Project News
September 2007
The project team have received favourable feedback on the demonstration module (see Key Documents). Work is now in progress to arrange for this to be piloted in schools in Nottinghamshrie and the City of Nottingham.
September 2007
Angela Smallwood and Sandra Kingston from the project team will be presenting at the EIfEL ePortfolio conference in Maastricht in October 2007.
September 2007
The first scenario developed by the project team in association with colleagues from Becta is published on the Key Documents page of this site. Others will follow shortly. These are versions for consultation: please send your comments and additions to eportfolio-admin@nottingham.ac.uk. We will publish updated versions on this site as they appear.
August 2007
Members of the project team held meetings with the Nottingham Learning Gateway, who are developing a system to support delivery of the 14-19 Diplomas in Nottingham.
July 2007
The project manager gave an update on the project to the Leap-AHEAD Operational Management Group.
July 2007
The project was involved in a consultation event for LLNs working in the area of ePortfolio. See Key Documents for the team's presentation, which also covers work for the Leap-AHEAD LLN.
July 2007
The project held a joint briefing meeting with the JISC-funded eAPEL project team based at the University of Derby to discuss synergies and opportunities for joint work between our two projects.
June 2007
The Centre Advisory Board, which has oversight of this project, met at the University of Nottingham.
June 2007
The project's interim report (see Key Documents) has been accepted by the JISC programme manager.
May 2007
The project team met staff from the HEA Engineering Subject Centre and the Engineering CETL at the University of Loughborough.
May 2007
The project manager was invited to speak to an ePortfolio meeting for DeL projects managed by the HEA to brief them on changing pre-HE practice and its implications (see Key Documents for slides from the presentation).
May 2007
The project team attended a Progression Pathways event held by AimHigher at emda, the regional development agency.
May 2007
Scenario-building workshop with Terri Kinnison from Becta, looking at a level 2 learner moving on to study the Diploma at level 3. The draft document will be published on this site for comment.
April 2007
The project developer has built an initial prototype module using the 'look and feel' of the Passportfolio system (see Key Documents for the weblink). This will be developed further following consultation with IAG professionals and 14-19 practitioners.
April 2007
Meeting with Passportfolio staff to discuss progress of Passportfolio development and piloting progress now that the system has been migrated to the Connexions server, and ways of introducing the system into FE colleges. Connexions staff are also overseeing development of the Nottinghamshire 14-19 online prospectus, which will also sit on the Connexions server. They have agreed to set up a meeting for the project developer with the contractors building the system to facilitate continuity of approach and resources.
April 2007
The project developer has set up an Eduspaces community area for the project.
April 2007
Meeting with staff from Nottingham City responsible for oversight and co-ordination of delivery of the Diploma.
The City of Nottingham has been successful in its bid for Gateway funding and plans to deliver a preliminary vocational pathway in all 5 lines of Diploma learning from September 2007 using existing pathways and the Nottinghamshire Diploma in preparation for piloting the Diploma itself from September 2008.
April 2007
The project manager attended a session by Simon Day from the DfES on the level 3 Diploma at the CRAC conference at the University of Warwick.
March 2007
Mark Power from CETIS visited the project to discuss technical issues arising from the work and how CETIS can offer support.
March 2007
Scenario-building workshop with IAG staff at Castle College. The resulting document will be published on this site for comment.
March 2007
The project manager and colleagues from CETIS and Becta met staff at Edexcel responsible for developing the Engineering Diploma. This has led to useful insights about the structure of what awarding bodies will be offering and expecting of learners.
March 2007
Meeting with Connexions and Passportfolio technical staff. Connexions have agreed to offer a desk and access to their systems to the project's developer once the Passportfolio system has been transferred to the Connexions server from the Atomic development server. This will allow us to build services which connect directly to Passportfolio in the first instance; we will then look at how these might become generic. For some of our pilot learners it will be important to maintain the 'look and feel' of Passportfolio even though any system we develop will be separate. Connexions have agreed to let us house work developed for the project on their servers, which will facilitate learner access to it across institutions.
March 2007
The project manager and project developer met staff from AimHigher Nottinghamshire, who are developing a progression pathways site for Engineering in Nottingham. This has been designed to link directly to Passportfolio and we may be able to incorporate it into the project. Agreed to meet again later in the year once the AimHigher site has been developed further and the scope of what we will build for this project is clearer.
February 2007
Scenario-building workshop with Connexions IAG staff. The draft scenario will be published on this site for comment.
February 2007
The project manager and developer met LearnDirect staff at Worksop to discuss their existing online provision for learners.
January 2007
The project director and project manager met IAG staff at Castle College to discuss IAG provision for college students and how electronic resources might be used to support them. Agreed to set up a workshop session to write a scenario for the project.
January 2007
The project manager was invited to write a short briefing for D-Lib magazine. See Key Documents page for link to the published article.
December 2006
Project plan submitted to JISC.
December 2006
The project team held a briefing meeting with senior staff at Top Valley School and Engineering College, including scoping out how project work might be piloted with learners from the school. The University of Nottingham (via this project) has been included in the Nottingham City Council bid for Becta funding to deliver the Diploma under the Gateway process.
December 2006
The project team held a meeting with key staff at Connexions to discuss the scope of the project and how it will fit in with plans for implementing Passportfolio in Nottinghamshire.
November 2006
The project director and project manager held a briefing meeting with Engineering staff at Castle College, where they discussed the college's plans for ePortfolio and the Diploma. A further meeting with college IAG staff is to be arranged.
November 2006
The project manager attended the Assessment Tomorrow conference in London, which included sessions on the proposed Qualifications and Curriculum Framework and a briefing on the 14-19 Diploma.
November 2006
The project manager and developer represented the project at the programme start-up meeting at Aston Business School. See Key Documents for the project's briefing presentation.
