Myfolio (built on Mahara open source software) was rolled out to all University of Kent students and staff at the beginning of this academic year (2011-2012). By providing software to help with PDP, and as a platform for e-portfolios, the University has provided a service which will be of value not just to current students but also to alumni. Attending a JISC CETIS Service Design day in Birmingham last week, facilitated by Lauren Currie of Snook, helped me to think about who our potential users are and how we can encourage them to use the application we are providing.
Currently the only alumni who have access to the application are members of the small EAT-PDP focus group – and even they don’t seem to be talking to me at the moment. There is a proposal that initially Kent continues to provide access to myFolio for at least one year post graduation. So by next summer around 4000 alumni could be using myFolio. Realistically the figure is likely to be somewhat lower. So what are the factors that will make one person continue to use the service and another to abandon it? In truth there are many factors which might affect this including the discipline students are pursuing. An architecture student who wants to be able to display models and plans to potential employees will readily see the value of myFolio as an e-portfolio tool. A student of say, psychology, may find the multi-media capabilities of my folio less obviously useful. That is certainly not to say myFolio has no benefits for psychology students – just that they may be initially less obvious.
Conversely, Personal Development Planning is something that all students and alumni should be considering. But the greatest benefit will be obtained by those who have used a tool like myFolio to build a timeline of their learning and development throughout their student years.
One of the strengths of myFolio is that over the period of learning it enables a student to build a picture of their progress. Skills audits and plans are obvious manifestations of this but reading back over journal entries can be even more useful in presenting evidence of how an individual has progressed.
Most days I have a look at any publicly available new entries in myFolio. There are already many examples of journals which demonstrate the value of the process. Some first year students have initially been reluctant to engage with the process but by being honest about this and keeping a record, even of their misgivings, they are actually starting the process of PDP. For some students this takes the form of something akin to having a conversation with one self – in other words self-reflection. Even in the few weeks since term started myFolio users are documenting their progress and talking about their learning processes. If we want our alumni to keep using myfolio thereby maintaining a link with the University we need to get our students on the PDP path as early as possible.
So how do we get more of our students into the habit of using myFolio? One idea we are currently exploring is encouraging those already engaged to act as student ambassadors. We are considering offering prizes for the best video blogs showing how using myFolio is helping with PDP. Creating these videos could itself be seen as part of the PDP process, neatly completing the circle.