PDP4XL2

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• PDP4XL2
• Personal Development Planning for
• Cross - Institutional Lifelong Learning
• Janet Hanson and Amina Uddin
• E-portfolios employability or engagement?
• London, 7th December 2007

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Project Team

• Project Director Janet Hanson
• Project Manager Amina Uddin
• Project Advisers Ken Bissell
• Dr Barbara Newland
• Researcher Lizzie Nixon
• (Bournemouth Media School)

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Project partners

• Bournemouth University (Lead institution)
• Arts Institution at Bournemouth
• Dartington College of Arts
• Open University in the South West
• University Centre Yeovil
• University of Gloucestershire
• Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust
• Phosphorix

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Overview

• PDP4XL2 -use of PDP and e-portfolios to develop
  and sustain favourable learner attitudes towards
  lifelong learning in the creative industries and
  health care sectors
• Project partners will evaluate the ioPortal,
  developed by Phosphorix, and map its data
  structures for PDP records against those in their
  institutional VLEs/e-portfolios that support PDP
• Project builds on the strengths and successful
  outcomes of PDP4Life, the regional e-learning
  pilot for the SW

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Overall Aims

• Aims to encourage
• Successful lifelong learning by developing a
  positive attitude towards PDP by learners,
  academic staff, employers and professional
  organisations
• A willingness to use technology in the PDP
  process to generate the transferable records that
  support lifelong learning

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Specific Aims

• Creative Industries
• Continue to embed PDP and e-portfolio use in
  the SW
• Use of employer feedback to inform PDP tools
  and processes
• Health Care Professionals
• Explore attitudes to and engagement with PDP
  and e-portfolios for lifelong learning in both
  academic and practice settings in the SW region
• South West Lifelong Learning Network Inform
  (SWLLN)
• Inform and be informed by, approaches to PDP
  and e-portfolios used to support their
  information, advice and guidance processes
• Interoperability of learner records and data
  transfer across institutional
• boundaries
• Contribute to the knowledge base

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Assumptions

• CI Learners
• Frequently highly skilled
• in the use of IT
• but they have requirements for portfolio building
  that challenge the concept of the lifelong
  learner record and specifications for e-portfolios

• Health Sector Learners
• Traditionally be less accustomed to using IT
• but have a professional requirement to maintain
  their CPD profile, so the transfer of their
  records and the associated PDP processes into an
  online environment presents interesting
  challenges

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Project Methodology

• Attitudes to PDP and lifelong learning
• Meeting with learner and employers to identify
  their attitudes to and
• usage of PDP and e-portfolios, including
  ioPortal
• Learners will include
• Undergraduate students
• Those undertaking CPD programmes
• Workplace learning in practice
• Non traditional learners seeking guidance on
  learning opportunities
• from the SWLLN
• Employers will be from the Creative Industries
  and the Health Sector

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Project Methodology

• Technical Developments
• PDP process tool in ioPortal will be evaluated
  with learners and adjustments made if appropriate
• Possibility of transferring PDP learner records
  between ioPortal and PebblePad and between
  ioPortal and other M/VLEs used by partners will
  be explored e.g Blackboard, Moodle and e2Train

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Employability

• The primary objective for PDP is to improve the
  capacity of students to understand what and how
  they are learning, and to review, plan and take
  responsibility for their own learning. In
  developing this capacity students will be better
  equipped to convince employers that they are
  employable and they should be me more aware of
  what they need to do to stay employed (HEA 2002)
  

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Employability

• PDP will help students
• be better prepared for seeking employment or
  self-employment and be more able to relate what
  they have learnt to the requirements of
  employers (QAA, 2000)

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Employability

• The absence of research studies that address
  other claims, particularly those relating to
  broader self-development and improved
  employability outcomes, means that these claims
  cannot be substantiated at this stage (Gough et
  al, 2003).

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• What are you experiences on employer attitudes?

What are your experiences on employer attitudes
and perceptions?
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Creative Industry PDP Research

• Research into the perceptions and needs of
  creative industries students and employers in
  relation to PDP is very limited
• Nature of the creative arts disciplines might
  merit a specific approach to PDP on the strength
  of their unique educational practices (James,
  2004)
• Students in the creative disciplines are able and
  willing to engage actively in the process of
  assessing, and reflecting on, their own learning
  experience using an online PDP tool (Malins
  McKillop, 2005)

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PDP4XL2 Research

• What do employers in the creative industries
  think about the use of e-portfolios for personal
  development planning (PDP)?

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Research Methods
Research conducted by The Arts Institute at
Bournemouth Centre of Excellence in Media
Practice

• Key themes
• The Culture of the CI
• Recruitment practices
• Media Professionals conception of PDP
• Perceived value of PDP
• Perceptions of e-portfolio
• Advice for e-portfolio design
• Practical issues with job application

• Sample Methods
• Open-ended questionnaires
• Interviews with CI professionals
• Focus groups

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Findings

• CI employers desperately seek individuality and
  personality in job applications
• The provision for PDP depends on the size of the
  company
• The CI rely on networking and paper based methods
  to recruit but this process fails to assist
  employers in revealing the kind of person they
  seek
• There is a desperate need to access
  individuality, key strength, passion and essence
  of a person
• PDP was understood to be the process by which one
  reflects on skills and is able to present them
  clearly and logically
• E-portfolios allows employers to recruit on
  attitude rather than merely skills
• Can allow employers to see the spirit of the
  person
• The process of PDP helps an individual to be more
  focused, articulate and self aware but the
  product of personal development lies in improving
  the skills and self understanding of the
  individual rather than the production of an
  e-portfolio
• The evidence for PDP is in who the candidate is
  rather than seeing an electronic database of
  documentation

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E-portfolios

• It feels everyone has a degree and youre
  looking at a big pile of undifferentiated data
  and therefore it doesnt mean anything. How do
  you differentiate? If differentiation had a
  personal element, it got at the spirit of the
  person, so you felt like you knew the person
  through a personal account of themselves. I think
  that would make all the difference.
• I wouldnt want an e-portfolio of someone or
  two page printout of their personal development
  plan, I wouldn't even glance at it. I am looking
  for a quick indication if that person is right
  for me
• I dont really need to see anyones PDP
  because I would expect to find out from people in
  their covering letter and interview

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Conclusions

• Positive attitudes towards the process of PDP
• E-portfolios may be a part of PDP but should not
  become the entirety of its focus
• Very few CI employers have the time or the
  inclination to view an e-portfolio during
  recruitment process
• E-portfolio could be useful during later stages
  of recruitment
• PDP can help students find individuality and
  express this
• Graduates should be encouraged to continue
  lifelong learning
• The technology of an e-portfolio in assisting PDP
  would override the purpose and value of PDP
  itself
• A high value has been attached to the process of
  PDP as well as the concept of e-portfolio as a
  tool within the learning process

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Project Next Steps

• Further research on attitudes towards PDP
• The potential of ioPortal as an e-portfolio tool
• Pilots with Health Social Care and Media
  students
• Current Health Care PDP systems and attitudes of
  AHP

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Anticipated Outcomes

• Case studies to help institutions meet the needs
  of diverse learners with understanding of PDP in
  two specific vocational areas
• Creative Industries
• Health Care

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Anticipated Outcomes

• In both cases
• Understanding learner and employer perceptions
• Informing the development of tools to assist
  e-PDP and e-portfolio building
• For individual applications/tools or elements of
  a larger VLE

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References 1

• GOUGH, D.A., KIWAN, D., SUTCLIFFE, K., SIMPSON,
  D., HOUGHTON, N. (2003). A systematic map and
  synthesis review of personal development planning
  for improving student learning. London
  EPPI-Centre, Social Science Research Unit.
• HIGHER EDUCATION ACADEMY HEA (2002). Guide for
  Busy Academics No.3. Using Personal Development
  Planning to help students gain employment.
• JAMES, A. (2004). Autobiography and narrative in
  personal development planning in the creative
  arts. Art Design and Communication in Higher
  Education, 3 (2) 103-118

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References 2

• MALINS, J. AND MCKILLOP, C. (2005). Evaluating
  GraysNet an online PDP tool for use in an art
  and design context. Art, Design Communication
  in Higher Education 4(1) 31-47.
• QUALITY ASSURANCE AGENCY (QAA) FOR HIGHER
  EDUCATION. (2000). Policy statement on a progress
  file for Higher Education. Available at
  http//www.qaa.ac.uk/academicinfrastructure/progre
  ssFiles/archive/policystatement/default.asp
  Accessed 24 April 2007

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Contacts

• Amina Uddin
• PDP Project Manager
• auddin_at_bournemouth.ac.uk