Eva Heinrich

Preparation for Lifelong Learning Using ePortfolios.

Rapid technological change, increasing globalization and a changing world of employment with multiple roles during ones professional life are necessitating a change from knowledge to learning societies. Full participation requires lifelong learning skills, meaning the ability to solve problems, work both independently and in a team, communicate effectively in all formats and on all levels, and self-direct ones learning and professional development needs. Universities need to take responsibility in preparing students for lifelong learning. While engineering and science degrees traditionally do not emphasize the importance of lifelong learning skills new programmes of study are now being introduced, often using electronic portfolios to support engagement with learning objectives and reflection. This article describes an electronic portfolio initiative that is targeted at engineering and computer science students. The initiative aims to create awareness among students on the nature and importance of lifelong learning skills, to facilitate the development of such skills and to assist students in showcasing their competence regarding these skills. Interviews with industry representatives regarding the characteristics of a lifelong learner and the values of constructing and presenting portfolios were conducted and have resulted in strong support for the electronic portfolio initiative. The article provides background on lifelong learning and electronic portfolios, outlines the design of the initiative and then focuses on feedback from industry representatives.

Recommendations for the use of e‐tools for improvements around assignment marking quality

This article reports on selected aspects of a larger study on the use of electronic tools in the context of the management and marking of assignments. The study comprised a literature review, interviews and a review of e‐tools. The article briefly summarises the findings from the literature on what comprises quality in assignment marking. The focus then shifts towards the analysis of the interviews on e‐tool use for assignments that were conducted with 90 lecturers across five higher education institutions in New Zealand, selected purposively for engagement in this area. The article shows how these lecturers are using e‐tools to support the management and marking of assignments. Special emphasis is given on grounding the e‐tool use in educational theories on assignment marking. An important issue with high quality assignment marking is the time required. The article shows how e‐tools are used to increase efficiency, with the time freed‐up being invested into quality improvements, again supported by e‐tools.

Recommendations to university managers for facilitating engagement of academics with teaching

Research on community-based approaches to academic development has shown the importance of a collegial and supportive environment for teaching and learning about teaching. To investigate the environment in which academics work and teach, the research behind this article has defined a new concept, called ‘teaching groups’. Teaching groups are based on membership by default, derived from the positions academics hold in their institutions and on their teaching obligations, in distinction to the voluntary participation emphasised in community-based approaches. The research shows that about 40 per cent of teaching groups identified show community-like characteristics and are seen as being highly supportive of engagement with learning about teaching, with the remainder of the teaching groups providing less than ideal environments. The goal of the research is to build on the teaching group concept to improve these less than ideal environments. The article presented here focuses on findings on motivation of academics and on their views of leadership for teaching. Recommendations are made to university managers to provide stronger leadership for teaching, by officially identifying teaching groups and by using teaching groups as mechanisms for providing academics with a supportive and collegial environment, conducive of engagement with learning about teaching.

Identifying teaching groups as a basis for academic development

Academic development recognizes the strengths of communities, such as communities of practice or learning communities, in providing academics with supportive environments for the development of teaching. The problem academic development faces is that not enough academics are involved in these communities. Instead of trying to interest academics in joining communities, this research looks at the existing contexts around academics, which it refers to as ‘teaching groups’. It is proposed that every academic involved in teaching belongs to at least one teaching group, formed by colleagues teaching in the same course, degree or subject and that teaching groups form relevant contexts for engagement with teaching. The research investigates how teaching groups compare to communities and finds that less than half of teaching groups named by participants have strong community characteristics, indicating large space for improvement in the remaining majority of groups. The suggestion is made that identifying teaching groups across an institution might provide a promising starting point for engaging a majority of academics and working with these academics towards increased interaction on teaching in open and trusting collegial atmospheres.

Concept Map-based Framework for Learner-Centered Knowledge Management in ePortfolios

This paper presents a proposed framework for ePortfolio knowledge management that has been developed in a project that aims is at providing universities with an environment for lifelong learning support through integrating and extending Learning Management Systems (LMS) and ePortfolio Systems. The problems that exist using these systems to support lifelong learning were identified through in-depth interviews with lecturers and students at an earlier stage of the project. Specifically, this paper focuses on students and lecturers requirements for creating and organizing ePortfolios and helping learners to develop understanding of graduate attributes. We show how the idea of organizing these concepts into maps can be adopted in the ePortfolio framework to facilitate knowledge management.

Towards using relevant collegial contexts for academic development

Many academic development initiatives build on community-based approaches, such as communities of practice or learning communities. While these initiatives are largely successful for the individual academics involved, low participation rates prevent wide-reaching impact on learning about teaching. The research discussed in this article aims at reaching larger numbers of academics. It proposes to investigate ‘teaching groups’, which are defined as the already existing collegial contexts around academics based on shared teaching responsibilities. The teaching groups of focus group participants from a New Zealand university are identified; structure, interactions and atmosphere within these groups are explored. The research derives a scale of desirability for teaching groups, reaching from functioning to tight-knit groups. This scale is applied to the groups of study participants and reveals wide scope for improvement towards the development of stronger community characteristics. Future research into understanding why teaching groups show certain characteristics is recommended.

Introducing ePortfolios to computer science and engineering students: A New Zealand experience

This paper discusses an ePortfolio initiative for engineering and science students at Massey University, New Zealand. Eportfolios are electronic version of portfolios that are extensively used in arts and education. We have introduced ePortfolios to our students to impart life long learning skills at university-level. We have chosen Open Source Portfolio (OSP) management tool and customized it to our requirements. Industry representatives were involved in indentifying the skills set and providing feedback on the developed portfolios. Student participation in this project has been voluntary. Each registered student was given some hard disk space on the platform for their documents and training was provided. Both, the industry representatives and the students felt that portfolios are a valuable tool. This paper presents our ePortfolio environment and discusses the application of ePortfolio platform in engineering and science education.

A system designed to support formative assessment of open-ended written assignments

This paper introduces the MarkTool System - a software system designed to support formative assessment of open-ended written assignments. The MarkTool System brings together services from conventional learning management systems, a marking application and other specialized tools to facilitate the formative assessment of open-ended written assignments. MarkTool System uses the services provided by the universitys learning management system for assignment submission and returning of the marked assignments. It provides an onscreen marking tool which allows users to mark open-ended written assignments using their paper-based assessment skills. MarkTool System also supports the concepts of self-assessment and peer-assessment, assessment related discussion, quality/consistency control of feedback, and analysis of assessment results.

A flexible scheme for representing and retrieving multimedia contents in computer-based educational systems

Computer-based educational systems are faced with an increasing range of challenges. The use of multimedia provides a number of technical and conceptual demands, the volume and nature of the material requires sophisticated knowledge representation techniques, and a continuously increasing level of interactivity between learner and system is desired. This paper suggests a concept for an advanced learning system which addresses these issues. The concept is based on the Flexible Structured Coding Language (FSCL), a natural-language-like formalised description language. A range of extensions regarding the use of ontologies, the inference of knowledge and the formulation of free-form queries based on FSCL are discussed.

Teaching groups as midlevel sociocultural contexts for developing teaching and learning: a case study and comparison to microcultures

ABSTRACT Using a case-study approach, the structures, interactions and cultures in four teaching groups at a New Zealand university are explored. The aim of the research is to better understand the potential of teaching groups for assisting academic development. To contextualize this work, the case-study outcomes are compared to research on microcultures. Similarities between strong teaching groups and strong microcultures are found, pointing to the potential of drawing on findings from microculture research. In particular, the use of social commons as a theoretical framework seems indicated, presenting teaching quality as a group and not just individual concern. Differences between the contexts stem from the sole focus of teaching groups on teaching compared to the combined research and teaching mandate of microcultures. As research often dominates teaching, the suggestion is made that teaching groups provide more suitable contexts for addressing teaching issues. The research recommends that organizational units in higher education should identify and analyse teaching groups and build on those groups in addressing teaching quality.