DiKuLe: Planning and decision making guide for portfolios

Episode Transcript
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Kristina Hoeppner (00:05):
Welcome to 'Create. Share. Engage.' This is
the podcast about portfolios forlearning and more for educators,
learning designers, and managerskeen on integrating portfolios
with their education andprofessional development
practices. 'Create. Share.
Engage.' is brought to you bythe Mahara team at Catalyst IT.

(00:27):
My name is Kristina Hoeppner.
Today I have the pleasure ofspeaking with four staff of the
Otto-Friedrich-UniversitätBamberg, that is the University
of Bamberg in Bavaria inGermany. Cordula Schwiderski,
Hannah Brodel, MartinaOsterrieder, and Dr Martin

(00:48):
Sticht came together as part ofthe project DiKuLe, which is
'Digitale Kulturen der Lehreentwicklen' that means they are
developing digital cultures inacademic teaching. That project
focuses on the digitalinnovation in learning and
teaching. That project is fundedby the Stiftung Innovation in

(01:09):
der Hochschullehre, theFoundation Innovation in Higher
Education until the end of 2025.
In today's interview, we aregoing to focus primarily on how
an institution can supportlecturers in their portfolio
practice. Before we go into thedetails of that, I would like to
know more about you yourselves,what you do at the university.

(01:33):
Martina, do you want to getstarted?

Martina Osterrieder (01:35):
Thank you for the invitation, Kristina.
We're glad to be here. I'm aresearch assistant at the
Institute of EducationalSciences at the University of
Bamberg. I'm working on theDiKuLe project. My focus in the
project is on the didacticalsupport for ePortfolio work.

Thank you.
Let's continue with Hannahplease.

Hannah Brodel (02:00):
Hi. I'm a part of the Centre for University
Teaching at the University ofBamberg. We support the faculty
in developing and enhancingtheir teaching skills through
professional development,consultation, and innovation in
higher education. And I'm alsopart of the DiKuLe project, and
I offer all those services tothe DiKuLe participants.

Thank you.
Cordola, can you please tell usabout yourself and what do you
do in the project team?

Cordula Schwiderski (02:27):
I'm a part of the eFolio team, so it's like
being a part of the DiKuLeproject. I've been working in
the field of eLearning since2005. Since September last year,
I've built up a departmentcalled Service Point for Media
Didactics. We support lecturersto implement and improve

(02:47):
digitally supported teaching,for example, with the use of
Moodle and Mahara.

Wonderful.
Thank you and congratulations onhaving set up that new service
at your university. Martin, thelast one in our round today.
What do you do?

Martin Sticht (03:03):
I'm research assistant at the Chair for
Computer Science for MediaInformatics, and I also work on
the DiKuLe project. In theproject, I'm in charge of
technical e portfolio relatedissues.

Thank you so much. So we have the pedagogy in
here, the academics. We alsohave support staff on the
organisational side, on theimplementation side, and then,
not to forget the technician, soreally well rounded portfolio
implementation crew. How wereyou introduced to portfolios,
especially looking at the variedbackgrounds that you have?

(03:38):
Hannah?

I learned about portfolios in the context of the
project DiKuLe, and I designedand conducted a workshop
together with Cordula on topicssuch as reflection in the
writing process. And alongsideforms of learning diaries and
learning journals, we think thatportfolios are a big part of
this, and therefore we'retalking a lot about ePortfolios
to just bring the digital sideinto it as well.

You've been using portfolios then since
2021, the start of your project,right?

Yes, exactly. And I love them ever since. I think
they're quite complex, but verymany different things you can do
with them.

Since you've mentioned Cordula just now,
let's continue with you.

My partner studied writing counselling and
had to make a portfolio. Shetold me and showed me what she
had to do. That was 2006 andafter that, we read a lot about
working with portfolios andexchanged our ideas at
conferences on academic andcreative writing and at the
Moodle and Mahara Moots inGermany.

Awesome. So you have a 19-year history to
look back at portfolios, on andoff, right?

Yeah, on and off.

Martin, what about you?

Actually, I got to know portfolios when starting
in the DiKuLe project. I didn'tknow them before.

Thank you.
And Martina, last but not least.

I came across portfolio work from the
student's viewpoint duringproject-based lessons at school
when I was a pupil. Then I beganto explore it from a different
angle in my educational sciencestudies at university, there I
have a teacher trainingbackground. And then I was very
happy to meet portfolios againin the DiKuLe project.

Martina, you mentioned that you've gone
through teacher training. Was itthen a required part to keep a
portfolio as part of yourstudies and practical work?

No, at that point of time, it was not
required to work withportfolios. But that has changed
now.

Let's take a closer look at the project that
you've already mentioned quite abit, DiKuLe.

The focus is to bring the digitalisation into
the university in every matterof teaching. So the focus is on
teaching, and that is what westarted to do within the
project. It aims to promoteinnovation in university
teaching in connection withdigitalisation in a bundled and
centralised and veryinterdisciplinary manner, on
several levels simultaneously,in a transfer oriented and

(06:07):
sustainable manner at theUniversity of Bamberg.
We're in the last stages, youcould say, so we're in the
transfer-oriented phase rightnow. EPortfolios are a big part
of this project as well. So wehave different parts of the
project, and one of them isworking with ePortfolios. We
developed the eFolio team. Sothat's the name we gave the
ePortfolio system here at theUniversity of Bamberg. We think

(06:30):
that they're to be used sensiblyas an alternative examination
format and teaching tool invarious scenarios. Their use is
to be trialed and evaluated byway of example.
Especially due to recentchallenges in the university
landscape, we require new andflexible concepts of teaching
and also assessment. That isalso very important. Therefore,

(06:51):
ePortfolios do have a big role.
We're seeing e portfolios as aform of reaction to those
challenges, namely the expansionof AI at the moment in different
fields of science and alsoteaching. We think especially
also interdisciplinary workplays a big role in there, and
we think that we can buildbridges between science and the
professional world by usingePortfolios.

(07:13):
We have different ways oftesting and assessment that
we're trying to work with. Wehave different digital rooms
that different faculties areusing, and the fun and also
interesting and also maybechallenging, part about DiKuLe
is many different disciplinesmeans different ways of working
with each other, and we reallydid a good job at bringing
everyone together. And there aremany different ways we're now

(07:34):
working together.
The eFolio team is one of thebest examples of that because
we're from very differentfields, and we just all started
to work on this topic, and thenit became more and more, and
we're now even working withother universities and focusing
on the exchange and the transferof our knowledge and their
knowledge, and bringing all ofthat together.

Kristina Hoeppn (07:56):
Congratulations are also in order because your
project is going to run out atthe end of 2025, but you've been
able to secure more projectfunding for a new project that
is going to start a short timebefore that already.

That is true.
Yes, we're definitely embarkingon a new journey at the
University of Bamberg, alsoincluding everything that we've
learned in the last four years.
And we're starting with aproject called BaKuLe.

Which everyone can guess, stands for
Bamberg Kulturen der Lehre[entwickeln].

Yes, exactly.
We're definitely focusing on thecultural part and the
interdisciplinary work, which isgoing to be even more important
in the future.

Martina, as part of your project, your team
has created a planning anddecision making guide for use of
ePortfolios in academicteaching. Can you give us a
little bit of background on thatplease because that looks to be
a very big component where a lotof research and also questioning

(08:58):
of your academic teaching staffwent into in order to come up
with it.

We designed the planning and decision making
guide for lecturers, whetherthey have a background in
didactics or not. It aims tosupport the entire planning
process of courses involvingePortfolios. A key goal for us
was to encourage educators toalign their objectives, methods,

(09:27):
and assessment forms, and wewanted to make it easy for
lecturers to find a concept thatworks for them, step by step.

With how many lecturers have you already
trialled your guide?

Martin and me, and sometimes also with the
support of Hannah and Cordula,we have introductory courses,
and we hand them out. Everyonethat is interested gets this
planning and decision makingguide and can work with it.
There is a great number ofpeople who already have this
planning and decision makingguide. It is a bit difficult to

(10:02):
say how many people haveactually used it because it can
be used on its own. So that'show it has been designed, that
people can use it on their own.

Which is really nice because then you
don't just make it as part of aworkshop, but people can also
spend more time exploringcertain areas that they might
not have looked into just yet.

Exactly. So it's possible to make it part of
a workshop, but it does not haveto be. We all know that
lecturers usually don't have alot of time so they can decide
on their own what they need, andwe hope that it is structured
well.
The guide has three mainsections. Lecturers start

(10:46):
planning their course usingguiding questions framed in the
first person to simplify thingsfor less experienced teachers.
The questions are organisedaccording to learning
objectives, assessment forms,and methods for constructive
alignment. Throughout thisprocess as the concept is
developed, lecturers getpractical recommendations. One

(11:07):
important point was to allowthem to also skip ePortfolio
systems if they don't fit theircourse.
If they choose to use ePortfoliosystems, the guide provides
support to navigate furtherthrough planning by addressing
questions about assessment andmethods that help determine how
to structure the portfolio. Thatway, lecturers can
systematically plan their coursewith ePortfolios by answering

(11:30):
questions step by step, like,what kind of portfolio are we
using? What content do we expectfrom participants? Is there any
interim feedback, and if so, whogives it? How often? What types
of multimedia content work forwhat purposes? In short, this
diagram ties together thetechnical and the didactic

(11:54):
aspects necessary forsuccessfully planning,
preparing, and implementingportfolio work in academic
courses.
It didn't came up on its own. Wewere building on what was

We also wanted to establish a link to the
already there. The strength thatwe see in this diagram is that
it ties things together. Therewere a lot of very good
checklists that other peopledesigned, and we were reading
it, and they were good, but wewere seeing some blanks, and we
were trying to fill the blank inlinking things. We hope that

(12:24):
others are also building on thatand also work with that to make
it better in the end.
technical issue which hasn'tbeen there in the other material
we have seen. The lecturersshould also get an idea of what
the portfolio software can beused for, and then they should

(12:45):
check for themselves whether itis suitable for the course or if
maybe a PDF suffices in which wewould not recommend to use the
software.

Do you then also provide additional
information for some of thosequestions? So for example, you
mentioned, what type ofportfolios do you want to use.
Do you then also have kind oflike an asterisk at the end of
it where you can then say,'Okay, now jump here and you can
read up on a few of those.' Orare you going to link to some
other projects, like ProjektDreiklang from OTH

(13:17):
Amberg-Weiden, who are alsocreating a lot of resources
around portfolio use?

We collect different resources and
instruction material on our socalled Virtual Campus. It's a
Moodle platform at ouruniversity. There we gather this
kind of information and also putlinks to other projects like
Dreiklang. We are connected withother experts from different
universities in Germany where weare in contact and discuss

(13:46):
regularly these issues.

For anybody who does want to adopt the
planning guide and decisionmaking guide to their own
institution, it has beenpublished under a Creative
Commons By Attribution - ShareAlike license. Hannah, what sort
of feedback have you receivedfrom your colleagues?

We've received quite a lot of positive feedback
so far. Okay, we said overall,it can also be said that it is a
very detailed and verycomprehensive guide. The reasons
why we created this guide wasthat we wanted to bring two
sides together, and therefore itis the technical and the
instructional components, andtherefore it is very complex,
and that is also something wedid receive as a feedback.

(14:29):
However, Martin also mentionedthat we wanted to show the
technical opportunities you get,and that is something we've
heard a lot from lecturers thatthey weren't aware of all the
different little things you cando, the creative parts that can
actually be implemented into adigital portfolio. I think that
is what we wanted to combine,and that is also what we

(14:50):
received.
The first look at the littlemap, so to speak, is always,
'Whoa. This is a lot,' but thenthe next thing they say is, 'Oh,
okay. So if I ask myself thisquestion, I get this idea, and
then I can also take a look atwhat is actually possible.' That
is the feedback that we'vereceived. We've already
presented the diagram severaltimes during conferences in

(15:11):
front of colleagues Germany orBavarian wide, and the most
common feedback is that peoplewould like to use it. I think
that is a good starting point.
We've also learned that thereare many spaces in between that
we need to focus on a littlemore. So there are in between
ways etc., and with MargareteImhoff, we also decided to go
one step further and do aworkshop at the DiKuLe Symposium

(15:34):
at the beginning of April.
There, we talked about safespaces, about bridges that you
can use the portfolio for andalso maybe door opener. So we
were very metaphorically tryingto discover what we can actually
do with ePortfolios when wethink of bringing students a
device or tool that can actuallyhelp them combine the practical

(15:54):
experiences they have while alsothinking about their academic
work and also combining it withwhatever thoughts might also
occur in that field they'reactually discovering.

Have you also received some new insight that
might influence your continuingwith portfolios?

We had lively discussions. We had three
groups, 30 participants, so wedid have a lot to talk about,
and we focused on problems thateveryone came across while
working with ePortfolios, butalso looked at solutions.

The workshop was with ePortfolio
experts and with universityteachers, so people who have
either a lot of experience inuniversity teaching or in
ePortfolio work. We were usingdesign thinking as a method, and
the idea was to find innovativestrategies to the problems
everyone knows. Those innovativeideas might also have systemic

(16:49):
consequences if they wereimplemented. So we were also
glad to see those innovativeideas popping up. There are a
lot of ideas, if you put such alot of experts in one room, and
I would say it was a veryfruitful discussion. It was a
very fruitful brainstormingsession, and we were also very
happy to share, in the end, allthose ideas with the community.

(17:12):
The ideas can shine back touniversity teaching. This would
be something really great tobring university teaching
further, in a sense thatreflection can get deeper
because that's what we tackledwith our workshop.

I could imagine that with Margarete in
the workshop, that also thequestion about feedback came up
and was highly discussed and howfeedback culture can be
developed more, which then wouldalso support the reflection that
students can do on theirportfolios.
Martina, coming back to theguide, once you've introduced it

(17:48):
to your teaching staff, and theyhave been working with it, have
you seen a change in themcreating portfolio activities or
also in improving theirportfolio practice?

We haven't studied this scientifically
[laughs], but at least we gotfeedback. That said, we can
hypothesise that teachers mightfeel more confident working with
ePortfolios having this guide athand, If they have clear
instructions for gettingstarted, the barrier of getting
started might be lowered. Ourgoal was to lower the barriers

(18:26):
to begin ePortfolio work andhelping instructors understand
what a portfolio really is, alsohelping them not just focusing
on the technical parts or on thedidactical parts, but having it
all in one right from the start.
The barriers are lower. That'swhat our feeling is, but as I
said, we haven't studied itscientifically.

We need to make a start somewhere, and so
even just having that anecdotalfeedback is very helpful and
also shows that that supportthat you're providing is
incredibly important and usefulfor teaching staff to become
more comfortable with the ideaof creating portfolios, using
portfolios in their lessons.
Hannah, you're not promoting oneparticular type of portfolio in

(19:14):
your guide, but you leave theoptions open for your
instructors to decide. What typeof portfolios are then typically
created at your university?

I would say both process and product portfolios
are produced at the Universityof Bamberg. The concepts vary
depending on the subject areaand the learning objectives. The
students use Mahara in teachereducation, in computer science,
in communication science,psychology, and language
acquisition. So quite manydifferent fields. Therefore,
what we're doing right now,especially Martina and Martin,

(19:47):
is we're trying to focus on thedifferences as well. We're
trying to help those specificneeds of the different lecturers
to really be able to help allthose different objectives and
wants in the process.

What are some of those other resources or
service offerings that you offerto your campus community,
Martin?

First of all, we offer introductory workshops for
students and lecturers, asMartina already mentioned. We do
this separately to target theirspecific needs. We also created
an exemplary ePortfolio oncooking. Cooking is a general
topic everyone can relate to. Wealso maintain a course in our
Moodle system where we providematerial on technical and

(20:30):
didactic application fields. Ouruniversity also has a Centre for
Higher Education where lecturerslearn about different reflective
forms for learning, which alsoinclude portfolios.

Martina, is there anything that you
personally or you as a team,feel like portfolios are not yet
giving you and what you'd liketo be able to do with them in
the future?

We'd love to give students a chance to
support their individuallifelong learning journey by
continuously using ePortfolioseven after they finish their
studies. In some federal states,it's already possible in
Germany, in Bavaria, it's not.
Supporting students' individuallifelong learning journey would
also mean collaborating acrossdifferent departments and with
non academic organisations orcompanies.

(21:18):
Ideally, we would want alllecturers to implement
constructive alignmentprinciples as a norm, fostering
a university-wide understandingof the benefits of
process-oriented learning andassessment. Empirical research
shows that active andinteractive learning methods
significantly influence learningoutcomes, and process-oriented

(21:40):
feedback is very beneficial,too. EPortfolio work can really
enhance these learning concepts.
We would also want to highlightthe link between didactical and
technical aspects to improveacademic learning overall. So
having an holistic eye on thosethings. Our goal is to translate
these insights into practice andconcrete concepts to some

(22:03):
extent, but it is also a taskthat we need to continually
advance. There's a lot to do,I'd say [laughs].

Currently, it is also hard for lecturers who use
Mahara for the first time to getfamiliar with the usage. Then
it's sometimes also hard toconvince their students to
concerning the benefits ofelectronic portfolios.

Yeah, on that hard to use of Mahara that's
where our team is working onwith the usability changes that
we are going to implement inMahara 2604 so next year.

We are looking forward to this.

I hope also during the development phase
that we might be able to getsome feedback from you at some
point, once we have made some ofthe changes and make them
available so that you can take alook at them. Martin, you
yourself, on behalf of yourentire team have already
contributed some ideas of how tomake certain workflows easier.
That feedback is incrediblyimportant to us so that we know

(22:56):
better of where people might bestruggling a bit more than in
other places, so that we canlook into them and improve them
then as well.
I find it really wonderful tohave learned more about your
planning guide, and of course,it is, as Martina and Hannah
already said, verycomprehensive, very detailed. I
could imagine that it does takequite a bit of time for somebody

(23:17):
who wants to walk through everysingle path and wants to follow
every single step, but I canalso imagine that one can take
it and focus on a particulararea, so focus at the start,
especially if they haven'tworked with portfolios yet, work
through that, maybe talk with acolleague about it, get clarity
on those items, and then theycan speed through some other

(23:38):
areas quite quickly, and thenget more deeply into one other
question again.

Yes, we would definitely agree with what you
just said. That's what our aimwas, to just have something at
home or when you have some timeto look at it, and to just like,
go from one step to the other.
And then obviously, if there arequestions, reach out to
professionals in that field.
We're also happy to get incontact with some people who
are, like, interested in that.

That's then where your eFolio team comes in,
that you do provide that supportfor your lecturers at the
university, right?

Yes, exactly.

Martina?

We are also very open to feedback concerning
the guide. We are lookingforward to iterate and to
improve it.

Now to our last three questions to the four
of you. I'd like to start thefirst one with Martin. Which
words or short phrases do youuse to describe portfolio work?

Creative working.

Wonderful.
Thank you. Cordula.

Collecting, connecting by reflecting.

Oh, nice.
Connecting by reflecting. I lovethat one. Hannah?

Variety of learning experiences and
technical applicationpossibilities.

Thank you so much. And Martina.

Iteration, reflection, and growth mindsets.

Fantastic.
That's a really nice holisticview of all the things you've
been doing on your project. Whattip do you have for learning
designers or instructors whocreate portfolio activities?
Hannah, do you want to start?

It's all about keeping the outcome in mind from
the start, using constructivealignment to make sure
everything fits together. Sowhat students do really leads to
something impactful in the end.

Cordula?

Portfolio work does not usually happen on
its own. It needs impulses thatmake you think and also impulses
that appeal to your emotions.

Thank you so much for bringing that
motivation into the conversationand also the personal part.
Martina?

My tip would be portfolio work is a
fantastic way to promoteself-directed learning, but
especially for less experiencedlearners, support is crucial,
and this means thatdifferentiation and support
measures should be part of theplan right from the start,
whether they are prompts at keytimes or learning plans or other

(26:02):
supports, there should besomething.

That's where your planning guide fits in
really well because you givethose prompts to your lecturers
to think about all of thoseaspects. And Martin.

You need time to prepare the usage, and you
should never leave the studentsalone without an instruction to
the portfolio system.

What is your advice for portfolio authors,
for your students, but maybealso for some of your lecturers
who might be creating their ownpersonal portfolios? Martina?

Try different learning approaches to
find out what works best foryou, and keep track of this
learning as this will help youin future endeavours. Engage
with other learners and mentors,seek feedback, and also offer
constructive and appreciativefeedback yourself.

Martin?

Try it. Be brave.
Don't be scared about gettingbad marks.

Cordula.

Be yourself. Be creative. Write
down, sometimes just foryourself, what you see, what you
feel, what you think about yourlearnings.

Thank you.
And now for the last tip oftoday over to Hannah.

Make this digital space work for you. It's got
plenty of opportunities to godeeper in your learning journey.

That's a wonderful last word, summarising
a lot of the things that youwant to achieve for your
students through your lecturers,through them, giving your
students these portfolioactivities, but then also
encouraging them to keep theportfolio beyond the classroom
and also engage with it on moreof a lifelong learning

(27:39):
experience.
Thank you so much to the four ofyou from the portfolio sub
project of DiKuLe at theUniversity of Bamberg. I really
enjoyed having been taken littlebit more into the support
mechanisms that you havedeveloped for your lecturers,
but that can also be adopted byothers at other institutions. So

(28:01):
thank you so much for all yourwork.

Thank you also for inviting us.

Now over to our listeners
to try in your own portfoliopractice? This was 'Create.
Share. Engage.' with MartinaOsterrider, Hannah Brodel,
Cordula Schwiderski, and DrMartin Sticht. Head to our
website podcast.mahara.org whereyou can find resources and the
transcript for this episode.

(28:28):
This podcast is produced byCatalyst IT, and I'm your host,
Kristina Hoeppner, Project Leadand Product Manager of the
portfolio platform Mahara. Ournext episode will air in two
weeks. I hope you will listenagain and tell a colleague about
our podcast so they cansubscribe. Until then, create,
share, and engage.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}DiKuLe: Planning and decision making guide for portfolios