Presentation for the CRA Residential 2012

1. Practical ePortfolios: Embedding
placement reflection and personal
development processes
Kirstie Coolin
Centre for International ePortfolio Development, (CIePD)
Libraries, Research & Learning Resources
www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio
@ciepd
@kirstie_c
Wednesday, November 28, 2012 ALT-C 2012 1

2. Overview
• Employability skills plus professional learning
• Opportunities for learning about work
• Employer involvement
• Combining career learning and PDP – an
example from Nottingham
• Interaction with employers
• Another example from Nottingham (Researchers)
• What do you think?
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3. Lets start with a video…
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The Academy of Irving, Texas

4. Relationships – employer/HEI/student
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5. Challenge space
“The relationship between universities and
Relationship
colleges, students and employers is crucial to
ensuring that students experience the higher
education they want while studying and leave
their course equipped to embark on a rewarding
career”(HE White Paper, Students at the Heart of
the System, BIS, 2011, p45).
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6. What are professional skills?
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University of Kent www.kent.ac.uk/careers

7. What else?
• Awareness of the employment marketplace
• Understanding of the sector
• Pathways and module choice
• Work/employment opportunities
• Different types of employers (SMEs/Social
Enterprise/self employment etc.)
• Changing work patterns
• Connecting gaps, action planning
• Feedback from employers
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8. Opportunities to learn about work – how
can students be supported in joining the
dots?
• Synthesising Career learning and the Course?
• “What are my options?”
• “How do I want to make a living?”
• Skills recognition and showcasing skills
• How can relationships between
student/employer/university be improved to
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support this? Event Name and Venue 8

9. Supporting students to find (out about)
work
• Access to placements, internships, work
experience
• Access to employers? Milk round? SMEs,
microbusinesses, social enterprises, 3rd sector?
Self employment?
“More than half of graduates are interested in jobs
that will 'make a difference', despite increasing
difficulty in finding work” Article in the Guardian
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22nd August 2012

10. What do employers want?
What do students want?
How can these be reconciled with mutual
benefit to improve employability learning
for students?
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11. From recent interviews (SHED Project 2012)
Students Employers
Central place to find placements A „front door‟ to the University
Up to date links to the company application
procedures. Up to date links to the company Access to research and innovation headlines,
application procedures. University events
Access to employer lists, tagged and Knowledge transfer and research partnerships
searchable by sector and organisational
information Filtered based on interest
Previous placements information More university engagement with social media
for easier personal networking and identifying
Information about company project opportunities key contacts
Careers fairs with wider range of employers Find student skills for projects
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12. How can learners be motivated?
Course and career learning as well as the practicalities of
finding placements, internships and work do not exist in
isolation.
“Employability can be enhanced through personal
development planning, but success will depend
upon the extent to which students see a „pay-off‟
for the effort that they put in.” (Embedding
employability into the curriculum, HEA)
http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/documents/employability/id460_embedding_em
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ployability_into_the_curriculum_338.pdf

13. Construction Foundation Degree, Derby
College
“For Derby College, SHED saw the first use of Mahara within the College and in
particular, enabled the College to innovate in their management of student‟s
professional learning, using it as a platform for peer development, career
reflection and learning from employer input.
Students gather information that is related to employer requirements and from that
learn how their knowledge appears for an employer. This is not only learning for
them, but for their peers and the College in understanding what sort of
information is of interest to their employer contacts and how students should be
advised to fine tune their employability information to improve their career
prospects. “
For students, the „pay off‟ may constitute short term interaction with employers for
seeking work or work-experience which also provides real-world learning about
the sectors they are interested in.”
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SHED Project Report www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/shed/documents

14. Using ePortfolio processes for:-
• Personal Development Planning (PDP) alongside
practical employability concerns for students.
• „Marketing‟ for students to match their skills to
employer interest
• Communication and networking for career
learning
• Differentiation in the job market
Self-motivation
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15. “We come to University and
“(ePortfolios) a tool for marketing
assume that employability is to differentiate ourselves to
getting the degree but are employers” (Construction students
starting to learn that it’s the at Derby College)
degree plus other stuff”
(student participant in SHED
“Students would be
project workshop)
motivated to use their e-
Portfolio if they could have
it when they leave to help
them find a job” (Student,
Nottingham)
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16. Interlude…
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Happisburgh 2012 Kirstie Coolin

17. Example 1: Placement learning in
Nottingham School of Biosciences
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18. Student-centred e-Portfolio: Placement lifecycle information and
activity in one place
Placement journey
During
Before Recording skills/ relation of
placement to After
Researching employers and
course, journal, feedback Reflection, showcase,
sectors, application, letters,
(staff/employers), communic resume, career information
support
ation, support and
encouragement
Careers/employability learning embedded throughout the lifecycle
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19. Support and information pages
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20. 11/28/2012 Event Name and Venue 20

21. Student placement page. She has also created a page about the social side of student
life with other interns in the company.
(student content)
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22. During placement – weekly reports shared with supervisor, placements coordinator and
in some cases, employer
(student content)
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23. Threaded feedback on student ‘placement ‘page’
(student content)
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24. Example 2: Doctoral Training Programme (BBSRC)
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25. Analysing Research competences
• “The Researcher Development Framework
(RDF) is a major new approach to researcher
development, to enhance our capacity to build
the UK workforce, develop world-class
researchers and build our research base.”
(Vitae 2010)”
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26. Using e-Portfolio to:
• Integrate core researcher skill development into
the self-directed/professional development aims
of the programme – Analysis and action planning
• Placement journal
• Student-centred supervisor groups
• Plus - technical developments to pull in relevant
University training courses linked to RDF
competences for dynamic presentation into
student portfolios according to their self-
assessed skills gaps.
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27. Example of student DTP page. We are seeking feedback from students on their
suggestions for analysing and reflecting on their skills needs
• <screen shots – student page, supervisor group
etc.>
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28. Institutional
Resource
Employers
Institution employer network
Courses
Administration
Research
d
i Business engagement:
Events
s •
Employer
profile More reasons to engage
Professional Learning: • Easier to find University
Equipment •
c Details, sector,
About employment market
• Employment sectors
o projects
resources
• Access to students for work
• v
Expertise What employers are interested in
• How to organise and present their
e
r Careers and work
experience
• Wider range of employers
Placements
skills rd
• Finding placement or work
y Employer searches student profiles
(e.g. 3 sector, social
CRM enterprise, SME)
opportunities
• Learning to network (and integrate
other social tools) AUDIT
Learning + teaching
student profile Student searches employer profiles
ePortfolio
Student
Evidence,
Personal
skills,
showcase
Student opts-in, ‘releasing’ contact information and showcase Kirstie Coolin, CIePD, University of Nottingham September 2012

29. Over to you...
• How can students and employers be motivated to
use new tools for employability?
• Where do student, employer and institutional
requirements meet, and what would this look like in
terms of processes and tools?
• How can existing institutional learning technology be
used to promote student-led
professional/employability learning?
• How can students be encouraged to reflect on their
personal development autonomously?
• How can relationships between student
/employer/university be nurtured to support this?
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30. Relevant CIePD Projects
Sharing HE Data (SHED)
www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/shed
ESCAPES (..)
www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/escapes
Ingenuity KnowledgeHub
www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio/knowledgehub
http://fishbowl.ingenuitygateway.com
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31. Thank you
Kirstie.Coolin @ nottingham.ac.uk
@kirstie_c
University of Nottingham
www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio
Designed by Gideon Coolin