For a massive use of UID

Interoperability is a key issue for the future on the Internet, and there are many different approaches to it: metadata and data model standards, web services, semantic web. What EIfEL has decided through the creation of EventFolio is to explore is another approach, based on the following idea:

– a life is a succession of events, and these events are linked to people, documents and a number of contextual information, like the theme of the event, the subjects being addressed. Now imagine that each event is tagged with a unique identifier (UID) and that all the elements linked to this event are tagged with this UID. Let’s say that you attend a workshop on interoperability with 25 other people in Caen (France) and that you ‘tag’ the name of the people (or more precisely the profile pointed by a URI where (one of) their ID is being stored) as well as the metata ‘interoperability’ as well as the city of Caen and  the date in the calendar.
Then imagine that this is done systematically for every event we generate or contribute to. It would then be easy for me to retrieve the list of the people who attended this event (if they kept the UID in their profile and if they accepted me as a viewer of this information). And of course, if this technique is massively used, then it would be easy to find the people with specific interests, create life stories (eportfolios) automatically, etc.

In this model, we don’t simply use tags to enrich a document or a profile, but a UID that connects me to a subject and to other people.
Of course, as we are dealing with personal data. there is a need to enforce privacy. The way we want to address this is through the creation of a foundation.
If you are interested to know more, don’t hesitate to contact us.

ePortfolio and Digital Identity….and Google birthday… still a long road for digital identity…

For its tenth birthday, Google has put in place a tool to do research with results such as how they look like in 2001.

Take a look at results of a search on ePortfolio and learning or ePortfolio and resume or how EIfEL looks like in 2001.

More seriously we are seeing here the risk for user personal identity if organisation such as Google is able to conserve/backup indexes for further use (this one as up to 1,326,920,000 web pages indexed) !!! How could I really manage my own digital identity ??

For example you could do backward research on other digital identity, look at Serge Ravet, CEO of EIfEL , fortunately for us the first result link Serge with… NVQ ! 😉
(I’ve tried with my name but I’ve seen that I was not born digitaly in 2001, even in French :))

But others could have less chance if a recruiter or his manager use this…

In our concept of user centric ePortfolio managed by the ePortfolio owner himself we are seeing here the need of concept such as IDentity Governance. Liberty Alliance is digging on this as well as european project such as TAS3 but even if technically we could imagine to put in place in a short future concept such as “Identity Watchdog” as we need also to be present on the web (so be part of Google) we clearly have to help students and future generations to better understand this issue and take care of their own digital identity…

New Liberty Alliance Group Focuses on Identity Management in the Education and Human Resources Sectors chaired by EIfEL

EIfEL is please to announce its participation in this new Liberty special interest group that will help to foster adoption of Europass initiative with support of privacy and digital identity !
The launch meeting will take place in Maastricht on 22nd October afternoon.

PARIS, October 15 /PRNewswire/ —
– Public Group Targeting Interoperability Across Education and HumanResources Applications and Services

Liberty Alliance, the global identity community working to build a more trustworthy Internet for businesses, governments and people worldwide, today announced the launch of the public Liberty Alliance Human Resources and Education Special Interest Group (SIG). The goal of the group is to foster interoperability, security and user privacy across online identity-enabled solutions in the global education and human resources sectors. The HumanResources and Education (HR-EDU) SIG will hold its first public face-to-face meeting on October 22 at the ePortfolio & Digital Identity 2008 conference in Maastricht, the Netherlands.
Members of the SIG include representatives from EIfEL, Entr’ouvert, EuroCV, IMS Global, iProfile.org, the French Ethics & Recruiting Association, the French Recruiting Syntec Syndicate, the OpenID European Foundation, Stepstone, Symlabs, Synergetics, 3s Unternehmens-beratung GmbH and the University of Kent. The group is working to advance the adoption of proven interoperable, secure and privacy-respecting Liberty Alliance specifications in education and human resources, and collaborating with other communities and specifications bodies to promote open standards and best practices fordigital identity management in the education and human resources sectors.
According to Marc Van Coillie, CTO with EIfEL and chair of the new Liberty Alliance HR-EDU SIG, “The formation of the new Liberty Alliance group marks an important milestone in bringing the education and human resources industries together to foster interoperability across online applications and services.”

About the Liberty Alliance HR-EDU SIG
Liberty Alliance members form special interest groups to solve regional, national, international and vertical-specific identity management challenges. The Human Resources and Education SIG is Liberty Alliance’s ninth open-to-the-public special interest group. During the October 22 face-to-face meeting members of the HR-EDU SIG will establish priorities for advancing interoperability and data portability among education and human resources applications. All individuals and organizations in the data portability, identity management, education and human resources sectors are encouraged to attend this public event.

More information about the HR-EDU SIG, including how to join the group’s mail list and how to register for the October 22 meeting, is available by visiting the group’s wiki at:
http://wiki.projectliberty.org/index.php/HR-EDU_SIG

CONTACT:
English: Russell DeVeau russd@projectliberty.org
French: secretariat-hr-edu-sig@projectliberty.org
Liberty Alliance

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.

French regions embrace the ePortfolio

Following a call for tenders by Region Lorraine entitled “Réalisation technique d’un e-portfolio (portefeuille de compétences numérique individuel) en région Lorraine : espace Web à accès sécurisé” (Technical realisation of an ePortfolio in the Lorraine Region) published this last July, a new call for tenders was published 12 August by Region Basse-Normandie: “mission d’assistance à maîtrise d’ouvrage : orientation tout au long de la vie – expérimentation d’un dispositif d’accompagnement – création d’une maquette de e.portfolio régional” (Creation of a prototype for a regional ePortfolio).

NB: if you intend to respond, French language is mandatory.

The idea of a territorial approach to ePortfolios promoted by EIfEL (Un portfolio régional au service du développement et de la valorisation des personnes, des organisations et des territoires) is taking root in France, several years after Wales oppened the way with Careers Wales Online (2003) offering an ePortfolio to every Welsh citizen as the mean to support the development of a learning country.

During the Maastricht ePortfolio conference (22-24 October 2008), the regional ePortfolio theme will be addressed during several sessions, with representatives of regional ePortfolio initiatives from Wales, UK, Minnesota, Austria and France to discuss the foundations of future ePortfolio national and régional policies as well as international co-operation.

References to these call for tenders can be found on the official journal‘s Web site

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.

Organisational ePortfolios

I received an email from my colleague Eva Heinrich, from Massey University that EIfEL had the chance to welcome during a sabbatical year in France. Her email was about a research student who is looking for “requirements, proposal of new features of eP tools to support organisational learning.”

EIfEL has invited contributions on organisational ePortfolios for some time now. In the 2004 ePortfolio conference’s call for contribution we wrote:

“While paper-based portfolios have already been used by millions of people across the world, the ePortfolio provides an opportunity to explore new territories that go far beyond ‘paperless’ portfolio. The ePortfolio has been described as the toolbox for the knowledge worker, the foundations of organisational learning, the interface to communities of practice. New concepts emerge such as the ePortfolio of a course (e.g. linking alumni and teachers ePortfolio) the organisational ePortfolio as well as regions and cities ePortfolios.”

Since, very little has been published on organisational ePortfolios (22 entries on Google) and we had two case studies submitted at the last international ePortfolio conference (Maastricht 2007).

Why should we be interested in organisational ePortfolios and why such an apparent lack of interest?

If ePortfolios are a support for and an expression of reflective learning, then, if we agree with the idea that organisations learn, we should be able to elicit practices and tools that, one way or another could be connected to ePortfolios, even if they exist today under another name. What technologies for (reflective) learning organisations.

Reciprocally, if learning organisations have developed their own practices and technologies, what can we learn from them to imagine ePortfolios that are not mere paperless portfolios? For example, the ability to exploit tacit knowledge and informal learning processes.

The main problem with the development of organisational learning is the general lack of competence of many human resource managers and directors who, when planning the use of technology for learning, eLearning, are entirely focused on individual formal training, implementing (costly and overrated) learning management systems (LMS) to deliver pre-digested contents and collect responses to multiple choice questions as evidence of learning. For the vast majority of HR managers, learning is an individual formal process and only a handful have seized the opportunity of digital technology to design integrated eStrategies for individual and organisational learning.

Nevertheless, despite not yet competent HR managers and primitive usage of technologies, organisations learn — just like people learn without (and ofter, despite) computers and training managers. Some organisations might not be as effective learners as others, but the fact is that they do learn and many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) would have probably not survived if they had not done so. In a sense, a learning organisation is a redundant expression, just as a learning individual is. It is only once we are dead, that we stop learning and eventually rest in peace — unless our digital identity decides to have a life of its own…

So, where do we have a chance to find organisational learning technology? Based on what precedes, it must be a place with a lot of technology and innovation, while being free of HR professionals! As David Gurteen, quoted by Rob Lewis, explains: “HR professionals don’t seem to get involved in KM, and I don’t quite understand that, because HR is now probably one of the most obvious places for people in an organisation to drive it” I would assume that it is where we should be looking for.

Conversely, if KM is the place we should be looking for organisational learning technology and ePortfolio, this makes perfectly sense with one of the original ideas that an ePortfolio is some kind of personal KM system.

Individual learning, organisational learning, Individual KM, organisational KM, individual eP, organisational eP are certainly spaces worth exploring. If you would like to contribute to this reflection, please send us your views, articles and contributions to create a feed on this subject.

EIfEL launch the first Event Portfolio with Montreal conference

All participants of the Montreal Conference will be able to test a new ePortfolio event approach using a dedicated social network.

The underlying keyword in this social network is FEDERATION !

In this network they will be able to see the event portfolio based on all blogs entries federated using Technorati services (if you want to be part of it just add the keyword epMontreal08 in your blog entry tags).

The registrated users will be able to move to other SN using this systems (like the EIfEL members social network or the Elliot Masie LearningTown, or the next eP event organised by EIfEL) without recreating his credentials.

The public homepage is visible at:

Want to be part of it, Don’t forget to register to the event to be part of it

The ePortfolio is dead? Long life to Digital Identity! (2)

In a previous post (The ePortfolio is dead? Long life to Digital Identity! (1)) I expressed the idea that a fully developed ePortfolio is in fact a digital identity and that most of the so called ePortfolios are little more than paperless portfolios. What I would like to do in this post is reflect on (some of) the consequences in terms of technologies and solutions and respond the the questions: do we still need ePortfolio Management Systems (ePMS)? Or, formulated differently, do we need to replace ePMS with DIMS (Digital Identity Management Systems)?

First, I would like to reassess something that I’ve been repeating for some time now and formulated in a position paper: there is a general misunderstanding on the difference between ePortfolios (which belong to individuals) and an ePortfolio management systems (which belong to organisations) — here I use ePortfolio in the restricted sense of the term, not as synonymous to digital identity. In order to create you own digital portfolio, you can do a simple bricolage using any kind of digital tool, from a simple blog to a sophisticated website publisher.

The limit of bricolage appears quickly when a certain level of management is required:

  • exchanging data with a potential employer or a job board (having a portfolio HR-XML compliant will be a necessity)
  • managing a large number of ePortfolios in an institution or in processes requiring quality control — think of the NVQs (National Vocational Qualifications in the UK) where nearly 500,000 qualifications are delivered each year on the basis of a portfolio — and a growing number of ePortfolios

If the level of management required is for a small group then a simple RSS aggregator (many tools provide RSS feeds) might be sufficient to monitor the changes in almost real time. If you need to manage multiple level of accesses (for parents, teachers and pupils in schools, for peers, colleagues and managers in a company) then a bricolage might not be effective. If you live in the UK and you have some responsibilities in the field of National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs), a bricolage is definitively not an option if you care for quality control and are costs conscious.

I see a bright future for ePortfolio platform providers. Organisations, regional authorities will need tools to facilitate the management of large cohorts of pupils, students or employees, they will require software solutions dedicated to the management of specific documents (portfolios) and processes.

I see an even brighter future for DIMS (Digital Identity Management Systems). Just have a look at current social software (Gaia online, FaceBook or Linkedin) and you might have a hint of what I mean…

About ePortfolio standards (2) – Reflexion

I indicated in a previous post that although a number of actors are involved in the design of open standards, the mere implementation of open standards is not enough to ensure interoperability. Two systems can be based on the same ‘base specification’, yet be unable to exchange information. In order to solve the issue of information portability across systems using different specifications we designed for our members the CVT, a Web-service which makes it possible to translate one CV format into another format. Of course, in the translation, part of the information might be lost or demoted, in particular if the target format is semantically poorer than the source. The ability to translate data from one format into another leaves a lot of space for innovation in future standards.

How will specification and standards evolve?

I do not know in details where IMS intends to go with its current review of IMS ePortfolio specifications, but at this stage I believe that, at least for an employability ePortfolio, HR-XML specifications seem more mature as they profit from a much larger number of real-life implementations and existing certified HR solutions. On the other hand, HR-XML standards are just one element of a global interoperability framework. And such framework should take into account other standards, beyond those used in the education and academic worlds.

With emerging specifications like OpenSocial or Atom, I believe that it should be possible to design relevant interactions across heterogeneous systems. For such a framework there is a number of specifications that should be to studied:

  • Social networks and social computing — FOAF (Friend Of A Friend, XFN (the micro-format version of FOAF), OpenSocial and Liberty Alliance People Service. ePortfolios are a the result of a social construction.

 

  • Data representation — such as social graphs, mindmapping, heuristic chart and concept mapping can be extremely useful to provide meaningful eportfolio user interfaces. We need to better exploit the potential of RDF, OWL, TopicMaps, DotML, etc. as well as meta-data ( DublinCore) data aggregation (RSS and Atom) and people representation (HR-XML, IMS and hResume).

 

We should also take into account the issue of trust and privacy, i.e. secured access to personal data. For example, while the IMS ePortfolio framework allows the exchange of zipped packages of personal data, mainly for backup and import of whole ePortfolios into ePortfolio Management Systems, there is no real provision for sharing dynamically ePortfolio parts nor for protecting data privacy. This should be changed if we want ePortfolio take-up.

This is precisely what we are trying to address with the CV Universel (Universal CV) where the framework to exchange of ePortfolio parts is based on a HR-XML description of personal data transported on a Liberty Alliance Layer. In a next future, should also explore the opportunity to use OpenID 2 specifications.