In this research I will be examining the idea of ePortfolio use within the context of postgraduate music production and study. In the study I will create a design for an ePortfolio system as required by a student undertaking a ‘practice-led’ enquiry to present a prototypes accompanied by an exegesis.
The exegesis will describe the user-led design process and discuss the wider issues surrounding the design and implementation of ePortfolio systems in the world today. The research question that drives this research process is: “How can ePortfolios be designed for Music postgraduate study?”. In this exegesis I will begin by undertaking a contextual analysis of ePortfolios to determine the role of Web 2.0 technologies in their design affordances and deficits. I then examine these findings against a conceptual framework for ePortfolios in creative arts. Following this I will outline a practice led methodology for designing ePortfolios specifically for postgraduate music students’ use. Music studies include a variety of media and artefacts of research and practice that problematised the design process. In particular the practice-led methodology will be used as a vehicle for understanding how the ephemeral aspects of representation of musical experience and production can be effectively documented. I will describe the design outcomes providing links to artefacts, examples and interviews/focus groups with participants and raise extra questions for further research.
“The art of ePortfolios”sought to ‘Constructing a new conceptual framework for using digital technologies in achieving better arts assessment‘ (Dillon, Nalder, Brown and Smith, 2003). This research used a language which comes from the creative arts and was targeted towards other researchers and interaction designers interested in developing ePortfolio systems. It implements metaphors from the creative arts to extract deeper meaning from their research (Woolcock, 2004). In this study I have sought to contextualise the design of ePortfolios in a global economy that is driven, in part by, the development of the World Wide Web and the Internet in academic and the creative industries (Young, 2002).
To be competitive in the international job market new talent needs to be highly educated, experienced and flexible with high-end design skills (Pink, 2005) (Leadbeater, 1999). Design and knowledge-based skills are highly sought after by industry and academia as they are seen as tools that will add competitive advantage expressed in new products and processes (Cunningham, 2002) (Leadbeater, 1999).
Transferable skills and accreditation then become important enablers in documenting and accrediting these skills sets (Emmett, 2003). This raises questions about how industry and academia can validate or qualify which talented people are best for their organisation (Cotterill, Hammond, Drummond , Aiton and .et al. 2005). For employees who wish to work in creative production contexts, how they represent themselves in virtual spaces, such as ePortfolios, is becoming a passport which will allow them to participate in new economic opportunities (Saxenian, 2002) (Ruthmann, Seddon Frederick et al., 2008). These economic opportunities include new work opportunities and entry into study programs within more increasingly distributed global economies in businesses that can often be spread over diverse geographical environments (Flew, 2002) (Pink, 2005) (Phillips, 2004). For example, Florida (2002) suggests that creative people prefer to live in large cities (p.ix). This enables creative people who wish to live in cities to have access to the global economy through e-business solutions, have access to tertiary education and secure employment opportunities, and the flexibility to be able to choose what sort of lifestyle they have in their private and work life (Madon, Shirin, Sahay and Sundeep, 2001) (Florida, 2002).
The rise in the use of information and communication technologies in our society has enabled larger amounts of people to become educated with high end design, business process modelling and quality improvement skills (Pink, 2005, Florida 2002 and 2005). Many academics and business leaders are arguing that these types of skills are in high demand for globalised businesses. It is suggested that design skills can be used to create businesses which sell intellectual property via design orientated goods and services which then operate in a global economy via e-commerce and the Internet (Pink, 2005) (Flew Terry. 2009).
