E-portfolios in the professions: experiences from law, medicine and veterinary medicine

UKCLE’s Using e-portfolios in legal education project explored the use of e-portfolios in law. In this session at Learning in Law Annual Conference 2007, Patricia McKellar (UKCLE) gave an introduction to the use of e-portfolios, followed by case studies from two law mini-projects (Glasgow Graduate School of Law and Oxford Institute of Legal Practice), and from two other disciplines (medicine – Karen Beggs, NHS Education for Scotland, and veterinary medicine – Belinda Yamagishi, Royal Veterinary College) – see below.

In many professions the use of portfolios is commonplace as a route to qualification, revalidation or continuing practice. The benefits of portfolios for professional development include the capacity to track, reflect on and demonstrate progress over time, as well as to support the integration of work-based learning and assessment.

This session looked at e-portfolios from the perspective of vocational education, drawing together examples from medicine and veterinary medicine as well as from law.

Chairing the session, Patricia highlighted the work of Lee Schulman (Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching) in professional learning. Schulman states that “the educator of a professional is training someone to understand in order that they can act, to act in order that they can make a difference in the minds and lives of others, to act in order to serve others with responsibility and with integrity”’. He calls this method of teaching and learning a ‘signature pedagogy’- a mode of teaching that has become inextricably identified with preparing people for a particular profession.

The signature pedagogies of professionals are designed to transform knowledge attained into knowledge in use, and to create the basis for new kinds of understanding that can only be realised experientially and reflectively. What this means for legal educators is that we need to get our students to think like lawyers. We need to build up their meta-cognitive skills to develop an understanding of experiences allowing the process of reflection. This will enable the them to become more intuitive, building identity, character and values.

E-portfolios in medicine

Although many health professionals have significant experience using portfolios, this has been largely compartmentalised and not coordinated. In 2005 NHS Education for Scotland (NES) piloted an e-portfolio with a group of trainee doctors. Whilst the immediate aim of the pilot was evaluation of the e-portfolio, the project was also charged with additional and broader objectives, and sought to compare the efficacy and educational benefits of paper and electronic portfolios.

From the outset the e-portfolio was thoroughly evaluated, both in terms of hardware/software integrity as well as ease and frequency of use. User feedback was used to update and improve functionality at regular intervals throughout the pilot. Usage statistics have shown strong and consistent use, with the e-portfolio accessed both from NHS computers and from home, at all times of day and night.

It was quickly apparent that users of the electronic system enjoyed distinct advantages, including:

• automated collation and analysis of assessment – saving considerable trainee, tutor, educational supervisor and administrative time and resource
• an effective messaging system and automated reminders for users
• early flagging of poor performance
• a more versatile, transferable and accessible format
  The team has taken on board a number of technological improvements identified by the pilot. The initial e-portfolio was created largely to provide for assessment, but the product has been steadily diversifying to support reflective practice, professional tools and deliver e-learning.

Discussions are underway with undergraduate and CPD providers around the transfer of material to and from the NES system to enable learners’ portfolios to follow them throughout their careers.

The pilot proved to be a robust and stable system, bringing considerable savings and benefits to all its users – trainees, tutors, educational supervisors and administrators. The e-portfolio has now been expanded to include all trainee doctors throughout Scotland – a quadrupling of users. In addition, it has been modified for use by trainees in England as well as by other staff groupings, such as general practitioners, pharmacists and trainee dentists.

E-portfolios in veterinary medicine

In 2005 the Royal Veterinary College developed a bespoke ePDP system to use within Blackboard, supported by a system of structured tutoring. Students write a reflective learning diary in the ePDP system, which is shared with their tutor and a group of fellow students, who can add comments to give advice or ask questions. Tutor and students then meet in a timetabled session, where tutors facilitate discussion on learning issues and relevant student concerns.

One year on from the introduction of this system an evaluation questionnaire was administered to all groups. Students were asked about the value of the tutor group meetings and the use of the ePDP learning diaries, and to give comments on proposed changes to the system for 2006-07. Course comparisons revealed differences in attitudes to both tutor contact and the learning diaries. Year groups also differed in their concepts of the amount of benefit derived.

Changes have been made to broaden the role of the tutor, and to include buddy contact for year groups in a variety of social settings. The use of ePDP alongside tutoring will also be modified and new features added.

Last Modified: 9 July 2010