Taking stock

Back from the Christmas break with the sobering thought that we are about to enter the final six months of the EAT-PDP project. So I have been spending a little time thinking about what we have learnt so far and what we need to do in the time left to us. There is lots to do so I will keep this post short and just raise a few points which I have found myself musing over. Your comments are welcome.

As with all projects, issues have arisen which we did not predict, some pleasant and some not so pleasant. Some things we were perhaps overly optimistic about and other things have gone better than expected. But one of the great benefits of being able to spend time on a project like this is the way previously unthought of issues float to the surface. Thus giving us the chance to tackle problems or make greater use of the our resources than we had originally planned.

The take up for Myfolio in the  University continues and it is obvious that many students are finding it useful. What is harder to determine is in what way it is being used. The focus of our project is the use of  Myfolio as a tool for PDP but the University does not set rules for how students can or should use Myfolio. It is obvious that  many students are using Myfolio for coursework and perhaps some tutors are encouraging this. Opinions differ as to whether this is a good thing or not.  Some feel that the use of Myfolio to create or submit coursework undermines its usefulness as a tool for PDP. Personally I think that anything which draws users to the application should be seen as good. A familiarity with the features of myfolio – however that familiarity is gained – must increase the chances that a user will use the application for PDP. But this will only be true if the  importance of PDP is also understood by the users. We can help to encourage that with more promotion of the concept and benefits of PDP.

Thankfully there is also evidence that students are grasping the importance of PDP and using Myfolio to help with this. It is however difficult to get a detailed picture of the extent of Myfolio’s use for PDP. The control of access to a user’s  journals, plans and other artefacts rests with that user. If they wish to keep something  private to themselves then they can – in fact for most artefacts held in Myfolio that is the default.  We cannot – nor would we want to – break that trust by examining  users’ artefacts unless they have been made public or explicitiy shared with us. So there could be a lot more PDP going on than we are aware of. As an aside here I sometimes wonder, in what seems to be an increasingly cynical and less trusting world,  whether our users actually believe that tutors and other staff only have access to what they decide to share with them. Is this an issue we need to worry about?

It is easy to criticise Myfolio as not being lots of things – not the most user-friendly interface, not the coolest application out there, limited in its features and customisability, not as useful as LinkedIn and etc. There may be some vailidity  to some of these criticims though I question the usefulness of  the comparisons. But to make a success of the project we need to emphasise what benefits Myfolio does bring to students and alumni. Myfolio is the tool that Kent has chosen, primarily to assist with personal development planning. It is a tool that clearly does have many benefits as the reports from this project will show, and being open source it is an application that we have already improved and will continue to improve in direct response to the needs of our users. However it is the  process we are using Myfolio for – PDP – which is the most important thing here.  An individual can use any tool they wish to aid self-reflection, to audit their skills, to plan their learning but one of the most important things about the provision of  a Myfolio account to all students is that it emphasises the importance and value of the PDP process.

We are pretty sure that our students are making good use of Myfolio but over the next few weeks we want to confirm this by talking to users about their experience of using the application. Sadly efforts to talk to the Myfolio focus group members who graduated last year has resulted in very few  responses. Ok  – no responses. I didn’t expect this and it is difficult to know how to interpret that fact. Maybe all those individuals have fabulous jobs and are no longer interested in PDP. Maybe they are using other tools for PDP. Maybe they no longer check their kentforlife.net  email accounts. Or maybe they just don’t want to talk to me. As I said some of the unexpected results thrown up during the project were more pleasant than others.