RAPPORT
Volume 3 Issue 1 (2018)
The International Journal for
Recording Achievement,
Planning and Portfolios
Using ePortfolios to Capture Learning Gain from Work Placements
Lynsay Pickering
Senior Careers Adviser
University of Dundee, UK
Abstract
Careers Education at the University of Dundee is well established and recent research
has shown the positive impact careers education has on achieving successful graduate
outcomes. One module run at Dundee incorporates a 30-hour internship with an
ePortfolio assessment to help students develop important employability skills and
capture their learning gain from their placement. The module helps students to raise
their self-awareness, explore opportunities for future careers prospects, capture skill
development and goals through action planning and review meetings. The ePortfolio
assessment tool is split into four section, where students reflect and capture evidence
on preparation for the internship, skills they have developed, valuable work they have
completed and the next steps they intend to take. This type of assessment replaced five
individual assessments and gave the module, placement and assessment more
coherence. The impact has been clear to see with positive feedback from all
stakeholders and further developments planned to allow a more streamlined
assessment procedure.
Introduction
The Careers Service at the University of
Dundee, Scotland, has been running
credit-bearing careers education modules
for over 12 years. It offers face-to-face or
online career planning modules; bespoke
careers and enterprise modules for
Engineering, Law and Life Science
students; and internship modules with 30-
For queries, please contact the author at
[email protected]
hour micro-placements carried out during
semester time. Feedback from students
on all modules has been excellent and
external examiners 1 have commented on
1
The role of external examiners in the UK HE
system is to check that the internal marking of
assessments has been carried out to meet the
university standards as described in the UK
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