Employment

ePortfolios & Open Badges Maturity Matrix

July 2nd saw the first public presentation of  the ePortfolios & Open Badges Maturity Matrix, one of the outcomes of the Europortfolio initiative (www.europortfolio.org). This post reports some of the ideas that were presented during this webinar.

Why a Maturity Matrix?

A growing number of individuals and organisations are exploiting or planning to explore the benefits of ePortfolios and, more recently, Open Badges. What are the successful indicators of such an implementation? How does one implementation compare to another? What possible steps can be taken in order to improve current practices and technology?

While a number of reference documents have been published, in particular the very comprehensive guidelines from  JISC and the Australian ePortfolio Initiative, notwithstanding previous attempts at creating an ePortfolio maturity matrix, there is not yet a consensus, within the learning professional community, on what could constitute a maturity model of ePortfolios and Open Badges implementation.

The maturity model underpinning the ePortfolios & Open Badges Maturity Matrix aims at being inclusive, i.e. recognising what people and organisations are doing today, while providing a framework for future improvement, so that learning practitioners will be able to state: “this is where we are today, that is where we want to be next year.” The main function of the Maturity Matrix is to provide a tool to facilitate the dialogue with practitioners, leaders in education and decision makers. If you are an innovator and feel lonely in your institution, you can use the Matrix to engage in a dialogue with your colleagues, learning community and community of practice. If you are an education manager, you can use the Matrix to review and/or plan the changes required to support effective ePortfolio and Open Badge practice.

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ePortfolios & Open Badges at the Service of Learning eQuality

Monday January 13th, I was invited to present how Open Badges and ePortfolios could contribute to the quality of learning at a seminar on quality in distance education organised by the FIED (Fédération Interuniversitaire de l’Education à Distance).

I took the opportunity develop further a reflection started  in 2007 with the publication of a green paper entitled From quality of eLearning to eQuality of learning (link). The objective was to explore an alternative path to the mechanistic, and too often trivial, approaches to quality and eLearning.

Quality as Learning

One of the questions raised in the green paper was:

What would the consequences be if we moved our reflection from quality of learning, to quality as learning?

In response, the green paper proposed:

to shift the focus from quality of eLearning to eQuality as learning, i.e. reflect on how digital technologies can provide support for improving all forms of learning – instruction and training, face to face, at a distance, or mixed, formal and informal, personal and organisational – making the quality process itself a personal and organisational experience.


ePortfolios & Open Badges to the Service of Learning Quality from Serge Ravet
(The presentation accessible on Slideshare has no sound, but the original presentation was recorded and will be soon available, in French)

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Punished by Open Badges?

Punished by Rewards Book CoverWhy Open Badges Could Either Kill or Cure Learning?

As many Open Badges supporters, and self-appointed ambassadors, I had absolutely no reservation regarding Open Badges: I saw them as the natural development of the work I did on ePortfolios as a means to support, recognise and celebrate learning and achievements: I envisioned Open Badges as a means to create an open and distributed ePortfolio architecture.

I saw no evil in Open Badges. That is, until I learned about Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes. As the book was written by Alfie Kohn in 1993, and revised in 1999, it does not address Open Badges. Yet, the book provides plenty of evidence from research eliciting the deleterious effects of extrinsic motivation on learning (and work), one of the most noxious legacies of B.F. Skinner, the psychologist described by Alfie Kohn as the one who “experimented with pigeons and wrote on people.”

This post is divided into 3 main parts:

  1. An exploration on the potential dangers of Open Badges practice (Open Badges as glorified gold stars) and infrastructure (asymmetry)
  2. An exploration of the potential benefits of Open Badges practice (Open Badges as distributed ePortfolios) and infrastructure (trust).
  3. What needs to be done ASAP[1] to minimise the risks and maximise the potential of Open Badges

One of the objectives of this post is to prepare the welcome of Alfie Kohn as keynote speaker at ePIC 2014. Shall Open Badges and ePortfolios pass the Alfie Kohn test? Whatever the results, his presence should contribute to raising key questions and possibly debunk some of the prejudices hidden in our practices.

In the Reference section of this post you will find some of the (very few) posts addressing the same issue as well as references to Alfie Kohn’s writings and public speaking.

Why Open Badges Could Kill the Desire to Learn?

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Recognition and Accreditation of Competencies in 2030: How Different?

Wednesday 16 October 2013, I was invited to give a keynote address at a conference[1] in Warsaw celebrating the publication of 300 competency standards[2] at the initiative of the Department of Labour Market from the Polish Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. Participants included the State Secretary from the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, representatives of social partners such as the Polish Craft Association, the Polish Chamber of Commerce, different employer associations and trade unions.

It was interesting to witness how much has been achieved 6 years after the publication of 200 qualification standards and my first visit to Warsaw when on the 18 December 2007 I was invited to give a keynote at a conference entitled National Occupational Standards as a Tool for Employment and Education Policy. The brief for this year’s keynote was to invite the participants to explore the potential of those newly published competency standards to support, recognise and accredit learning.

What follows is the abstract of my presentation[3].

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Open Badges to the World

An Open Badge describes a criteria– and evidence-based trust relationship between an issuer and a recipient. Criteria, evidence, issuer and recipient are represented as a set of metadata ‘baked’ into a picture, the actual visual representation of an Open Badge. What I would like to explore is how metadata could connect Open Badges to the rest of the world by making criteria easily accessible, shareable and reusable by applications and services beyond the realm of Open Badges. I will focus more precisely on badges awarded for the acquisition of competencies.

When a badge is delivered in recognition of the acquisition of a new competency or a series of competencies, the badge issuer provides the information relative to the awarding criteria via a URL. The URL points to the definition of the criteria.

Some of the questions that (should) come to mind when designing a new badge are:

  • are there existing criteria or definitions that could be used to issue this new badge? Has someone already delivered a similar badge? Is there an existing competency framework to refer to?
  • where should those definitions be stored? On the original issuer server? On a public space?
  • who else might be interested in using those definitions beyond the delivery and exploitation of Open Badges?

Today, competency frameworks are used for many different purposes:

  • designing a job description
  • hiring employees
  • finding project partners
  • planning continuing professional development
  • tagging portfolio evidence
  • tagging learning resources
  • reviewing annual performance
  • accrediting  prior learning
  • awarding a badge
  • and much more…

For example, when someone compiles a portfolio for accreditation of prior learning that will lead to the awarding of a badge, the same criteria will be used to tag evidence, narratives, xAPI statements (experience API) and Open Badges. Continue reading →

“The Internet of Subjects” Manifesto

EIfEL is currently working on the publication of “The Internet of Subjects” Manifesto. The objective is to bring together all the current efforts to make the Internet more ‘subject centric’, taking into account the human factor.

“The Internet of Subjects” Manifesto


The central role individuals now play in the Internet, calls for a radical rethinking of its organisation, in particular, the way the ever-increasing flow of personal data is being created, stored, connected, accessed, protected, tracked, exploited and managed. There is a need to create the foundations of an Internet where the architecture creates the conditions for the free association of self-conscious individuals, beyond the pre-defined boundaries of current information systems and social networks.

The foresight of an Internet of Subjects, rests on a vision of self-conscious subjects who are in full control of the whole of their personal data, from personal healthcare, education and employment records, to bank, sales and various tracking records generated in the cyberspace.

The Internet of Subjects aims at being a people enabler, creating the conditions developing one’s social and professional identity and contribute to the growth of social capital.

The Internet of Subjects aims also at being a business enabler, creating the conditions for for-profit as well as not-for-profit organisations, public and private agencies, to provide personalised services while using personal data ethically, as defined by the individuals.

To achieve this, a second order change is required. Thanks to research, innovation, improved quality of online services and the ever-decreasing costs of online storage, bandwidth and computing power, we have reached the tipping point where this second order change is now made possible

[…]

If you want to join the conversation and contribute to the Manifesto, please contact serge.ravet@eife-l.org.

The Identity Centric Framework

The tremendous work done by organisations such as the Oasis Group, Liberty Alliance and Open ID on specifications and standards for digital identity call for a profound transformation of the Internet, moving from the “Internet of documents” to the “Internet of Subjects.” In an Internet of Subjects, we don’t want our actions to be limited by existing social network services provided by a third party, we want to be able to create social networks on the fly, just like in real life —and undo them without losing any data. We also want to be able to keep in one place (possibly distributed), a place we own, all the publications, contributions and various artefacts and tracks generated during our Internet activities.

Publication mechanisms like trackback demonstrate that it is possible to publish a blog entry or a comment in a personal space to make it visible in another one, so if a specific aggregation of blog entries/comments is not supported anymore (let’s say that this instance of Blogger disappears), then the entries and comments will still be available in my personal space (today I use a Word copy as save). Of course, the use of trackback has been impeded by pirates trying to circumvent anti-spam software, but this general mechanism (or equivalent) could be revived and systematised in a trustworthy environment, using social computing to support reputation mechanism.

In order to give a genral framework for these reflections, I’ve come up with something named the “Identity Centric Framework” (ICF) with the intention to to codify a set of fundamental principles to which any identity architecture should conform to be universal and sustainable. This framework can be seen as a derivation of the Microsoft’s identity metasystemand laws of identity. The principles can be summarised by the acronym “ID TOUCH.”

A universal identity centric system should be:

  • Independent: it should be sovereign and independent from commercial or partisan interests; it should be based on the existence of multiple, competitive, operators and technologies.
  • Dependable: it should have a provision to guarantee that personal data are free from potential loss or theft as well as identity attacks.
  • Transparent: it should provide accurate reports and statistics on how one’s personal data is being used by third parties. It should also provide negotiation and discovery mechanisms for social interaction and data exchange.
  • Opaque: it should provide mechanisms to fine-tune external visibility of personal data, up to the point of total opacity and anonymity —except for legal or regulatory requirements. It should include encryption and other techniques to limit the risks of undesired disclosure.
  • Unifying: it should provide a seamless experience across contexts (e.g. healthcare, education, employment, leisure, mobility) and identities while keeping a clear separation between independent contexts and multiple identities.
  • Communal: Identity systems must recognise and exploit the social nature of identity. Mechanisms such as reputation and trust should be native features of identity systems.
  • Humanist: the underpinning values of an identity centric system is a humanist vision of technology refusing the reification of human beings and promoting an open and free society.

About ePortfolio definitions

It is true that there are many different ePortfolio definitions and that their range can be disturbing, not only to the newcomer. It is also true that many ePortfolio practitioners feel the urge to create their own version, and I’m not an exception to that. In fact I like to use different definitions, depending on the context and my goal. For example, I like the definition of the ePortfolio as a personal and community knowledge management tool… as well as digital identity construction tool…

So, why so many definitions? What does this diversity say about the ePortfolio and the practitioners who are using/describing it? Is it a problem and should we all agree on one and only definition?

Why so many definitions?

While the ePortfolio is an emerging technology, many of the practices and concepts used to describe it were born in the era of the paper-based portfolio. It is natural that new practices and concepts emerge from a new technology, and that conversely technology is being transformed by emerging practices! One of the most radical changes is probably the use of social computing, making the ePortfolio, not only a ‘paperless portfolio’ but a social object. Another change is the emergence of user generated contents and contexts, the learner being the producer of learning resources and environment used by other learners. With such practices, the ePortfolio is not the mere repository of good students work and reflection, but the repository of knowledge used by others. The ePortfolio is not just a demonstration of one’s learning but the resource used by others to learn, the use by others being the evidence of learning. The ‘learning to learn’ mantra should probably be replaced by ‘learning to share’ or ‘learning to teach’.
What do a paperless portfolio and socially connected portfolio have in common, beyond being both digital and containing some reflections? Probably very little. So, why should definitions be identical?

Should we all agree on one and only definition?

Epistemology tells us that when concepts become fuzzy or contradictory, when the reality can’t be properly described by a concept anymore, then this concept should be abandoned and replaced by a better one. Trying to twist the definition of a portfolio to that of an ePortfolio has probably become counter-productive at this stage.
Using the same name to refer to many different realities is certainly not helpful, and it would be nice to agree on one definition. And this definition should be precise enough to avoid the kind of comments I’ve heard so many times: “so, everything is an ePortfolio.” And the solution might be to say that an ePortfolio is a “portfolio constructed with the help of digital technology”, keeping the current definition of a portfolio. This would suppress the contradictory definitions that were mentioned before. But then, to what concept should we attach those definitions?

I suggest that the range of contradictory/complementary definitions, from paperless portfolios to personal knowledge management tools, should be sublated into another concept. For the lack of better term, I suggest “digital identity” or “eSelf”, i.e. the use of technology as the support of one’s identity construction.

Learning is not about creating portfolios, it is about constructing one’s social identity. The ePortfolio should be a mean, not an end. And just like paper-based portfolios could be an obstacle to the recognition of learning (building a portfolio involve a set of skills that are different from those of “Speaking French”, so obliging a person to construct a portfolio to have their linguistic competencies recognised could be counter-productive), ePortfolios can become an obstacle to learning — ePortfolio of learning are still more common that portfolio for learning…

Why should the ePortfolio be subsumed by eSelf?

The ePortfolio has not escaped from a representation of reality where people are compartmentalised in silos. The fact that to properly describe an ePortfolio, you need to add a modifier such as ‘marketing’, ‘learning’, ‘assessment’ or ‘employment’ means that the concept of ePortfolio on its own is simply a compilation of files with a dash of reflection adapted to a number of pre-defined purposes.

If the objective of the ePortfolio is the demonstration of reflective learning and practice, then does one absolutely need an ePortfolio to perform or even demonstrate reflective learning and practice? Is our objective to perform or demonstrate? Do we need to demonstrate in order to perform effectively, and is the ePortfolio the best way to perform reflective learning and practice? Are their other ways? Shouldn’t we look at naturally occurring opportunities for demonstrating evidence of reflective learning and practice, without the need to spend time in the compilation of a document, that might be useful from the point of view of an institution that delivers a qualification or hire for a job, but not for everyday’s practice? Can discrete compilation of documents be sufficient, or do we need something continuous, more organically linked to our everyday’s life?

The eSelf is a means to break the barriers across silos and information systems, the compartments and roles in which institutions tend to lock us in. I want to exist on the web without the filter of some pre-defined template or procedure, where I communicate with others through my left and right brains — most of ePortfolio are left-brain based, even in the field of media studies…

Should we continue to use the concept of ePortfolio?

It is certain that if we tell those who are starting to support the idea that everyone should have an ePortfolio, that what they should really be supporting is that everyone should have a digital identity, then we might lose some of them. This is not to say that the ePortfolio is a necessary step towards the eSelf but that we need to be advanced, yet acceptable if we want to have our message being heard. This is why I don’t mind about the variety of ePortfolio definitions, so I can continue to use the word while meaning my “digital identity.”

Towards a future that works – the Committee on Labour Market Participation recommends an ePortfolio for all workers

The Dutch Committee on Labour Market Participation has formulated a series of recommendations for getting more people into work in the Netherlands and improving the operation of the labour market. The Committee’s most significant conclusion is that the Dutch labour market is about to undergo drastic change:

  1. over the course of the coming decades, there will be more work to do but fewer people to do it;
  2. globalisation will increase the requirements regarding the level of knowledge and adaptability of the labour force. The Netherlands needs everybody – quickly! – and everybody must be constantly employable.

Among the recommandations, the fifth one is related to the ePortfolio as a mean to improve imployability:

5. Improve employability. In order to increase employability, we make a number of recommendations for employers/employees, the education sector, and the benefits agencies.

  • Digital e-portfolio. Every member of the labour force will be entitled to a digital e-portfolio, i.e. an electronic inventory of their competencies, diplomas, experience, and accreditation of prior learning (APL). This will give people a better understanding of their position on the labour market and their career prospects, and of any need they have for further training.
  • Periodical talent analysis. Talent analysis and APL procedures must be introduced on a large scale, with maximum use being made of the e-portfolio. The right to a periodical analysis of one’s competencies and the right to APL assessment must be included in collective labour agreements, with mandatory arrangements for a “best-effort” obligation on the part of employees to undertake training.

The full document is accessible here.

ePortfolio & Web 2.0

In a recent post on Web 2.0 & commercial ePortfolios, Helen Barrett commented an article in Campus Computing on commercial e-portfolio systems. She writes: “free Web 2.0 technologies could be a threat to some of the commercial tools, since students could replicate ePortfolio/PLE functions of many of the commercial tools using these Web 2.0 tools.”

In my view, this is debatable as I think we should differentiate between:

  • ePortfolios — that are documents, full stop
  • ePorfolio authoring systems — the tools used by the author
  • ePortfolio management systems — that are tools used by institutions

I formulated this distinction a long time ago in a position paper “For an ePortfolio enabled architecture.” The problem with many discussions on ePortfolios is that by using the same noun to express 3 totally (but connected) objects, it makes it very difficult to reach a common understanding.

For example, let’s take the discussion about “assessment ePortfolios” that some claim alter the “true nature” of ePortfolios — and I’m always a bit wary when people refer to the “true nature” of man made things! One one side, there would be the “good portfolio,” that belongs entirely to the individual, who manages it from start to finish (until death do us part) and, on the other side, the “evil portfolio”, owned by the institution who uses it as support to the grading system. What I claim is that this is like comparing pears and a stove then claim that all stoves are evil as they can be used to transform pears into “Poire Belle Hélène” — I agree that chocolate can be evil!

Let’s take the United Kingdom where around 500,000 qualifications (NVQs) are delivered each year to people who have built a portfolio — and more and more of those are now electronic. These portfolios won’t probably stand out for their creativity, and flowery designs might not be the norm. Nevertheless, these portfolios have provided an opportunity to millions of British citizens, who might have had no previous qualification, to have their contribution to society, their learning, be recognised. So, an assessment portfolio is not necessarily evil especially if it empowers people in their social and professional life.

In order to produce their NVQ ePortfolio, candidates use a platform, an ePortfolio Management System (ePMS) whose main function is to manage the assessment and verification workflow. And in order to facilitate the work of the candidate, these systems provide the basic functions of a contents management systems with one very useful feature: cross referencing (link each piece of evidence to competency statements, range and criteria and link each competency with evidence). The audience for this type of ePortfolio being assessors and verifiers (subject matter experts nominated by an warding body) it is important to elicit what is important to them (authenticity and range of evidence).

So, I’m not going to hold my breath until someone demonstrates how this kind of process will be made better, cheaper (individually and socially) with Web 2.0 tools. What could happen on the other hand is that Web 2.0 tools could transform the need of formal recognition, through a qualification, with the possibility of placing more emphasis on informal recognition by peers and communities of practice — I’m always amazed how the advocates of informal and non-formal learning, when discussing the issue of ‘recognition’ generally have ‘formal recognition’ as sole horizon…

On the other hand, if we accept that there is a clear distinction between ePortfolios and ePortfolio management systems, between individuals and organisations, then it is perfectly possible to have systems that are at the same time 100% centred on the individual and 100% centred on the organisation (or society), having Web 2.0 based individual ePortfolios and ePMS exploiting the information collected and organised in those ePortfolios — micro-formats is a good example of a standard that can be used locally in a document to facilitate interaction with external applications.

In the debate on whether an ePortfolio system should be centred on the individual or the organisation, my position is that it should be 100% focused on learning — the learning individual, and the organisation as a learning entity as well. ePMS should be part of the organisational learning infrastructure, creating a bridge between individual and organisational learning. But this should be a discussion for another post.