Matthew, Simon, Sarah, Les
Such insteresting discussions ...
From experiences of using portfolios (non-e) for assessment I would say that there are problems of making sure that the authors (students) realise who might see the materials that they are depositing and think through what sort of permitted audiences they might want for different parts of the portfolio. For example some of it might reflect on working for an particular employer or with a particular colleague. Would they want that to be accessible to that employer or colleague? The same issues hold for information within personal and informal respositoties such as those being investigated within PROWE www.prowe.ac.uk. (Another form of repository to think about!)
In the portfolios that I had experience of, critical assessment of courses that practitioners had taught or experienced might cause embarassment to the author ,or the reader in certain circumstances. Sarah's medical case examples is even more extreme, but within medicine at least there is a culture of understanding about patient confidentiality (one hopes). In many courses the students and tutors come to the portfolio with no real understanding of who might end up viewing their inner thoughts and without thinking through that they might want to work for oragnisation X or with colleague Y at some future stage. One way of getting around this (in non-e assessment) is anonymisation. But e-portfolios could offer the potential to fine tune who can access particular documents or segments.
Les asks whether this is the same as need to control access to full-text vs. abstracts in a conventional repository. It seems to me that it is the same but its a far more extreme form of degree of author/owner control here. This is a far more personal tuning of permissions. Both personal in the sense of each set of portfolio permissions being potentially widely different from the next and personal in being granted or denied at a personal level by the author/originator of the material.
I realise that the e-portfolios being discussed by Simon may not be assessment but personal records, but the reflective nature of both does appear to introduce confidientiality concerns and a level of added complexity.
In answer to Matthew's question, I think that repository label does stretch to fit several types including the personal type, and the portfolio type. Which both could be described as the I-keep-it-like-this-because-it-suits-me-but-the-system-that-I-am-keeping-it-in-allows-me-to-share-when-and-if-I-wish type.
Chris
-----Original Message-----
From: Repositories discussion list on behalf of Leslie Carr
Sent: Tue 17/01/2006 15:20
To: [log in to unmask]
Cc:
Subject: Re: Institutional Repositories: do they need a new name?
On 17 Jan 2006, at 14:32, Simon Grant wrote:
> My interest is in e-portfolio repositories, and it does seem to me
> that
> there are issues in storing possibly sensitive personal information,
> reflections, etc., not to mention material for high-stakes or
> summative
> assessment, that are not the same as many other basic repository
> considerations. Obviously this includes Data Protection Act
> considerations.
>
> Are these considerations relevant to other uses or variants of
> "repositories"? If so, has anyone described or built a framework
> encompassing e-portfolio needs?
Are these terribly different from the need to control full-text
downloads in a research repository? Those may have legal and
contractual considerations.
The bigger issue may be who controls each e-portfolio? Who deposits
material into it? Under what circumstances can it be updated? How are
the elements of a portfolio used? How is the porfolio used itself as
a complex object?
If a portfolio is used and controlled by "the author" then it might
fit quite well into the repository model. On the other hand, if a
portfolio is maintained by a trusted accrediting authority on behalf
of "the author" , then a repository might be a bad fit.
--
Les Carr
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