This is important for me. I know my way round the old Dashboard. But we are using Wordpress MU for our Freefolio e-portfolio application. Not only do I worry at the barrier the dashboard design offers to new users, but in focusing on navigating the Dashboard users may be distracted from the primary use of the sofware - to develop their portfolios. It would appear that an update to Wordpress MU to incorporate the new features of the Wordpress single user version is planned int he near future. This is good news for us.

I have had a number of interesting discussions about this issue recently - with Jenny Hughes, Cristina Costa and Mark van Harmelen. Jenny (who loves working with words) talked about the difference between presenting knowledge and representing knowledge. I think this is a valuable distinction. An e-Portfolo is a` place for reflection, for  recognising learning and presneting that learning. A PLE may be seen as a tool (or set of tools) for not only presenting learning  but for also (individually or collectively) developing a representation of wider knowledge sets (ontologies?).

Of course it could be possible to develop a tool set which supports both tasks. But there are different sets of tools involved in those different prcesses and in the interests of si8mplicity and usability it may be better to develop environments which allow flexible access to such different tools or tool sets for different purposes.

Why am i wrestling with such obscure ideas? Pontydysgu is a partner in the EU funded Mature project. Part of our tasks is to research the ’state of the art’ on these issues and to develop and test PLEs as a process for developing and sharing knowledge. Its going to be interesting.

There seems to be quite a bit of interest in Freefolio, the Wordpress based Social e-portfolio we have been developing together with our partners Raycom.

We have put together a roadmap for further development over the next six or so months. If you have ideas for what else should be on the roadmapo please do get in touch. And if you would like to join the development effort that would be most welcome. We are aware that we have slipped in our target of releasing an installable but we have not forgotten.

1. Developing a repository

Integrate a proper (standards based) lightweight document repository for uploading, storing and accessing different digital artefacts (e.g. documents, etc.).

The repository will allow users to store different objects, including text, audio, photographs and video, to access and annotate those objects and to report on their wok in different presentation formats.

Users will be able to share access to their work with those they choose.

The repository will conform to technical standards and will allow users to copy their work to portable media, if they wish. This will facilitate interoperability with other portfolios and learning applications.

For instance if a leaner progresses to university they will be able to transfer their work including multimedia objects.

2. Reporting views, building blocks

Develop a system module for allowing users to present achievements - should be flexible and allow multiple ‘views’. The module will provide templates to allow users to easily present different views of their work for different purposes, for instance for supporting job applications, for applications for further courses or as part of their curriculum activities. The templates will provide structures to assist learners in developing their presentations. Users will be able to choose different objects form the portfolio to form part of the presentations.

Different presentations can be stored within the portfolio or exported to portable media.

Once more users will be able to control with whom they share their presentations.

3. Improvements to profile

Develop system to allow administrator control of profile template.

Also examine feasibility of making links between different people with same interests/goals in the user profile.

The development of the profile template will make it easy for administrators to customise the template for different installations of the portfolio. The ab9lity to automatically link people with similar interests of similar learning goals will facilitate peer group learning and the development of groupwork. The system will allow learners to find materials and posts relevant to their personal and learning interests of their learning.

4. Improvements to the Personal Development Profile (PDP)

Develop reusable template for PDP process. Allow reviewing and reporting on progress towards goals. Allow view of goals and progress over time.

The further development of the Personal Development Profile will allow users to easily view their progress over time, to reflect on that progress and to develop a record. This will assist in developing learners’ abilities for planning and evaluation.

5. Improve groups functionality

Make it easier to form on the fly groups for sharing and collective activities. his will make it possible to develop working areas for different groups of learners, for instance for undertaking shared projects. Work undertaken in groups may be used as part of the presentations as in 2 above.

5. Styling, choice of styles

Allow users choice of style/design.

Research has shown the importance to learners of being able to give their portfolios their own look and feel. We will develop a number of different styles for users to choose from and will facilitate those who are able in developing their own styles.

6. Scaling

Further develop administrative systems to allow easier install and scaling for multiple group use.
Develop an installable version of Freefolio which may in future be installed on clients systems if they wish.

But the possibilities are very considerable. It is not so difficult to write the templates (having said that, I did not code them myself) - they are small XML files. It would not be impossible to develop a custom editor to write the templates. And the XML leaves intriguing possibilities. We have got one somewhere for a book review - will tery to get this one on the demo site - which, when you put the title in - hits the Amazon databases and auto fills the ISBN number, the date of publication etc. and even provides a thumbnail of the cover. OK, nice but gimmicy.

But imagine if we were to be able to hit a database of competences. Users would not be constrained in what they would add to their portfolio but by simple keywords could indicate what competences their learning contributed towards and with a bit more coding we coudl develop a custom report of that learning towards a formal qualification - wherever the learning took place.

Still easier, might be to develop an organisational knowldge base, based on the XML entries in individual blogs.

Non trivial but doable. If anyone has ideas of a little funding to help us do this I would be very grateful, equally does anyone want to join us in working on this?

Some people seem best with text, some with diagrammes. Me, I am a text person. I find it hard to understand the graphic representations. But, when I was working on a progress report on the development of Freefolio, I did adapt (or repurpose) an activity diagramme (originally produced by George Roberts for the Emerge project) to show the ideas behind Freefolio. If you are a visual kind of person, this may make sense to you.

So I jumped at the chance to develop and test an e-Portfolio system. This is the result - Freefolio. The development work has been undertaken by my friend Ray Elferink from Raycom in partnership with Pontydysgu.

Why didn’t we work with an existing system? We thought very hard about it. It seemed that many of the dedicated e-Portfolio systems were too restrictive. They started from an institutional definitions of what learning would be represents through the e-Portfolio. Others - like Mahara - seemed geared towards particular sectors in education. On the other hand many people were using blogging and social networking systems for e-Portfolio development. that was nearer my idea. However, we were concerned that the basic structure of a blog entry did not provide another support for reflecting on learning.

And so we came up with Freefolio. Freefolio is based on Wordpress. Within this we have implemented structured blogging, allowing XML templates to be added to the dashboard for particular kinds of post.

The system also features:

a) A space of aggregating community posts - ‘Community Central’
b) An integrated discussion forum
c) A resource area - based on integration of media wiki
d) A learner profile area
e) Learner based access controls
f) User based sidebars through widgets
g) A standards compliant (Europass) CV with different formats for export

There is more work to do - isn’t there always - and we know this version may not support everything you want of an e-Portfolio. But it is Open Source and easily extendable.

Want to have a look? Go to http://demo.freefolio.net and set yourself up with an account (don’t worry if you get a rather strange name on the from field on the confirmation email - we will sort that as soon as Ray gets access to the server).

I have tried to populate the site with a little content. Please add some of your own. And tell us what you think.

We are planning to host Freefolio installations in the future for organisations who want this. And of course, we can build new features and customised versions.

But, if you want to install Freefolio yourself, we will be releasing the code in the very near future. And we will be developing a web site around the demo install. I will write more about Freefolio over the coming days. But now is the time to put it out, I think. Release often, they say.

Technorati Tags: e-portfolios, Open source, social software