Kent Personal Learning Portal Pilot

Lead Contact: Phil Poole, Phil.Poole@canterbury.ac.uk

JISC Programme: DeL Regional Pilots

Lead Institution and Partners: University of Kent (L), Aim Higher Kent and Medway, Canterbury Christ Church University (CCCU), University of Greenwich, Oxford Brookes University, South Kent College

Project Dates: January 2005 - March 2007

This case study illustrates Assessement, Assessment Feedback, Supporting Learning Processes, Defining Requirements, Technologies, Open Source, IT Skills, Legal Access, Interoperability, Access, Authentication, Storage

Background & Context

What is the background to the e-portfolio initiative?

Widening participation and the requirement to support academic skills in the context of retention has motivated most HE and some FE institutions to develop and exploit web-based resources and technology to support essential academic skills. There is substantial duplication and limited resources to create interactive materials within each establishment. The Kent Personal Learning Portal Pilot (PLPP) project built on the work undertaken by HE and FE partners in Kent and Medway as part of the Kent New Technology Institute (KNTI) initiative.

As part of the pedagogic strand of KNTI, interest from FE partners promoted collaboration to collect and share resources to support student academic skills. At the Medway Campus a joint desktop project was being developed to enable students from the four HEIs to seamlessly access networks at the shared campus. In the spirit of this collaboration PLPP undertook to create a portal through which all four partner HEIs involved at the Medway campus, and their partner FE Colleges, could share resources that would benefit students in transition to Higher Education.The primary objective of the PLPP was therefore to provide non-traditional students with access to HE resources through the use of web technologies offering services at any internet-enabled location.

What was the purpose and intended outcomes of the initiative?

The project intended to pilot a personal learning portal. The primary objective of the portal is to provide non-traditional learners with simple access to a range of services that will help them optimise their personal learning experience whether their actual course includes online course materials or not. The services to be included are induction and support services, personal development planning and e-portfolio. The portal will be linked to existing projects to provide shared desktop access at the Universities at Medway project and Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) at partner institutions.

The setting up of shared services accessed through the web will also serve to develop an awareness of the higher education learning environment and support the development of information skills required by this environment. Building on strategic e-learning partnerships within the region, as well as the institutions directly involved at Medway would help achieve this.

The long-term aim was to find a way to maintain the records for both in such a way that they go with the student rather than being identified with their time at a particular institution. This would enable relevant aspects to be accessed by pre-registration students.

How was the initiative implemented?

The project was tackled in three overlapping phases:

Phase 1 - Technical infrastructure and development of PLPP

Development work concentrated on back-end features (authentication and authorisation, providing channels to applications etc,) rather than work on the presentation at this stage. All developments were undertaken using mainstream languages and standards. Wherever possible the project adopted open standards and open source software.

Phase 2 - Identification and linking of resources into PLPP

A thorough investigation of student needs, linked to potential resources, was undertaken by relevant members of the project team in association with potential FE partners. This involved desk research and examination of a range of resources available within partner institutions and on the internet. An audit of these resources was necessary to identify which would: a) be possible to link to the portal; b) be valid for the target groups; c) be fit for purpose.

Phase 3 - Testing and evaluation of PLPP

The approach taken throughout the pilot was to put the experience of the users before the technical development considerations of the system even if the technical solution was to resort to workarounds rather than optimum solutions. There was also a recognition that the range of portlets was not going to be as extensive as we had anticipated.

At an early stage pilot groups were selected using additional targeting criteria (widening participation students). Groups were identified where students were aiming to enter Higher Education (Access to HE programme), and whose staff (tutors and technical staff) were prepared to undertake the time-consuming task of being introduced to a new system and way of working. It became clear that constraints on working time in other institutions (FE), and the size of the task they were being asked to engage in, prevented some of the identified groups from taking part. A total of 120 students and 8 tutors finally participated in the pilot.

Tutors and students were trained in the use of the portal by members of the project team working closely with each group. Effort was focused on providing online support, a help desk and training for both staff and students. Group and evaluation meetings led to amendments in the approach as the demands of users were taken into consideration and as the project progressed. Project groups, across sectors, worked well together, aided by close geographical locations.