E-Portfolios for the aspiring professional
Article Outline
Summary
The introduction of the ANMC's Continuing Competence Framework means that an increasing number of Australian Registered Nurses and Registered Midwives will be required to submit a portfolio if audited in order to maintain their registration. As several professional organisations and State regulatory authorities have already demonstrated, nurses and midwives will be supported to do this. However there is a risk that individuals commencing a portfolio for the first time will attempt to deal with the requirement by focussing on the minimum standards set by the regulatory authorities. Critics of the use of professional portfolios are quite correct, compiling and managing a portfolio can be a time consuming and irrelevant process if not well implemented. As this article will elaborate, e-Portfolios have a range of potential professional benefits including supporting individuals through a critical reflective approach to competency development, supporting professional collaboration and providing a structure for planning their career progression. This article provides an overview of the potential benefits of e-Portfolio platforms including detailing the capacities for information storage and recall and the provision of tools to support structuring and reporting information to further develop and communicate professional achievements. The objective is to entice the ambitious professional and their employers/professional associations to consider utilizing the extended capacities of e-Portfolios.
Keywords: E-Portfolios, Portfolios, Competence, Continuing professional development, Professional regulation
Introduction
It is quite reasonable to expect that as professional regulators introduce the mandatory use of portfolios as a requirement for registration that a minimum standard is made explicit. The ANMC Continuing Competency Framework (2009) for example appropriately clarifies the minimum portfolio requirements, rather than elaborating on the broader potential. It is not the purpose of this article to reflect on minimum regulatory requirements; rather this is an invitation for aspiring professionals and their employers/professional associations to consider how they might make use of the potential of an e-Portfolio platform. An overview of professional portfolios and the evolution of e-Portfolio platforms provides a useful introduction to the broader capacity of e-Portfolios. As this article will elaborate, e-Portfolios have the potential to be much more than electronic storage facilities for electronically mediated materials, rather quality platforms provide tools to structure, reflect upon, develop and communicate professional achievements.
Portfolio potential
Professional portfolios are in the simplest form, a collection of evidence that can be used to reveal and stimulate learning and/or provide an argument of competence or performance (André & Heartfield, 2007). If managed poorly a portfolio may be so basic that this benefit may be completely neglected, or the compilation can be an overwhelming mass of information that due to the lack of structure and editing can be equally meaningless (Drisicoll & Teh, 2001). Different portfolios may be used to support position or promotion applications, performance review documentation, accreditation as a nurse or midwife, or to detail a learning process. Depending on the purpose, the audience of the portfolio will have specific requirements with certain formats and content being more relevant than others (André & Heartfield, 2007). With some minor variations, most authors have identified at least three basic approaches/types of portfolios, namely a ‘learning portfolio’ used to direct, document and make explicit the learning process, a ‘credentialing portfolio’ to present an argument of competence that is durable over time and in different circumstances and a ‘showcase portfolio’ to display completed works that may not necessarily be accompanied by reflective text or justification (André and Heartfield, 2007, McMullan et al., 2003, Zeichner and Wray, 2001). While there is some overlap, particularly between the ‘learning’ and ‘credentialing’ portfolios as continued learning is clearly relevant to both, the primary purpose will determine the format and approach used for each portfolio. Having said this, as the later sections of this article will elaborate the ability to store and retrieve information using an e-Portfolio platform makes it easier to draw on the repository of artefacts to produce different portfolios for different purposes. This will have particular relevance for students who will want to utilize and develop their ‘learning focussed’ artefacts to support arguments of competence for graduation and registration. The e-Portfolio facilities will enable these students to utilize the artefacts they have accumulated to produce a range of portfolios, one of which may foreground their learning while another may foreground an argument of competence (Australian Learning & Teaching Council, 2008).
The potential benefits of the professional portfolios as a tool for recording and demonstrating competence, including the importance in depicting the holistic nature of practice (Coffey, 2005, McMullan et al., 2003), the use of reflection to stimulate applied learning (Coffey, 2005, Joyce, 2005), and learning through the process of constructing a portfolio (Drisicoll and Teh, 2001, Smith and Tillema, 2003) is well recognised in the literature. This also relates to the international trend toward self regulation in nursing and midwifery, where by individuals are accountable for their own continuing professional development (Canadian Nurses Association, 2007, Nursing and Midwifery Council United Kingdom, 2009, Nurses Board of Victoria, 2009). While it is beyond the scope of this paper to debate the pro's and con's of portfolios as a regulatory tool, it is appropriate to reinforce the assumptions of the ANMC (2009) ‘Continuing Competence Framework’, namely that self assessment and self understanding are integral aspects of professional practice. As is recognised by the ANMC (2009), a professional portfolio is a useful tool in recording the cycle of activities necessary in maintaining professional competence. However it can be much more than this, portfolios can also be used to assist personal development, career planning and predicting training needs (Australian Learning and Teaching Council, 2008).
The e-Portfolio evolution
Simplistically an e-Portfolio may be defined as an electronic platform used to structure, store, and retrieve information, including text, graphic, audio and video materials (Butler, 2006). However this definition is potentially deceptive, as e-Portfolios have evolved from a simple storage system to a system of learning and professional communication. A comprehensive definition of e-Portfolio is:
‘A system which allows users to record any abilities, events or plans which are personally significant; which allows these records to be linked, augmented or evidenced by other data sources, and which promotes reflection on these entries. It allows the user to integrate institutional data with personal data, recorded and reviewed over time, which has been enriched by commentary and feedback from the recipients of shared assets. It is a system with tools for aggregating assets in multiple forms; for telling myriad stories to diverse audiences and which provides absolute user-control over what is shared, with whom, for what purpose and for how long. It is a personal repository; a personal diary; a feedback and collaboration system; and a digital theatre - where the audience is by invitation only.’ (PebblePad, 2009 http://www.pebblepad.co.uk/dev2/viewasset.aspx?oid=1868&type=thought).
Early in the e-Portfolio evolution, meaning 4–6 years ago, most e-Portfolios were in effect ‘online curriculum vitas’ with a simple translation of information from paper to web based (Washington State University, 2009). The largest proportion of materials/artefacts included were text and scanned documents such as certificates of achievement and employment records. While the storage facility of this approach was useful, without reflective frameworks and links external to the platform, the approach did not address a range of issues including opportunities to develop materials further and ratification of authenticity of materials and claims. As institutions have expanded their own electronic services, e-Portfolio platforms have integrated links to external sources to enable users to verify their assertions, for instance using hyperlinks to conference proceedings to support publication claims.
As Jacobson (Washington State University, 2009) states, during these early years, the reliance of compiling items of evidence meant that the user did not have the opportunity to demonstrate their “problem solving strategies, collaborative style, and the ability to synthesize and integrate information”. E-Portfolio platforms have evolved to include mechanisms where the user is directed through critical reflective processes to examine or develop items and share these with others for feedback, critique and development. It is this developmental and reflective aspect of a portfolio that distinguishes it from traditional curriculum vitas which are ostensibly lists of past achievements. Through the use of this critical reflective process individuals and groups examine the relevance, currency and application of artefacts (items such as work plans, works in progress and other achievements) to further extend and refine the final product. Tools and templates can be used to structure activities such as online journals, swot analyses, developing and enacting action plans, collaborating and communicating through blogs, planning and reviewing meetings and tagging, storing and recalling information.
Communities of practice, where group members share, develop and disseminate knowledge and practices, are well recognised as valuable in achieving effective quality improvements and sustainable work cultures (Evans & Powell, 2007). Many e-Portfolio platforms now include social networking tools such as blogs and wikis, with the objective of supporting the functions of communities of practice (Gray, 2008). The boundaries of professionally based e-Portfolios, either set by the individual or the professional/employing organisation, have the potential to enhance the collaborative learning environment needed for effective communities of practice (Evans & Powell, 2007). Nurses, midwives and their associated professional and employer organisations are only just beginning to utilize social networking technologies as part of professional practice. Further form this, with the continued development and diversifying of health professional roles to include independent specialised activities, nurses and midwives need to consider how to readily access learning and information exchange opportunities outside the traditional face to face in-service education and professional conference programs. Well managed communities of practice operating online, have the potential to provide an important point of professional critique and information dissemination at a local and international level (Evans & Powell, 2007).
E-Portfolios for aspiring professionals
The previous overview of the evolution of e-Portfolios has broadly introduced the potential benefits of a quality platform in supporting continued growth and professional collaboration. This section will now provide a more detailed description of how this is achieved by elaborating on the benefits of the storage capacity, imbedded tools and portfolio production/display capacity of e-Portfolios. Fig. 1 below provides a schematic representation of the three major components of an e-Portfolio platform, namely (1) the tools that may be used to upload and create artefacts, (2) the storage and search facilities and (3) the supports to produce and display a range of portfolios that attend to different purposes.
Figure 1.
Schematic representation of e-Portfolio components.
There are numerous e-Portfolio platforms that can be accessed through professional membership or directly from the public Internet that demonstrate the above capacities. The two Internet based platforms that have been reviewed as part of this article are Mahara http://mahara.org/and PebblePad http://www.pebblepad.co.uk/. It is not the objective of this paper to critique these platforms, rather to include these as examples that demonstrate e-Portfolio concepts being discussed.
Storage, file and search facilitiesOne of the important aspects of demonstrating professional competence is the need to draw upon a range of information that has been accumulated from varied sources and contexts over a period of time (André & Heartfield, 2007). An e-Portfolio, as compared to a paper-based portfolio, provides a convenient space to tag and store a range of information, including electronically mediated information such as pod casts, u-tube movies and links to external web pages (Gray, 2008). As such an e-Portfolio can act as a repository to store items in a space efficient form, either locally such as on a personal computer and data stick, or remotely via a server site that can be readily accessed at different locations.
As anyone applying for a senior position will attest, drawing together the depth and breadth of evidence needed to demonstrate specific competencies/selection criteria is a time consuming process. Most e-Portfolio platforms provide a tag and search mechanism, allowing the user the opportunity search for items, either through the tags attached to each artefact or by using a Keywords: search for terms imbedded in artefact titles or contents (Mahara, 2009, PebblePad, 2009). Unlike a conventional paper-based filing system; the use of multiple tags allows a single artefact to be filed according to multiple criteria. An artefact such as a conference presentation for instance; may align with several ANMC competencies; performance review outcomes and promotion application criteria. If when the user uploads the presentation (e.g. a Microsoft Word document; PowerPoint and/or a web link to conference proceedings) to their portfolio; they can activate the relevant tags (Mahara, 2009, PebblePad, 2009). Then later when producing a portfolio as part of their position application for instance; the search function can be activated and the conference presentation will be recalled; along with other related items.
It is useful, though not essential, for the user to consider what tags to use when starting an e-Portfolio in order to avoid having to repeat this later. Considering how artefacts might be used in the future can be a useful stimulus to review both the types of artefacts that might be included in an e-Portfolio and identify the potential tags. Some professional organisations and educational institutions provide e-Portfolio platforms with predefined tags. To assist the early user they are likely to be restricted to a few tags, however as the user becomes more proficient they may wish to increase the library of tags in use. The following are a list of tag categories that might be considered:
As has been described, the space efficient and nature of the storage facilities of an e-Portfolio platform are an important resource for professionals maintaining and accessing evidence of the quality of their practice. The need to use electronically mediated information such as blogs, video and pod-casts is becoming mainstream for many professionals and professional organisations. Being able to draw upon these to communicate professional qualities as part of position applications for instance is similarly becoming part of the professional communication repertoire.
Templates to support structuring and reflection processA quality e-Portfolio platform will provide a series of tools or templates that support the user to reflect, structure and create their artefacts within the uploading process (Gray, 2008). The range of tools within the e-Portfolio platform to assist with this can vary but examples include action plans, journals, blogs and reflective activities that provide prompts when uploading achievements or specific activities.
While it is possible to upload artefacts such as PowerPoint presentations straight into the e-Portfolio storage facilities, a some e-Portfolio platforms will also provide the user with tools/templates to reflect upon the impact or quality of their achievement/artefact and record these reflections. Using the past example of wanting to record the achievement of providing a conference presentation, if using PebblePad for example the user would be given the opportunity to describe the achievement, provide evidence of the achievement, reflect upon the experience and if they chose forward the entry electronically to others for comment (PebblePad, 2009). Templates or tools may be designed by organisations to encourage user to attend to specific priorities, for example the user might be asked to provide a description of how an achievement changed their practice, or what supporting literature or research evidence was used to inform the quality of the artefact. Increasingly universities and other educational organisations are utilizing this capacity within e-Portfolio platforms to provide structure to aspects of student learning (Australian Learning & Teaching Council, 2008). These reflective entries then become an artefact and can be used included in the final portfolio, thus providing the reader with the artefact and the contextual reflections associated with it.
As previously alluded to, there are also tools that assist the e-Portfolio user to create artefacts. These vary between platforms, with examples including online journals, action plans, learning plans, achievement reviews and blogs. As with the earlier description of uploading an achievement the user is taken through a series of prompts in order to generate the artefact. An action plan for instance might include SWOT analysis where the user is asked to consider their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats as part of developing goals, identifying resources and communicating outcomes (PebblePad, 2009). Along similar lines, e-Portfolio platforms can include guidelines and distribution list to support managing social networking tools such as a blogs where other professionals are invited to comment on an area of shared interest (Mahara, 2009). Quality e-Portfolio platforms provide considerable peer review opportunities as users are able to invite others to review and comment on various artefacts or whole portfolios in a secure environment (Mahara, 2009). These peer commentaries, blogs and alike are stored within the e-Portfolio site and contribute to the repository of artefacts that can later be drawn upon when compiling a portfolio for a specific purpose.
The facility to structure artefacts, access peer feedback and to use these to enhance the quality of the product is an important component of e-Portfolios capacity. For many professionals wanting to engage with communities of practice in a structured and secure environment, this is perhaps the most appealing reason to engage with the e-Portfolio movement (Evans & Powell, 2007). Similarly the use of peer evaluations, forums and links to external sources such as web links can be used to reassure the reader/examiner that the author's claims are authentic. This ability to authenticate claims through linking to external sources supports a level of professionalism that is now expected as part of self regulation and accountability within the nursing and midwifery professions (Australian Nursing & Midwifery Council, 2009).
Structuring and displaying a portfolioOstensibly a portfolio is a structured argument about an individual's learning or performance that draws upon items of evidence (artefacts) to support the quality and authenticity of the claims made (André & Heartfield, 2007). Hence different professional portfolios may be constructed to attend to specific purposes, such as a performance review report, an application for promotion/new position or to substantiate claims of competency to a registering authority.
Through the support of a quality e-Portfolio platform, a series of pre-prescribed templates can be created or imported to attend to the specific requirements of each of the portfolios to be generated. Examples of these templates may include an employer organisations performance review document, standardized curriculum vitae or the templates provided by regulatory organisations for continued registration. Some of the institutionally generated templates are pre-populated with data, for instance personal data within the curriculum vitae or performance review data within the performance plan. Importantly the structure and finish of the templates within the e-Portfolio provide a level of professionalism to the final product.
The e-Portfolio search function is then used to assist in further populating the final portfolio with artefacts to support the arguments of achievement or competence. Relevant artefacts can be retrieved, reviewed and inserted according to the required criteria/template headings for the specific portfolio. Depending on the nature of the portfolio being produced, a supportive argument can be inserted providing a context and link between the various artefacts. Some e-portfolio platforms have the capacity to produce index pages and compile appendices and reference lists. Depending on the size and nature of the final product, the user may wish to produce a paper-based document, forward the portfolio electronically, or provide the reader with access to the portfolio via a web link to the e-Portfolio platform. This later approach is particularly useful if using electronically mediated information as the integrity or the information is maintained.
The ability to produce and display a range of portfolios each attending to a specific purpose, and doing so in a time efficient and highly professional manner, while useful, is not likely to be the major impetus for nurses and midwives to commence their own e-Portfolio. However, as e-portfolio platforms are made available through professional associations and universities, students and graduates will progressively start to accumulate artefacts/evidence of performance and ultimately produce portfolios to support position applications and alike. The use of e-Portfolio platforms to support peer interactions, are also going to be an important stimulus for many experienced practitioners, particularly for practitioners who need to instigate and access communities of practice. The benefit however of being able to produce highly profession applications that integrate quality evidence to support claims, will become increasingly important for professionals aspiring to gain the competitive edge.
Limitations of e-Portfolios
As was recognised earlier, portfolios can be time consuming and irrelevant activities if implemented inappropriately. Commonly those compiling a portfolio can be trapped into accruing large amounts of irrelevant information in the belief that volume is some how related to quality. Hence the usual warning of considering the purpose and audience of future portfolios remains relevant to those compiling information either in electronic or paper-based approaches. Ensuring that the materials are of a professional quality, reflect contemporary standards and adhere to ethical and professional guidelines, including that of information disclosure, continues to be relevant.
An important function of an e-Portfolio is the private repository that enables the user to develop and review their materials. The user can then choose to display items/artefacts or entire portfolios to others. As many of the early adopters of ‘online social networking’ have discovered, revealing personal and professional information without due caution can be a risky if consideration has not been made about the relevance of the information to the audience. While the e-Portfolio author has control about what they choose to display to others, they have little control about how their audience will use the information once released. While this is ostensibly the same in all presentation environments, the ease of cut and paste functions in an online environment increases the potential for audiences to disseminate the information. Hence, consideration needs to be given, not only to the quality of the information, but also the audience being invited to share in the interaction.
Conclusion
As this article has alluded, the use of e-Portfolios by professionals is likely to become mainstream practice in the next few years. Universities are currently introducing e-Portfolios to undergraduate and post-graduate programs to structure learning and support students in understanding of how prescribed learning activities relate to professional practice requirements; professional groups are considering ways of engaging communities of practice in a structured and secure environment; and employers and regulators are needing to manage individuals performance reports and staff development in a secure and meaningful way. As has been elaborated, e-Portfolio platforms have the capacity to attend to these needs through: embedded tools that support structure and reflection; storage that supports electronically mediated information and; portfolio production capacities that attend to professional standards and needs. In doing so this article has provided an overview of the board functions of e-Portfolios in order to stimulate health professionals and their associated professional organisations to consider engaging in the range of facilities a quality platform can offer. Many professional organisations are already utilizing e-Portfolio technologies, and there are e-Portfolio platforms on accessible on the web for individuals wishing to investigate these independently.
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PII: S1322-7696(10)00002-8
doi:10.1016/j.colegn.2009.10.005
© 2010 Royal College of Nursing, Australia. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
