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Project Description

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Project aims and objectives

The overall goal of the project was to encourage successful lifelong learning by developing a positive attitude towards personal development planning (PDP) on the part of learners, academic staff, employers and professional organisations, together with a willingness to use technology in the PDP process to generate the transferable records that supported lifelong learning. With this in mind, the more specific aims that were achieved were:

  • Continued to embed PDP and e-portfolio use within the creative industries academic setting in the SW, with specific reference to the use of employer feedback to inform PDP tools and processes.
  • Explored attitudes to and engagement with PDP and e-portfolios for lifelong learning by health care professionals in both academic and practice settings in the SW region.
  • Informed, and was informed by, approaches to PDP and e-portfolios used to support the information, advice and guidance (IAG) processes of the South West Lifelong Learning Network (SWLLN).
  • Contributed to the knowledge base on interoperability of learner records and data transfer across institutional boundaries in support of lifelong learning.

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Project plan

The project was run by Bournemouth University in collaboration with partner institutions. There were two main strands of development: the technical strand looked at the development of the tools involved (Blackboard, ioPortal) whilst focus groups and case studies were used to investigate the areas involving Lifelong Learning and the use of e-portfolios and PDP. These strands came together towards the end of the project and were used to develop the tools further and to increase the general understanding of the value of PDP and e-portfolios in the wider community.

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Outcomes

The project helped institutions meet the needs of diverse learners by using case studies to disseminate a more informed understanding of PDP in two specific vocational areas, the creative industries (CI) and health care. CI learners were frequently highly skilled in the use of IT, but they had requirements for portfolio building that challenge the concept of the lifelong learner record and specifications for e - portfolios. Learners in the health sector were traditionally less accustomed to using IT but had a professional requirement to maintain their CPD profile, so the transfer of their records and the associated PDP processes into an online environment also presented interesting challenges. In both cases, understanding learner and employer perceptions were important in informing the development of tools to assist e - PDP and e - portfolio building, whether these were individual applications/tools or elements of a larger virtual learning environment.

The evaluation of the ioPortal and its potential for providing a non - institutional lifelong learning space was evaluated. The feasibility of transferring PDP data between institutions’ virtual learning environments and a non - institutional e - portfolio was also tested.

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