines Europass instruments and e-portfolio systems architecture. Finally, it explores skills interoperability and concludes with some considerations.

bclifford
Download Presentation

Insights into electronic portfolio interoperability

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. Insights into electronic portfolio interoperability Simon Grant Independent consultant Information Strategists EDEN 2005 Annual Conference, 20.-23.6.2005, Helsinki, Finland

  2. Interoperability • If e-portfolio systems are to be used for lifelong learning, they should interoperate • Several specifications have been suggested • How can an e-portfolio system be built or made to be interoperable?

  3. Outline agenda menu • Do the definitions make sense? • Do we share understanding of the items? • What is interoperability? • How items are represented by specs • Europass instruments • E-portfolio systems architecture • Interoperable skills and competences

  4. E-portfolio items (1) • Achievements • qualifications; certificates; awards; prizes; etc. • Products • works; things created, tended, managed • Competencies (by whatever name) • knowledge; skills; attitudes • achievements/products can be evidence

  5. E-portfolio items (2) • Goals • a sense of direction as in action planning • Activities • past: as record to present and reflect on • future planned: as part of action planning • Evaluations (formal) • of activities or products

  6. E-portfolio items (3) • Interests • what personally motivates, including values • Assertions • by self or others, testimonials, free format evaluation by others • Reflections • as part of PDP; self-evaluation

  7. E-portfolio items (4) • Organisations (reference) • point of reference for several things • Affiliations • details of relationship with organisations • Other people of significance (reference) • mentors; friends; people that wrote assertions

  8. E-portfolio items (5) • Identification • names, addresses, photos, date of birth… • Relationships • many highly significant between items • metadata • not an item in itself, but a record of: rights over any item; dates of creation, revision

  9. E-portfolio items review • Is there anything that doesn’t fit in those? • Do those categories distinguish properly? • between things of different form/structure • How do these relate to lifelong learning?

  10. What is interoperability? • Portability of e-portfolio records; OR • Different systems concurrently offering and using related services • To be useful, interoperability specifications must be based on real practice • What are your scenarios? • What services are implied?

  11. Semantic interoperability • Can the item of information in one context be meaningfully interpreted in another? • think of particular PDP scenarios… • Role of type vocabularies • to distinguish semantically different things with the same or similar structure • Could items with types form a sufficient basis for making useful distinctions?

  12. Current specifications • IMS LIP • 2001: large and complex • UKLeaP (BS 8788) • 2004/5 attempting to make LIP usable • IMS ePortfolio • draft 2004, final 2005 • HR-XML

  13. What do we want of a standard? • Various trade-offs • Simple – complex • XML – RDF • well-defined – flexible • monolithic – segmented (“speclets”) • early (untested) – late (tested) • Development / revision: easy or hard?

  14. Europass instruments • http://europass.cedefop.eu.int/ • Europass CV • Europass Diploma Supplement • (Certificate Supplement is not personal) • Europass Language Passport • Europass Mobility

  15. Europass issues • Europass representation challenges • Who is working with Europass instruments? • How and why? • May there be a future need to generate the Europass instruments from an e-portfolio system?

  16. E-portfolio systems architecture • Distributed nature of item storage • items held by originating institutions? • Need for aggregation/distribution • future concept “PIADS”: personal information aggregation and distribution service • See WS4RL • http://www.elframework.org/projects/ws4rl

  17. Learning design & materials repository service 1 Personal Development Planning Web Service 2 3 4 5 6 7 Educator Learner Personal Learning Environment Personal Information Aggregation & Distribution Service database 8 database 9 database Key: WS call other (may be WS) WS return WS4RL diagram

  18. Skills interoperability • What happens when institutions describe skills in different ways? • evidence here does not connect over there • But uniform standards not feasible • Need a “meta-framework” for skills • enable relationships across frameworks • http://www.elframework.org/projects/spws

  19. higher-level concept 1 for body 1 (“C”) higher-level concept 1 for body 2 (“C”) Is Part Of Operationalises skill iv as assessed etc. in body 1 (“EO”) i iii iv ii v skill iv as assessed etc. in body 2 (“EO”) vi vii Medium- or low-level shared skill concepts (“C”) SPWS diagram

  20. Concluding comments? • Is interoperability feasible now, or when? • Transfer or concurrent use? • What stands in its way? • Is the fundamental approach sound? • Or is there a better way? • Can you take this forward?

More Related