Download Portability and interoperability between ePortfolio Management

Portability and interoperability between ePortfolio
Management Systems: from the EPICC project the eXact
Portfolio solution
Fabrizio Giorgini
Giunti Interactive Labs, Sestri Leavante, Italy
[email protected]
Abstract
This short paper introduces the work started in the EPICC project (co-funded by the European Commission)
aiming at the development of an ePortfolio Management System based on international specifications. The
implementation of the specification proposed by IMS, called IMS eP, means at supporting and improving the
portability and interoperability of ePortfolios between different ePortfolio Management Systems and offers
the possibility of integrating the ePortfolio Management Systems with HR, recruitment and LMS systems.
Keywords: ePortfolio, ePMS, portability, interoperability.
1. Introduction
In the recent past, Portfolios have been an instrument that offered rich possibilities for learning
and assessment and enabled learning for the creator and the user and demonstrated learning for
multiple audiences.
Nowadays, thanks to ubiquitous, high-speed, economically accessible network capacity, and to a
great extent, globally and affordable, multimedia-capable computers, Portfolio is transforming to
the ePortfolio, the electronic version of the “traditional” paper-based Portfolio.
The ePortfolio is a highly personalized, customizable web-based information management
system, which allows students to demonstrate individual and collaborative growth, achievement
and learning over time. An ePortfolio can be used in support of career planning and resume
building, advising and academic planning, academic evaluation and assessment, and as a tool for
reflection.
ePortfolios are of value to owners for a number of reasons, but essentially, they place owners at
the center of their learning experience. ePortfolios allow owners to manage and control access to
their records, academic information and coursework, creating personal development planning as
a learning trajectory, by mapping out professional goals, experiences and outcomes.
ePortfolios contents and services can be shared with others in order to reflect on one’s learning
or career, support continuing professional development, plan learning or search a job.
While several institutions of higher education have been developing student digital portfolios over
the past decade, this effort has been mostly uncoordinated with the notable exception of two
academic consortia in the United States. It is critical for the future of a knowledge Europe to
engage upon an orchestrated effort involving both educational and corporate institutions to
define, design, and develop digital portfolio systems that meet the needs of all stakeholders and
allows portability of e-Portfolios between different systems.
2. The eXact Portfolio
The overall scope of the EPICC project was making ePortfolios interoperable across different
systems and institutions. The implemented prototype, called eXact Portfolio, provides tools for the
management of ePortfolio archive, or a general ePortfolio, which might contain, in addition to
actual packaged digital works, these different kinds of information, for example about digital and
non-digital works created or part-created by the subject, about the subject of the ePortfolio, about
activities in which the subject has participated, is participating, or plans to participate, about the
competencies (skills, etc.) of the subject, about the achievements of the subject, whether or not
certificated, about the subject's preferences, about the subject's goals and plans, about the
subject's interests and values, about any notes, reflections, or assessments relevant to any other
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part, contextual information to help the interpretation of any results, about the relationships
between the other parts of the information, about the creation and ownership of the parts of the
ePortfolio.
eXact Portfolio implements the recent international specifications released by IMS Global
Consortium, the IMS eP specifications [2] in order to:

support the advancement of lifelong learning important to many government initiatives,

make exchanging portfolios from school to work transitions easier,

allow educators and institutions to better track competencies,

enhance the learning experience and improves employee development.
eXact Portfolio manages different type of ePortfolios in order to meet more diverse end-user
needs:

Assessment e-portfolios: to demonstrate achievement to some authority by relating
evidence within the e-portfolio;

Presentation or showcase e-portfolios: to present evidence about learning, skills or
competences to particular audiences;

Learning and reflective e-portfolios: to document, guide, and develop learning over time;

Personal Development e-portfolios: contain records of learning, performance and
achievement (for reflection), and outcomes of reflection on those records, including plans
for future development;

General purpose e-portfolios: could combine elements of any of the proceeding types.
Figure 1: the welcome page of eXact Portfolio
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The system has been implemented to be multilingual: it uses IMS VDEX vocabularies to manage
the translation of the GUI in different languages so it is possible to add a new language by simply
updating the used VDEX vocabularies.
The portability of ePortfolios is ensured in the developed ePortfolio Management System by the
import/export functionalities that package/unpackage the ePortfolio or parts of it according to the
IMS eP specifications before to import or export the data.
An interoperability protocol based on a set of web services will offer to registered and
authenticated HR and recruitment systems to search for specific information like skills,
competencies, goals etc.
Not only, implemented communication mechanisms (still based on web services) will allow the
ePortfolio owner to access, after authentication, to elearning courses offered by registered
Learning Management Systems in order to achieve the competencies defined in the Personal
Development Planning. Once the competency has been acquired, the Leaning Management
System will update the ePortfolio owner’s profile accordingly. As a proof-of-concept, the eXact
ePortfolio will be soon integrated in the Giunti’s LCMS, Learn eXact [3].
References
[1] http://www.epiccproject.info/
[2] www.imsglobal.org
[3] www.learnexact.com
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