Looking at the history of ePortfolio practice and technologies over the last 10 years, one is entitled in asking: what has changed? Is the ePortfolio technology we have today that different from what we had 10 years ago? While there is certainly a wider spread of ePortfolios, have ePortfolios transformed practice or been assimilated by institutions? Open Badges are the opportunity to reinvent ePortfolio technology and practice, and create the conditions for an effective shift of the locus of power from institutions to individuals and communities. Shall we be able to seize this opportunity?

1. How could Open Badges Transform
ePortfolio Practices and Technologies!
What might we learn from the last 10 years of ePortfolio developments?
Serge Ravet
EUROPORTFOLIO
ADPIOS, EUROPORTFOLIO
The EUROPORTFOLIO / EPNET project is funded
with support from the European Commission.
Europortfolio Webinar
20 May 2014
Monday, 26 May 14

2. 2004
While the question five years ago was:
"should every student and employee have
an email?"
Today the question is:
"should every student and employee have
an ePortfolio ?"
Monday, 26 May 14

3. While ten years ago the question was:
"should every student and employee have an
ePortfolio ?"
Today's question could be:
How could Open Badges transform
learning... and ePortfolio Practices and
Technologies?
2014
Monday, 26 May 14

4. ?What has changed
in the ePortfolio
world since 2003?
Monday, 26 May 14

5. Adoption
?Monday, 26 May 14

6. Do not reuse or reference these charts: they are based on
fragmented observations! Systematic collection of data in progress...
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
Adoption in at least one discipline
Primary
Secondary
Tertiary
Work
1%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
Adoption across disciplines
Primary
Secondary
Tertiary
Work
?
Adoption
?
Monday, 26 May 14

7. Adoption
The NES (NHS Education for Scotland) ePortfolio has grown
rapidly since its inception in August 2005 and now comprises over
20 versions for over 35,000 healthcare trainees within Scotland
(Nursing, Midwifery, Dentistry and Pharmacy), across the United
Kingdom (Medicine), and The Republic of Ireland (Medicine).
Monday, 26 May 14

8. Transformation
?Monday, 26 May 14

9. Transformation
Have ePorfolios
transformed education?
Have ePorfolios been
transformed by educational institutions?
Or
?Monday, 26 May 14

10. http://www.change.org/petitions/clemson-university-eliminate-the-eportfolio
I started this petition because I believe the ePortfolio is a complete waste of
time and effort for all Clemson students. I understand the reason behind having
an ePortfolio, with the capabilities to see the work completed by various
students to meet set requirements. However, I find this "assignment" to be a
complete waste of time and a burden on our students. Like most all of my
classmates, I put work into my classes and receive grades, as I should. It is as
simple as that.Why should we be required to create a portfolio that just
reiterates the fact that we have completed a course? Why should we be
submitting work to an online portfolio that does not give us any credit?
[...]
The ePortfolio only creates another task for students to worry about, a task
that accomplishes nothing. I wrote an essay for my English class, I got an A on
it, that led to me receive an A in the course, and I successfully earned those
credits. Nowhere in there do I see a gap that must be filled in with an
ePortfolio. Many of us have friends at other prestigious universities. Not once
have I heard of an ePortfolio assignment from any of them. I firmly believe that
eliminating the ePortfolio at Clemson University will truly enable students to
be more focused on their actual coursework and have a more positive mindset
about school.After all, this campus is supposed to have the "happiest students."
Petition by
Jamie Harding
Cranberry Township, PA
Eliminate the ePortfolio
Petitioning Clemson university
Monday, 26 May 14

11. "ePortfolio assignments" are total nonsense!
Jamie Harding is right!
Monday, 26 May 14

12. Grades, degrade education!
Yet, Jamie misses one key point:
But that's another story...
Monday, 26 May 14

13. Technologies
?Monday, 26 May 14

14. Technologies
?
What do we have today that
was missing 10 years ago?
What is missing today that was
already missing 10 years ago?
Monday, 26 May 14

15. For the 7th ePortfolio conference, and in order to give directions to our work towards our 2010 goal (ePortfolio for all), EIfEL has decided to address a number
of challenges to the ePortfolio community and beyond —many of the problems the ePortfolio community faces today will not be resolved if they are not
addressed beyond the ePortfolio silo. The goal of these challenges is to move beyond the current state of ePortfolio development, in particular in the field of
interoperability as interoperability is not just a technical issue, but a means to enable new practices and the emergence of truly lifelong and life wide
ePortfolios.
Our main objective is to create the conditions for the emergence of
MultiPortfolio organisations (one organisation can interact with many different
ePortfolio platforms) and MultiOrganisation ePortfolios (have one ePortfolio to
interact with many different institutions with their own platform).
1. Universal ePortfolio Repository —a unified view of all my assets
Context: Today, the digital assets used to create an ePortfolio can be hosted in
many different systems managed by many different organisations.
Issue: How can we provide a unified view of all the assets belonging to one
person, so she/he can seamlessly create ePortfolios without having to navigate
through multiple sites? How can I reunite my digital identity?
Direction: Identity and access management (IAM) technologies, such as
federation of identities and services need to be fully explored by the ePortfolio
community.
NB: a universal repository is not equivalent to a unique repository; it can be
universal while being distributed over a number of loosely connected and
heterogeneous systems.
2. Universal Competency Identifiers —share competency definitions
across systems
Context: A number of ePortfolio platforms, and other applications in the field of
education, employment, accreditation and human resource use competency
frameworks. Today, the dominant delivery format of competency frameworks is a
PDF file, forcing each system to import or recreate them from scratch.
Issue: How can we share competency definitions across systems and
applications? How can we elicit emerging competencies through interactive
technologies?
Direction: The creation of a competency wiki providing shared, distributed,
multilingual URIs (Unique Resource Identifiers) to competency definitions. The
solution to unique resource identifiers for competency definition has already
been discussed by Simon Grant (Representing frameworks of skill and
competence for interoperability). We have the technology required, what is
missing is the political impetus and commitment.
3. ePortfolio social —share assets, knowledge and processes across
communities
Context: The idea of using social computing for ePortfolios is growing and a
number of platforms have integrated such features. Nevertheless, the current
implementation of social networking technology is mainly limited to connecting
individuals as silos of information.
Issue: Let’s imagine a group of 100 people belonging to the same community
(company, school, etc.) among which 10 are writing their own CV. Can we
design a technology that will make it possible that at the end of the process,
each of the 100 people will have (part of) their own CV written? How can we
automatically generate and updated ePortfolios and CVs through social
interaction?
Direction: Imagine that each time a person writes an elementary entry into their
CV describing a professional experience, they have to name the people that
shared the same experience; then for each person named, the entry is added to
their ‘CV’, with the ability to edit it and share it back with the original author or
create their own edited version of the entry. This way, each CV would be thread
weaving a collective story. For the reader, being able to judge how an individual
CV is connected to other stories, could even be an indicator of trustworthiness.
The same reasoning could of course apply to ePortfolios.
4. ePortfolio semantic editors —make sense of what I write, connect,
etc.
Context: In 2003, during the first international ePortfolio conference in Poitiers,
Christopher Tan presented Knowledge Community, a platform scaffolding
learners reflection through semantic annotation, i.e. identifying key words and
labelling them with semantic value, e.g. evidence, theory, example, etc. Since
then, not a single editor of ePortfolio tools has included any form of semantic
annotation.
Issue: We need ePortfolio editors that scaffold reflective thinking, not just enrich
text with bolds, italics and ‘pink on purple’ effects. We need proper, simple
semantic editors, as semantic annotation is a way to structure reflection,
connect ideas, facts and people.
Direction: RDFa editors provide the blueprint for ePortfolio editors that fully
support the components of a reflective process. At minima, be able to tag parts
of texts/images, not just the whole document.
5. ePortfolio Readers —read any ePortfolio through consistent and
multiple views
Context: There are a number of ePortfolio platforms, each one with their own
user interfaces and some people create ePortfolios without using any dedicated
ePortfolio platform (e.g. content management system). And people want to be
free to express their identity without being kept in the straightjacket of
predefined templates.
Issue: How can we leave total freedom to ePortfolio author’s creativity, while
providing readers with their own view through a consistent navigational
interface, e.g. evidence on the left, competency framework on the right, etc.?
Direction: We might have to define different readers, depending on the process
being involved, so the same ePortfolio could have different views generated by
different tools. Such tools could be used by ePortfolio authors as tools to verify
that their ePortfolio is properly structured and contains all the relevant semantic
information.
6. Open & Trusted Service Architecture
Context: Today each ePortfolio platform provides a limited number of services
and adding new services require the development of idiosyncratic plug-ins,
when this possibility is offered.
Issue: How can we provide ePortfolio owners with an unlimited number of
services without forcing service providers to develop multiple plug-ins for
multiple applications? How can we trust the usage made by services of our
personal data?
Direction: This is connected to the idea of Universal Repository, exploited and
enriched by service providers. Schools, universities, employers, professional
bodies etc. need to provide conversational systems through trusted web
services —a technology currently under development by different initiatives,
such as TAS3.
7. ePortfolio based performance support system —make the ePortfolio
part of my work
Context: One of the current problems with ePortfolio adoption at the workplace
is the fact that ePortfolios can be seen as something either nice to have or
adding to the regular work. Moreover, the current level of integration of
ePortfolios with other information systems is still low.
Issue: How can we make ePortfolio construction part of everyday activities?
How can we demonstrate ePortfolio benefits through business benefits?
Direction: Use ePortfolio technology and methods to develop next generation
electronic performance support systems, integrate reflection as part of routine
work processes, so the ePortfolio is built through naturally occurring business
activities.
8. ePortfolio discovery mechanism —find people, competencies,
resources
Context: While there are a number of methods for learning resources discovery
(c.f. the learning resources exchange (LRE) repository of European Schoolnet)
there are not yet universal mechanism to discover ePortfolios on the Internet,
each individual relying on ad-hoc services.
Issue: How can we easily find an ePortfolio or a resource contained in an
ePortfolio?
Direction: OAI-PMH (Open Archives Initiative's Protocol for Metadata
Harvesting) is a possible method to create large indexes of ePortfolios per
organisation, sector or even territory. Other methods could be the publication of
ePortfolios in trusted parties' indexes.
9. URIs as tags
Context: Tag is a popular form to connect things together. within an ePortfolio.
Unfortunately the meaning of tags is context dependent, and different tags can
share the same meaning.
Issue: How can we create tags that are not context dependent?
Direction: make tags RDF triplets: name (what is displayed as ‘tag’); URI to
definition (an hidden hypertext link); link type (is, is part of, etc.). NB: this is an
extension of challenge #2. Two tags are close if they share the same URI and
identical if they are identical triplets.
10. Universal Metadata
Context: ePortfolio construction is about connecting data together. Metadata
are not just ‘comments’ about data, but links between all the data sharing the
same metadata. If data are assimilated to neurones, metadata can be seen
as.the synapses connecting neurones together..
Issue: How can we enrich distributed data with ‘personal/social metadata
repositories
Direction: keep metadata repositories apart from data, on the model of social
bookmarking.
e P o r t f o l i o c h a l l e n g e s
1. Universal ePortfolio Repository
2. Universal Competency Identifiers
3. ePortfolio social
4. ePortfolio semantic editors
5. ePortfolio Readers
6. Open & Trusted Service Architecture
7. ePortfolio based performance support system
8. ePortfolio discovery mechanism
9. URIs as tags
10. Universal Metadata
2009
10 ePortfolio challenges
Monday, 26 May 14

16. Technologies
?
Consolidation
Little or no innovation
Monday, 26 May 14

17. ?
How could Open
Badges Transform
ePortfolio Practices
and Technologies?
Monday, 26 May 14

18. 1. Simplicity: it is an uncomplicated object, easy to adopt — the Lego™
bloc of learning achievements!
2. Granularity: it is possible to get a badge for something big or small
and to combine them into something meaningful
3. Openness: the Open Badge Infrastructure (OBI) is open, so many
services and applications can plug-in
4. Innovation: new ideas emerge and are rapidly integrated into the Open
Badge architecture and in learning practice
5. Integration: there is a tight integration between technology and
practice (practice re-shapes technology which re-shapes practice...)
6. Trust: Open Badges are the elementary building blocks of a native trust
network to support trusted identities
Open Badges vs
ePortfolios
Monday, 26 May 14

19. Open Badges are true
learning objects!
Open Badges are the outcome of
a thriving learning community
Monday, 26 May 14

20. Definitions
Monday, 26 May 14

21. digital records of achievements, skills, interests,
affiliations or roles (Mozilla)
Open Badges
ePortfolios collection of electronic evidence assembled
and managed by a user, usually on theWeb
(Wikipedia)
Weakipedia?
Monday, 26 May 14

22. digital records of achievements, skills, interests,
affiliations or roles (Mozilla)
Open Badges
ePortfolios organised collection of evidence demonstrating
reflective learning (me)
criterion-based trust statements (me)
collection of electronic evidence assembled
and managed by a user, usually on theWeb
(Wikipedia)
Monday, 26 May 14

23. ?Open BadgesePortfolios
What relation between
&
Monday, 26 May 14

24. Open Badges
ePortfolios
Individuation*
* G. Simondon
ePortfolios are more
abstract than Open
Badges
Monday, 26 May 14

25. Open Badges
ePortfolios
Individuation
CPU
Mainframes
Helen Barrett, 2010ENIAC, 1947
Monday, 26 May 14

26. What do Open Badges bring
to ePortfolios?
?Monday, 26 May 14

27. TRUST
!Monday, 26 May 14

28. Anatomy of an Open Badge
Remixed from Kyle Bowen
Monday, 26 May 14

29. Criteria
Evidence
Remixed from Kyle Bowen
Image
Narratives
Issuer
Holder
Assertion
Anatomy of an Open Badge
Monday, 26 May 14

30. I trust you
Criteria
Evidence
Remixed from Kyle Bowen
Image
Narratives
Issuer
Holder
Assertion
Anatomy of an Open Badge
Monday, 26 May 14

31. Criteria
Evidence
Remixed from Kyle Bowen
Image
to do this
Narratives
Issuer
Holder
Assertion
Anatomy of an Open Badge
Monday, 26 May 14

32. Anatomy of an Open Badge
Criteria
Evidence
Remixed from Kyle Bowen
Image
I trust you
Narratives
to do this
Based on that
evidence
Issuer
Holder
Assertion
Monday, 26 May 14

33. Open Badges?
ut degrees, certificates, diplomas?)
Anatomy of an Open Badge
Criteria
Evidence
Remixed from Kyle Bowen
Image
Narratives
My trust is also
represented by this
image
Issuer
Holder
Assertion
Monday, 26 May 14

34. Open Badges?
ut degrees, certificates, diplomas?)
Anatomy of an Open Badge
Criteria
Evidence
Remixed from Kyle Bowen
Image
Narratives
My trust is also
represented by this
image
Issuer
Holder
Assertion
Monday, 26 May 14

35. Open Badges?
ut degrees, certificates, diplomas?)
Anatomy of an Open Badge
Criteria
Evidence
Remixed from Kyle Bowen
Image
Issuer
Holder
Narratives
Assertion
Monday, 26 May 14

36. competency
fact
Collection
competency
Aggregation
knowledge, skills,
attitudes & values
Mastery
skill
skill
skill
skill
fact
fact
fact
fact
fact
fact
fact
Granularity
Monday, 26 May 14

37. Monday, 26 May 14

38. Open Badges are
connectors!
People, Information, Places, Events, ...
Monday, 26 May 14

39. Social NetworkSemantic Network
People sharing the same badge /
location / pathway / goals
Badge Holder
Criteria
Skills
Knowledge
Attitudes
Values
Evidence
Issuer
Resources sharing the same 'tag'
19/5/2014 Poitiers - Google Maps
Map data ©2014 Google 500 m
Traffic · Bicycling · Terrain
Poitiers, France
I can fix a
lawnmower
I can teach
nuclear physics
I cook South
Italian cuisine
I am a qualified tax
accountant
Monday, 26 May 14

40. ePortfolio Revisited
Monday, 26 May 14

41. ePortfolio Revisited
Monday, 26 May 14

42. I did this and this in order to achieve this Badge,
and I have these pieces of evidence to prove it.
My role was:...
This is how it connects to my previous
knowledge & experience:...
ePortfolio Revisited
Monday, 26 May 14

43. ePortfolio Repository
narrative
narrative
narrative
narrative
narrative
narrative
narrative
Monday, 26 May 14

44. ePortfolio
ePortfolio
ePortfolio
I did this and this in order to achieve
this Badge, and I have these pieces of
evidence to prove it.
My role was:...
This is how it connects to my
previous knowledge & experience:...
Fractal
ePortfolio
Monday, 26 May 14

45. The 'fractal' nature of
ePortfolios is mirrored in
Open Badges...
Monday, 26 May 14

46. ePortfolios of
ePortfolios of
ePortfolios of
ePortfolios of
ePortfolios of
...
...
Open Badges of
Open Badges of
Open Badges of
Open Badges of
Open Badges of
...
...
Monday, 26 May 14

47. Mise en abyme
Monday, 26 May 14

48. Limits & Potential Risks
!Monday, 26 May 14

49. Open Badges used as
Glorified-Digital-Gold-Stars
Use Open Badges to celebrate achievements, not as rewards
Assimilation
Solution:
Monday, 26 May 14

50. Open Badges used to create
subservient learners, rather
than empowered innovators
Solution:
Standardisation
Co-design Open Badges with learners
and the learning community at large
Monday, 26 May 14

51. Asymmetry
Reinforcing the power of
traditional institutions
...
Monday, 26 May 14

52. At the 2010 European Adult Education Association (EAEA) / Nordic
network for adult learning conference [...] many participants had
reservations and anxieties towards qualifications frameworks and
associated validation of non-formal and informal learning. It was suggested
for example that there is a risk in this sector that accredited courses
might give learners the impression that they belong to the formal system,
which may deter those with previous negative experiences of education
from taking part. Delegates stressed that ‘learning for learning’s sake’
remains important and that there should still be support and financing for
non-formal learning, study circles and development of social competences
even if the learners choose this type of learning for personal development
and do not intend to validate the competences.The conference delegates
emphasised that it should be up to the learner to choose what should be
validated and not.”
Source: 2010 update of the European inventory on
validation of non-formal and informal learning
Monday, 26 May 14

53. Reinforcing the power of
traditional institutions
Everyone is an Open Badge issuer & recepient!
Solution:
Asymmetry
Monday, 26 May 14

54. Open Badges criteria
Idiosyncrasy
Develop criteria registries, Compedia (CompetencyWikipedia)
Solution:
Fragmentation
Monday, 26 May 14

55. Open Badges Storage
Centralisation
Develop a federation of Backpacks, using Personal Data Stores
Solution:
Dependency
Monday, 26 May 14

56. An archaic vision of identity:
where do you come from,
what did you do?...
Develop badges of my/our futures, dream badges,
badges for ePortfolies (≠ ePortfolios)
Solution:
Backwards Looking
Monday, 26 May 14

57. Opportunities
!Monday, 26 May 14

58. Informal recognition of informal learning
can become as trustworthy as the
formal recognition of formal learning
in real time the actual
competencies of a
person, organisation,
territory, a sector.
Mapping
Trust
Monday, 26 May 14

59. Open Badges for an
Open Society
Monday, 26 May 14

60. Open Services
Open Data
Learning
Analytics
Quality
Assurance
Learning
Analytics
Open ...
Open Trust
Open Society
Open
Learning
Open
Business
Personal
Data Store
(Backpack, LRS, ...)
Personal Devices
(Iinternet of
Objects)
Open
Government
Open ...
Open ...
Personal Proxy
(Iinternet of
Subjects)
Shared
Infrastructure
Open
Knowledge
Open search
& Data Mining
Organisational
Infrastructure
Open Badges
& ePortfolio
services
Open
Employment
Monday, 26 May 14

61. The University today faces the possibility of being itself transformed
by the cyberspace culture generated by its computing centres and
networks. Just as the printing press spelled the demise of monastic
institutions and ushered in the modern university, cyberspace may
dissolve the bricks and mortar campuses of today into a de-centred
knowledge culture, a networked "virtual" site of intellectual exchange
that renders obsolete old ivied quadrangles as well as institutional
and political borders, creating something akin to H.G. Wells's vision
of a ‘World Brain’.
Peter Childers & Paul Delany (1994)
World Brain: The Idea of a PermanentWorld Encyclopaedia, H.G.Wells
Contribution to the new Encyclopédie Française, August1937
Monday, 26 May 14

62. Could Open Badges be the
neurones embedding H.G.Wells'
vision of a "World Brain?"
Monday, 26 May 14

63. Serge Ravet
EUROPORTFOLIO
ADPIOS, EUROPORTFOLIO
@Szerge, learningfutures.eu
epforum.eu, europortfolio.org, iosf.org
Join the Europortfolio community!
www.europortfolio.org
The EUROPORTFOLIO / EPNET project is funded
with support from the European Commission.
Merci!
Monday, 26 May 14