E-Portfolios for Internationally Educated Professionals and Other Skilled immigrants in Canada

Mauricio Rivera-Quijano and Karol Adamowicz

http://adeta.org/userfiles/File/newsletters/2005/lr_distance_fall_05.pdf

Alberta Distance Education and Training Association Page 16

 

Mauricio Rivera-Quijano is a Digital Resources Consultant in the Learning Technologies Branch, Alberta Education- Karol Adamowicz is Research Coordinator for the Edmonton Mennonite Centre for Newcomers On July 22nd, 2005 The Learning Innovation Forum (LIFIA) issued a statement announcing the launching of “a project to research and develop strategy for an ePortfolio for skilled immigrants in Canada.” The Edmonton Mennonite Centre for Newcomers,

along with Learning Agents from Manitoba, and FuturEd Inc. from B.C. partnered with Lifia in this HRSDC-funded project, and it is anticipated that others will become “strategic partners” as the project unfolds. In the initial phases, potential stakeholders will be identified and contacted– and, in fact, environmental scans will be conducted to gather information about the potentials and visions for the uses of e-portfolios.

 

Why e-Portfolio?

 

Skilled immigrants are having more and more difficulty in accessing meaningful employment and re-establishing professional careers in Canada, despite the fact that there is an ever-increasing need for their services.

 

The obstacles faced by these immigrants are most often not so much rooted in language issues as in the lack of clarity and understanding surrounding foreign credentials. Employers need to know exactly what qualifications immigrant workers have, and the immigrants themselves need to know how their education and professional practice differs from that accepted in the Canadian system. They also need to learn about Canadian workplace practices and how to effectively access the labour market.

Career Development services have undergone some major transformations over the last couple of decades but have not been able to adequately address the issues of skilled immigrants. The eportfolio, however, gives every indication of providing career developers with the type of method and tool that they need to help immigrants break through the credentialist barriers that exist in the labour market.

 

The “reflective component” or learning aspect of portfolio building could encompass

much of the prior learning assessment (PLA or PLAR) work currently being done by career counsellors while the electronic or digital “product” – the collection of artifacts like transcripts of marks, diplomas, and other documentary evidence of learning and work – could be used to market the individual seeking employment.

 

Essentially, what LIFIA, EMCN and their partners are proposing is that the Career

Development field, and employers, should look to the “digital world” for solutions to

the issues surrounding labour market and societal integration of skilled immigrants.

The e-portfolio, as one of the latest manifestations in the ever-expanding “e” world, appears to be the answer.

 

E-Portfolio: Modernizing and digitizing the portfolio concept

 

The information management sector is currently recreating itself in an “e” environment where the external identifying features – or “identities” – of individuals and/or activities can be preserved, manipulated and studied. The highly personalized e-portfolio is a perfect example of a process in this “e”, or digital, realm.

 

The resulting product, managed by its creator, is considered to be a “personal collection” of data and artifacts gathered for a number of eminently pragmatic purposes including the promotion of oneself. Individuals are able to highlight their accomplishments and assets through “living” projects supplemented by descriptive text, graphics, and multimedia.

 

The flexibility afforded by digital media allows collections to range broadly in their focus, format and content. Another, perhaps more important aspect of this is that individuals are able to engage in a “reflective process” in which their collections of artifacts can be analyzed and studied to detect patterns that might provide useful insights during career planning activities. The collection process becomes a project that arranges past and current works so as to showcase accomplishments and skills in ways that could never be accomplished with a traditional resume.

 

Areas of interest that are typically included in e-portfolios are:

• Personal Information
  
• Traces of projects
  
• Work Experience (this part is close to the typical résumé)
  
• Community involvement
  
• Family and personal elements
  
• Hobbies and other kinds of activities (eg. sports).
  

 

These categories can be expanded upon, highlighted, or excluded, depending on the focus of the e-portfolio.

 

To create an e-portfolio, one would typically use HTML editors that are commonly included in basic software packages, such as Dreamweaver or MS FrontPage. The resultant e-portfolio can be saved in these applications and published on the Internet.

 

There are also templates available from providers who host the products on their servers and make them available on the Internet. These applications allow an individual to create and alter the e-portfolio in an easy to use interface that most often does not require knowledge of HTML.

 

In the field of Education, e-portfolios are currently being developed as a means of managing learning programs and highlighting the transferable skills of professionals and student teachers. Individuals are encouraged to create “living” profiles which are then placed on the Internet or on CDROMs.

 

These personal files are easily accessible for any needed adjustments or improvements. Also, users may create different versions of their e-portfolios tailored to a variety of intended viewers.

 

All of this makes the e-portfolio a particularly useful, and powerful, tool in personal promotion and ideal for breaking through the credentialist barriers encountered by many internationally educated professionals and skilled workers struggling to re-establish their careers after immigration to Canada.