Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
learning contexts. For each context examples
of relevant and irrelevant evidences should be
provided to help the candidates select evidence
in their situations. The template should also help
candidates to present their evidence in such a
way that an assessor understands directly how
the evidence is related to and reflects the candi-
dates' competence development. The portfolio
template should prompt the candidate on what
additional information should be provided about
the evidence. The template could contain short
instructions telling the candidate what to write
about the evidence. An existing example of such
instruction is STARR, which instructs candidates
how to describe their experiences in such a way
that it becomes evident that this experience has
contributed to the candidates' competence de-
velopment. STARR asks candidates to describe
the Situation, the Task(s) they performed in this
situation, the Activities they undertook and the
Result of these activities. Finally, they are asked
to Reflect on this experience and explain how
it has contributed to the development of their
competences.
After helping them to present their evidence,
the portfolio template should assist candidates
to self-assess their competence level. This can
be done by providing candidates with a compre-
hensive overview of the competence profiles and
scoring rubrics. The competence profiles inform
the candidates what level of competence is ex-
pected from them for specific occupations. The
scoring rubrics help candidates to judge to what
extent they possess the required competences. In
this self-assessment functionality of the portfolio,
the candidate is provided with the same informa-
tion the assessors are provided with. This makes
the APL procedure more transparent, which has a
positive influence on effective use of the portfolio
by the candidates (Baume & Yorke, 2002; Black
& Wiliam, 1998; Kicken, 2008; Stiggins, 2001).
Beside a well developed portfolio template to
help the candidates, several examples of both
well structured and ill-structured portfolios are
also effective in supporting candidates to develop
their skills to prepare their portfolios for an APL
procedure.
Another important issue regarding the use of
an e-portfolio, is its compatibility across systems.
Most of the e-portfolios do not reflect accepted
open standards, and have no facilities for import-
ing and exporting e-portfolio information conform
accepted standards. To move e-portfolios between
systems a specification for the re-use of portfo-
lios is needed. There are a few Interoperability
standards for e-portfolios available, such as IMS
e-portfolio, LEAP2A, IMS-LIP and HR-XML8.
These standards support the possibilities of port-
folio assessment in a technical way. It enables
exchange of portfolios from school to work or from
organization to organization. It allows educators
and institutions to better track competencies, it
enhances the learning experience and improves
employees' development. This will all be related
to the portfolio as an artifact and not yet in relation
to candidates in an assessment. The simplicity of
the standard is key to its success, and to its abil-
ity to allow data to move between very different
systems (Horner, 2009).
Relevant Technologies
In addition to e-portfolios, a personal develop-
ment planner or personal development portfolio
could be used for the process of APL (Brouns
& Firssova, 2008). In this type of portfolio the
learner does not only reflect on his competences
but uses the outcomes of this reflection to plan
for personal, educational and career develop-
ment. This takes the APL even one step further. A
Personal Development Plan (PDP) is preferably
a software tool by which people determine their
progress on their own competence development.
The software supports the user by gathering and
sorting evidence and by (self-)assessing the level
of mastery (Brouns & Firssova, 2008). Most of
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