Mark, we have also been looking at the Bb Content System quite
closely and have found it quite useful for PDPs. As Richard points out,
what you're suggesting is a good backup plan. We have had a pilot running
this academic year with first years, where they have a generic
organisation with lots of documents that they can save and collate into a
portfolio, and useful information on skills/planning/ skills&time
management/career guidance etc generally. I feel that although this
moreorless works, and coul be extended into the kind of thing that you
suggest, that the scaling of this would worry me. We have had one generic,
and 5 departmental and 3 college sites just with the trial for students in
the first year. In October we roll out to first years and pilot the second
year module which gives me shivers when I consider how
many courses/orgs we might end up with without giving the students one
each.

The biggest draws of online PDP for us are being able to collate (or
ideally pre-populate) an electronic space with content in one organised
area; being able to allow tutors/mentors to view and comment on the
portfolio in an easy and admin-efficient manner, and portability on exit.
Add to this the reassurance of being able to do this in a familiar
surrounding like Bb, and we are keen to go this route. However, our pilot
this year using a course is not ideal, though essentially feasible. Using
the content system, users can add documents to their folio though preset
templates, issue passes or links to content they wish to be reviewed
without having to add someone to the site, and download the portfolio as a
zip of webpages at the end of their time. This seems to me a much more
powerful solution. You do, though, require enterprise, and yes, it's not
cheap, but it looks pretty good, and can do more things than just the
portfolio stuff. Definitely worth looking at, with sector wide PDP
commitment round the corner.
But no, there;s nothing inherently wrong with your original idea - as
Richard said, you'd want to create a template with pre-added content.

In (half-)answer to Annemaree - I picked up the bumph about e-Portaro at
the conference this week; according to Bb it does more-or-less the same
thing as the eportfolio in CS, but not the other stuff that CS does. From
which you can deduce that it is cheaper, but by howmuch I'm not sure. The
demos I saw atthe Folio stand did look pretty similar, perhaps only
slightly more customisable templates to get rid of the frameset you have in the
 Bb version. Still, if you don't want to buy content system, then from the
functionality evaluated in the Bb version, I'd say it was worth looking at
Folio. I assume it plugs into Bb or it wouldn't have been exhibiting at
the conference but I don't know whether that would be in enterprise, or
you could justlink to it from basic.

kate
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kate Boardman

Learning Technologies Team               ~   College Tutor (History)
Information Technology Service           ~   Hatfield College
University of Durham DH1 3LE             ~   North Bailey, Durham DH1 3RQ

Direct Tel: 0191 334 2778                ~
Email: [log in to unmask]         ~   Post: SCR, Hatfield College
WWW: http://www.dur.ac.uk/k.l.boardman   ~   Mobile: 07990 645 948

On Thu, 11 Mar 2004, Richard Parsons wrote:

> Hi Mark,
> Yes it is a goodish idea. We have had it too, but then we have looked
> seriously at the new Bb CM tool that has some obvious advantageous
> (provides for open access, password restrictions, sharing, templates
> etc), but is interestingly slightly more restrictive than using course
> sites.
>
> Currently, what you describe is one of our backup routes for ePDPs,
> ePortfolios, and we might explore it further if we choose not to pay the
> CM licence.
>
> Of course Bb must be aware of this (they are now, anyway). I do not
> think the administrative overhead is too restrictive, develop a course
> template and batch create the Portfolios, then batch enrol them.
>
> If you choose to try this, we will all be interested in the outcomes.
>
> Richard
>
> Dr Richard Parsons
> [log in to unmask]
> Technologies: www.dundee.ac.uk/learning/ilt/
> Ph +44 (0) 1382 344265
>
> >>> Mark Gamble <[log in to unmask]> 11/03/2004 11:21:04 >>>
> One of our education lecturers has had a bright idea. He says:
>
> "I am raising with the education team the use of e-portfolios for our
> students. The most effective way of utilising this type of development
> and assessment is with Blackboard. That is each individual student
> would
> have 'Course Builder' rights to a module * which would contain the
> variety of their e-artefacts, assessments, and reflections etc.  In
> this
> sense the Blackboard module acts as the e-framework for their
> portfolio.
> This would therefore require that we create a sequence of 'modules'
> for
> each student, with one or more staff members as the instructor."
>
> In a second email responding to my request for more information re
> numbers and lifespan, he says:
>
> "We have an intake of about 80 students per year on the BA , so for
> this course it would be 240 by 2007.  The module for each student
> would
> remain live during the three years of their course, with perhaps a
> short
> run-over at the end."
>
> Now, in principle, this probably looks like a good-ish idea. But it
> makes me uneasy. Yup, there'll be some extra work, but I can't really
> say no on that basis. What have I missed?
>
> --
> Regards
> Mark
>
> Mark Gamble
> Head of Learning Technology Support Service, University of Luton
> Tel 07720 068605   Fax 01582 489260    Int ext 2260 / 6360 (mobex)
>