Lessons Learned

What are the lessons learned from the project?

Project Management

Some 'missed opportunities' have been identified as a result of evaluation of the project, including:

1. Individual project partners working in isolation on specific work packages reporting that they were unclear of the overall objectives of the project and their specific role in achieving this. Mechanisms for ensuring how activities and outcomes from each of the individual work streams could inform the work of other work streams and partners were, at best, not well understood or, at worst, seen to be missing entirely
2. There appeared to be very limited attempts at a central level to synthesise or evaluate emerging research or evaluation data from the individual work streams as they progressed. Equally there appears to have been little consideration of how the emerging data could be used to inform the ongoing development or implementation of the overall project or individual work packages. This with a remit to analyse, evaluate and reflect on emerging results
3. There was a disjoint between the staff in partner organisations who had been consulted during development of the bid and the actual staff engaged in delivering the project once it was approved. The strategic or institutional commitment and agreement of a partner's contribution by a senior member of staff was often poorly cascaded within that institution to the member(s) of staff actually responsible for delivering the project. There was a perception by many participants in the evaluation that they had been expected to 'hit the ground running' and deliver the project without really knowing what the project was about or what their specific role within it was

PDP and e-Portfolios

1. Important to ensure that e-portfolio tools are appropriate for purpose within the specific context of each programme, group of learners; subject domain and wider stakeholder requirements
2. Fundamental value of both PDP and portfolio development is in the process rather than in the product, and in ensuring that the process is appropriate within a particular context
3. May require a sector wide recognition that there is no 'one size fits all' solution to ensuring the effective embedding of PDP or portfolio within the curriculum. In turn - recognition that range of different software tools, or differing versions or implementations of a single tool, may be required within a single institution to support range of contexts and approaches to PDP and portfolio within that institution
4. Adequate support for staff and students has to be provided by the most appropriate staff within the institution to ensure maximum benefit experienced
5. Re lifelong learning - more detailed consideration needs to be given to how learners across a diverse range of environments, with diverse skills sets and support provision can engage effectively with e-PDP and e-portfolio tools
6. Technical and organisational systems and processes need to become much more flexible and mobile for learners