I have been researching the development of e-Portfolios (initially for the schools sector) and have presented a funded paper to Nigel Ecclesfield of Becta. Partly in response to Clive Church’s last blog the relationships between Secondary schools and FE in terms of the 14-19 Diplomas require immediate solutions. In this context the requirements of data transfer are confused by the sophisticated systems already in place with the Local Authorities using extant VLEs. In my view, therefore, the e-Portfolio can be a very simple system without the requirements of excessive data handling.

Secondly, as you must be aware, the HE sector, strong as its voice might be, is only a very small and transitional percentage of the learning population. I doubt that any solution devised ‘in house’ can demand the universal coinage that an e-Portfolio requires.

Thirdly, my admittedly limited access to details leads me to understand that Industry has a very narrow perception of e-Portfolio concepts, limited to staff development and re-training etc. However, the vast majority of the UK workforce does not have access to on-line staff development and certainly would not fund the support of personal development not related to on-the-job training. Again, the UK has a very large proportion of SMEs which do not have the resources envisaged.

Fourthly, the Adult Education sector, addressing Leitch etc appears to have a very myopic view of their responsibilities and are certainly not meeting the existing demands of its clients, nevermind the expectations for up-skilling that our government requires. I have presented a paper to NIACE on this topic (see: http://www.maximise-ict.co.uk/Infrastructural developments.pdf )

for more on e-Portfolios see: http://www.maximise-ict.co.uk/eFolio-01.htm

Kind Regards,

Ray Tolley