Using E-Portfolios to Enhance Student Employability: 5 Digital Steps

Jodie Pinnell

11.15am to 12.15pm

This session is motivated by the desire to enhance the student experience by facilitating the creation of a tangible digital portfolio to document the professional learning journey. Inspired by good practice from other institutions displayed at the Bett show 2020, the session proposes the creation and development of learner ePortfolios. The digitalisation of professional achievements can be shared via a link, so students can present these with business cards using QR codes. The university already has the tools needed to fully maximise this using Google Sites with all students having a Google account to access. Currently, in my context, documentation of the professional journey happens on a word document that is submitted for assessment for a single module. This is, therefore, a static document that students do not continue to use, and it is not always feasible for students to get to the end of year three and try to remember everything they have learnt over their degree. Instead, collecting evidence through reflections, photographs, video, links and scanned documents can be an effective tool to give them a ‘take-home’ product, and, encouraged by the entire teaching team, may encourage learners to participate in education enhancing opportunities (e.g. mentoring schemes). With this, employers can have an insight into a student’s professional journey through competency-based accounts and reflections alongside formal qualifications. There is a current misconception amongst students that they do not have qualifications and will therefore not be able to get a job; they demonstrate skills every day in placements and in their learning experiences that are documented to meet the requirements for a role. The session seeks to be transferable to all courses in the university.

Session Aims

The aims of this session are to:

• Discuss the idea of a competency-based ePortfolio for Undergraduate students.

• Identify the importance of a school-wide approach to motivate students to go beyond their learning programmes.

• Identify the next steps of digital ePortfolios in sharing with employers and enhancing applications.