Enabling Professional Development with E-Portfolios: Creating a Space for the Private and Public Self

Assessing Learning Through Portfolios In Higher Education

In the UK, stimulated by national policies (Dearing Report, 1997; HEFCE, 2003; Browne Report, 2010), the pressure on academic staff to be able to demonstrate continuing professional development in teaching has grown. Becher (1996) had shown that academic staff recognised a range of development activities, such as courses and networking. However, demonstrating how any new knowledge gained from these engagements has informed practice has always been problematic (Gibbs & Coffey, 2004). The portfolio, already used in a range of other professions to demonstrate the maintenance and development of learning (Stefani, n. d.), has increasingly been turned to in efforts to resolve this difficulty. The rationale for using portfolios for assessment of academic practice has been encouraged by the recent framework of national professional standards that the UK’s Higher Education Academy (HEA, 2006) has developed. For teaching practitioners in the UK, the HEA has been the body that accredits teaching and their focus has increasingly been on methods to demonstrate continuing professional development following the format used by a range of professional accreditation organisations.