RAPPORT
WWW.RECORDINGACHIEVEMENT.AC.UK
Issue 1 (2017)
The International Journal for
Recording Achievement,
Planning and Portfolios
The potential role of ePortfolios in the Teaching Excellence Framework
Alfredo Gaitán and Diana Pritchard, University of Bedfordshire
Current debates on HE policy in the UK are dominated by the evolving Teaching Excellence
Framework (TEF) which will soon involve the government establishing key metrics. In this context, and
seizing this valuable moment in policy formation, we here provide a brief foray into the multiple aspects
of ‘teaching excellence’ (TE) as a basis to highlight both the complexity of identifying ways to measure
it and the shortcomings of existing official developments. In the absence of a clear conceptual
understanding of the learning processes and the role of teaching underpinning the TEF, we present a
model of the learning process to which the indicators currently proposed by the authorities can be
related. We propose that ePortfolios can play a special role in the TEF in capturing the qualitative
outcomes of learning processes which, importantly, reflect the student perspective in terms of goals,
learning experiences and achievement. These are both crucial yet missing elements of the proposals
to date. Finally, we provide some examples of how information from ePortfolios could be used by HE
institutions to enhance their institutional submissions to the TEF.
The policy context of the TEF.
In September 2015, Jo Johnson, the Minister for
Universities and Science, announced the
government’s plans to introduce changes in the
higher education (HE) system ‘to ensure that
higher education continues to be a great national
success story in the years to come’ (Johnson,
2015).
This made clear that widening
participation in HE, as a means of achieving
greater social mobility, is just as important as
opening the HE system to competition so that
new ‘providers’ can compete with existing
universities. These changes relate to earlier
attempts in 2011 (Department of Business,
Innovation and Skills [BIS], 2011a and 2011b)
which included a wide set of actions aimed at
addressing the finances of HE, improving the
quality of information available to students about
the courses on offer and ‘removing barriers to
entry to the higher education sector’.
In the mist of these apparently diverse aims, the
minister also emphasised the importance of
maintaining ‘great teaching, combined with
rigorous assessment, useful feedback and
preparation for the world of work’. He described
the creation of the ‘Teaching Excellence
Framework’ (TEF) as the means of recognising
and rewarding teaching that ‘has been allowed to
become something of a poor cousin to research
in parts of o