Abstract:

In recent years, an increasing number of universities and even junior and senior high schools have begun introducing e-portfolio systems. E-portfolio-based learning is based on the concept of students engaging in learning autonomously. Specifically, students perform an e-portfolio activity, such as setting learning goals, submitting learning artifacts, self-assessment, or peer-assessment. However, in many cases the students’ motivation is limited to simply accumulating their e-portfolio. As a result, the independence of students is lost and the learning is considered not to have worked.

Also attracting attention recently is the use of learning analytics to analyze and utilize learning record data. The analysis results of learning analytics are of particular value in that they can be used for providing feedback when viewed by a variety of different persons (students, teachers, facilitators). As a tool for the visualization, the dashboard, which makes it easy to check information at a glance, has been attracting attention.

Our purpose with this study was to promote e-portfolio-based learning on e-portfolio systems. Specifically, to provide the analysis result of the learning record data accumulated in an e-portfolio system, we developed a dashboard that visualizes the learning status of the student and others.

Requirements of this study were to promote three essential elements of e-portfolio-based learning “reflection”, “documentation”, and “collaboration/mentoring”. These elements are further enhanced by strengthening the students’ motivation, we added the requirement to promote “motivation”. In this study, our aim is to develop a dashboard that can promote e-portfolio-based learning and satisfy the above four requirements.

Our dashboard visualized the “engagement” and the “collaboration” as a “meter” that shows the target value and the current value with respect to the scale. And the dashboard visualized the “collaborative community” in a directed graph with the nodes as learners and the edges of the directed edges as the peer-assessment relationships. The dashboard visualized these three learning status of students using learning record data accumulated in e-portfolio systems. And the dashboard was implemented as an extension of a commercial Learning Management System (LMS) called WebClass which provided the function of e-portfolio systems.

We evaluated our dashboard in order to determine its effect on e-portfolio-based learning.
The results of the practice were as follows:
(1) it increased the motivation of students and helped them engage in e-portfolio-based learning,
(2) the number of times students performed self-assessment and peer-assessment increased due to the learning status of the student oneself and other students being visualized,
(3) it enhanced the collaboration of students and promoted collaborative learning using peer-assessment due to the increased number of self- and peer-assessments,
(4) it enhanced the reflection of students and promoted reflection of the learning and deepening of the learning, and
(5) it enhanced the reflection of the students, promoted the creation of artifacts that other students could view, and improved the quality of artifacts on the basis of self- and peer-assessment.

In the near future, we will perform a more detailed evaluation of the dashboard as part of our plan to improve it.

Keywords:

Dashboard, e-portfolio-based learning, e-portfolio system, e-learning system, learning analytics, learning record data.