Improving Education Through The Use of E-portfolios
The Education Development Trust (EDT) engaged Axia Digital to develop an E-portfolio with the aim of allowing their clients to build a body of evidence to demonstrate organisational capability in relation to the national Quality In Careers Standard. We delivered the site on time and within budget in January 2023 for the initial cohort.
Learner application dashboard
Managing Director, Richard Etheridge, commented:
“The key difference in this project is that it’s the school or college working towards the Quality Standard rather than an individual. Most of our e-portfolios allow individuals to build a portfolio of evidence to demonstrate capability. We have developed some new tools that allow the school or college to start an application and then add collaborators thus allowing a team rather than an individual to build and link the evidence to the Standard within our e-portfolio platform”.
About The Quality in Careers Standard
The Standard is the single national quality award for careers education and guidance in secondary schools and colleges in England. It is “strongly recommended” by the Department for Education in its Statutory Guidance to schools and colleges on their careers duty. It is owned by the Quality in Careers Consortium, which has appointed a number of Licensed Awarding Bodies across the country to assess, accredit and award the Standard. One of those Awarding Bodies is EDT.
How it Works
Setting Up:
The administrator for the school or college which is working towards the Quality Standard (referred to as the applicant organisation) creates an account on the e-portfolio website. As part of this initial step, we electronically gather all the required information and both EDT and the applicant organisation agree and sign the contract.
Once the contract is finalised, the applicant organisation’s admin can invite other members of their team to collaborate on the application. An email is sent to the collaborator who is being invited, with a link that allows them to either log in with an existing account or create a new account. Once logged in, they are able view the application that they were invited to contribute towards. The system tracks creators of evidence, enabling individual contributions to be easily identified.
The Dashboard:
At the heart of the E-portfolio is the Dashboard. Progress is calculated using both the predicted end date and the Standard, and is shown visually. This makes it easy for users to see how they are advancing.
EDT’s approach to the delivery of the Quality in Careers Standard has been broken down into three stages: Intent, Implementation and Impact. Each section can be submitted for assessment once fully evidenced. Once submitted, it will be sent to the assigned EDT Consultant who will verify whether it is ready for Quality in Careers assessment. Stages on the dashboard can be expended to show assessment criteria and supporting evidence.
All evidence forms have been designed to allow for a holistic approach. New evidence can be linked to any assessment criteria within the whole framework. For example, a piece of evidence created for the Intent stage could also support Implementation and or Impact assessment criteria.
Assessors and Consultants:
EDT Consultants support a school or college as it progresses through the Quality in Careers accreditation process. Consultants have complete access to the application while gathering evidence. They also form an integral part of the assessment process, reviewing each stage before they are sent to an EDT Assessor for an external summative assessment. Assessors and Consultants see a list of assigned applications when they log in. Clicking on the application allows them to access the Dashboard and view any linked evidence.
A tracking system captures the workflow of all decisions made by Assessors and Consultants. Reaccreditation is required three years after the school or college achieves the national Standard. This process occurs within the site, utilising the same tools as the original application. Schools or colleges can begin building evidence during the accreditation period.
The Customer’s Perspective
One of the challenges EDT has had while using a paper-based system is demonstrating the time and commitment of EDT Consultants and the value they add to the process. Axia Digital added a section that allows Consultants to record their hours, ensuring that their level of involvement is transparent. When completing the external summative assessment, EDT Assessors are able to bookmark evidence while reviewing the e-portfolio. This allows bookmarked items to be drawn into the final report automatically, significantly saving time.
EDT Operations Manager, Renu Jaswal, said:
“Working with Richard and his team has been nothing but excellent, they understood our needs perfectly and when certain things didn’t work or could be improved, they came up with suggestions which really supported and navigated us through the whole process. I would recommend using Axia in the future to any organisations thinking about moving to an e-portfolio as for us, they understood the Quality in Careers Standard perfectly which in turn made the process a lot more less daunting for us.”
More About E-portfolios
If you’re interested in learning more about the benefits of e-portfolios, contact us today.