Involving external parties in the learner’s learning process has become even easier. With the introduction of the portal for externals, people from outside the educational institution can easily be (more) involved in learner development via their portfolio. This way, externals can easily provide feedback on specific learning activities, but also follow a learner’s progress towards their learning outcomes and goals.
Opportunities for learning and development naturally extend far beyond the walls of the educational institution. It is therefore crucial to be able to include not only learning experiences from outside the formal curricular context in a portfolio, but also the equally valuable insights of those involved from outside the institution. Learners benefit greatly from feedback from external parties such as workplace mentors, especially if they can take this feedback with them in their portfolio and thus share it with, for instance, their coach. Moreover, it makes it easy for learners to use all feedback related to a goal (competence, learning outcome) as input for a self-reflection, as all feedback received is easy to find in one place. Learners themselves can identify and invite stakeholders to (part of) their development portfolio, building on learner agency. In addition to people with a formal role, such as internship supervisors, these can be people who have an expertise or experience in the area the learner wants to develop in.
With the new portal, providing feedback and appreciating progress has become much easier for externs. Previously, it was already possible to invite externals to the portfolio (or part of it) to include their insights in the learner’s learning journey. This had been optimised for the occasional involvement of externals. With the new portal, externals can be even more easily involved in the feedback cycle. This makes it considerably easier for externals to provide regular feedback to a learner, or even be involved with multiple learners.
How Does the New Portal Work?
Once a learner has invited an external to the portfolio, the external receives an e-mail containing a link to the new portal. From there, the external confirms his e-mail address, after which a ‘magic link’ is sent to the same address. This link gives direct access to the portal (and is only valid for a short time), without the need to set up an account.
The external party then directly enters the portal where they can use all its benefits:
- Overview of all outstanding requests:
- Feedback requests;
- Progress reviews;
- Overview of all portfolios and collections to which access is available;
- Direct links to the relevant portfolios, evidence, and collections;
- Links that are received via email notifications refer directly to the right place within the learner’s portfolio.
The there’s no need for the creation of an LMS account for the external user because they do not need access to the LMS to access the shared portfolio or collection(s). Portflow administrators can always see which external parties are involved in their learners’ portfolios.