Nick Carroll

learning-network

Originally uploaded by ncarroll.

For the last couple of months now I have been pondering about what exactly I am researching. I think the real reason for this is that I haven’t really identified a research problem. I have spent most of my time lately developing an e-portfolio system, and putting my research on the back-burner till I have a suitable platform to work with.

I had previously read a lot of literature on e-portfolios, and have written a few literature reviews. From the literature, I have found that e-portfolios are all about establishing rich “connections” between academic endeavours and the skills and knowledge acquired.

So my research question is, “how to manage these connections within an e-portfolio?”

Already I am finding that dotFOLIO is able to create connections by “clipping” a piece of reflective writing (from a blog) to a learning artifact stored in the file repository. The repository essentially stores all of the student’s work completed for a course. The blog provides a way to reflect on what was learnt from a learning activity, the evidence of which is located in the file repository. The clipper tool in dotFOLIO creates the relationship between reflection and the evidence.

Other relationships can be created. For example, a student could be reading a fellow student’s blog within dotFOLIO, and feel inspired about writing about their own ideas on the same subject matter. The student can then use dotFOLIO to clip the other student’s blog entry to their own, so as to provide a richer context for the ideas established.

So dotFOLIO already provides the infrastructure for creating connections between learning activities and knowledge acquired. What would be interesting now is to visualise these connections. If we were to map these connections, we will have formed a network conveying all the learning sources for a specific student. The network would look similar to the learning-network diagram displayed.

The diagram is just a snapshot of the Java SimpleGraph applet demo. I intend to modify the applet so that it can dynamically create a graph that corresponds to the learning network for a learner.

From the graph we’ll be able to identify whether a student learns from reading material such as websites or from their peers and instructors. We’ll also identify whether they only use dotFOLIO for assessments or for their general learning.

Next semester we’ll be trialling dotFOLIO with about 200 students. The learning network from this should be quite impressive, and the resulting graph will be quite complex.

The first release of dotFOLIO is now available from the OpenACS CVS repository. Finally committed the source code to the repository today. This is a pre-release, and really should be considered as a demo than a workable version. I still need to iron out permissions and group management.

dotfolio_4

Originally uploaded by ncarroll.

One of the default applications installed in dotFOLIO is a blogger. The blogger is a tool that you can use for your reflective writing.

Another useful feature is the Clipper tool to the left of the screen shot. The Clipper is used for “clipping” dotFOLIO objects together. As shown you can clip a number of dotFOLIO objects together. I’ve clipped a previous blog entry and an image to the blog entry shown at the top of the screen shot. The last item shown in the related items list is a blog entry written by another dotFOLIO user in their own space, and has been clipped to my blog entry. The other dotFOLIO user had found my blog entry to be interesting, and decided to contribute her own views on the topic. This is so much more powerful than commenting, as you can clip a bunch of files, URLs and blog entries together.

dotfolio_3

Originally uploaded by ncarroll.

This screen shot shows dotFOLIO’s file storage capabilities. You can upload your files or add URLs to archive and share with others.

The clipper tool to the left of the screen shot is a nifty way of connecting dotFOLIO objects with other dotFOLIO objects. dotFOLIO objects include files, URLs, blog entries, calendar items, and many more. So you could upload a report, blog about it, then clip the two together.

dotfolio_2

Originally uploaded by ncarroll.

Here is another screen shot of dotFOLIO. This one shows the front page for a user’s e-portfolio space with some information about the user.

dotfolio_1

Originally uploaded by ncarroll.

This is a screen shot of dotFOLIO showing the user space for the e-portfolio owner. The e-portfolio owner is able to upload their portrait, create a personalised welcome note, add information about themselves, and display a list of their latest blog entries.

The tabs show applications that are core to dotFOLIO, such as the blogger for reflective writing, and a file storage application for archiving your documents.

dotFOLIO has been designed to be extensible so that additional OpenACS applications can simply plug-in to dotFOLIO. There are many applications from OpenACS to choose from, such as forums, surveys, calendar and presentation slides.

dotFOLIO is expected to be released in July, but a pre-release will be made available very shortly from OpenACS.

Abstract: ePortfolios and the learning artifacts they contain must be portable and accessible for the purpose of supporting life-long learning experiences. In this paper, we identify that ePortfolios must also maintain the credibility of the learning artifacts, especially assessment artifacts that are used as evidence by the learner for demonstrating a particular competency. These assessment artifacts are vulnerable to modification or alteration during transfer between distributed ePortfolio systems. As a result, we propose the use of certified assessment artifacts to detect these vulnerabilities. We also present a distributed architecture for a virtual learning environment that incorporates the sharing of certified assessment artifacts between a learning management system, and an ePortfolio system called dotFOLIO that we are currently developing.

Citation: Nicholas L. Carroll and Rafael A. Calvo. “Certified Assessment Artifacts for ePortfolios”. To be published in, Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Technology and Applications (ICITA’05), July 2005, IEEE Computer Society.

dotFOLIO is an ePortfolio system that I am developing as part of my PhD.

An ePortfolio is synonymous to an artist’s portfolio, in which an artist will construct a collection of their works that best conveys their style, skills and talent. In much the same way, an ePortfolio is a collection of evidence that demonstrates a learner’s skills and competencies.

dotFOLIO will soon be released as open source software, and will be made available as an OpenACS application.