Introduction
This article will guide learning designers through how to get started with implementing Portfolio and Libraries - what to consider before implementation, how to invite people to the library, and how to configure your institutional framework.
The tools that can be linked using Libraries are: Group Member Evaluation, Peer Review, Skill Review, Assignment Review, Self Assessment on Skills, and Self Assessment of Work.
Where Can I Find More Information On Portfolio & Libraries?
We recommend reading our introduction articles before moving forward with this quickstart guide:
Libraries: Introduction to Libraries and Templates
Portfolio: Introduction to Portfolio
You can find all of our help centre articles on Portfolio & Libraries here:
What to Consider Before Implementing Libraries & Developmental Portfolio
The first step in setting up competency based education is defining your framework. It’s important to have an idea of what this framework looks like prior to setting up anything inside of FeedbackFruits. There’s lots of room for editing and reconfiguring in the tool, but it’s important to at least consider:
Questions:
-
How many rating levels do you want your framework to consist of?
-
This should be consistent across all of your rubrics.
-
-
Do you wish to share your framework with the entire institution (via the Institutional Library) or with a custom sub-group (via Shared Libraries)?
Tests:
-
Creating a rough blueprint of which Feedback activities you would like to link to the Developmental Portfolio.
-
Looking at which activities can be carried out within FeedbackFruits tools and which require a manual External Data Import.
As a reminder, the available tools that can be linked with Developmental Portfolio are Group Member Evaluation, Peer Review, Skill Review, Assignment Review, Self Assessment on Skills, and Self Assessment of Work.
Here’s a brief overview of the description of each tool:
Setting up Portfolio Step by Step
The platform usually has a designated location within your LMS chosen by your institution - however, this can vary depending on the LMS your institution uses.
We recommend that if you want to add Portfolio, you should contact your partner success manager at FeedbackFruits to help you set it up.
In this example, the sidebar of this course has been chosen as the location for the FeedbackFruits Platform:
Step 1: Creating the Shared Library/Institutional Space
To create a shared library, access the platform through the method highlighted here:
For this example, we’re accessing through the FeedbackFruits Platform button in the sidebar of this course.
You will only be able to create a shared library if you are given specific admin rights - generally these are given to course coordinators or learning designers by your account manager at FeedbackFruits.
When you enter the platform, you'll see a new addition in the side bar, All Libraries. By clicking on the New Library button you'll create a new library.
If one of your colleagues has already created a Library, you’ll see their created libraries in a list format - you can always join that library to start collaborating.
You can give your new library a name and description to make it easily findable - you may want to consider the purpose of the library. You can always change these later.
Once you click create library, your library will be brought into existence - now you can start setting it up for other members of your institution to access.
Step 2: Inviting People to the Library
Inviting People: Shared Libraries
Since shared libraries can be specific to a subset of people, you will have to invite those people into the library. This would be, for example, all the teachers and teaching assistants who will be setting up FeedbackFruits activities that are linked to the framework.
You can always invite more people at a later date, or remove those who no longer need access.
When you invite users they’ll be able to implement any rubrics, and activity templates that you’ve created in the library.
You can invite them in two steps:
-
Open your shared library, and press the settings button.
-
Navigate to the member tab, and enter the email of the person you want to invite. You can also copy paste several emails all at once; we’ll be able to recognise them.
Note: At the moment, only those with admin rights granted from FeedbackFruits will be editors, and all others will be considered viewers. You can adjust this by getting in contact with your partner team representative at FeedbackFruits.
Do I Need to Invite People to an Institution Library/Space?
Institution spaces are intended as a central place where activities and rubrics can be created and shared at an institutional level by coordinators who have the rights to do so.
The created templates and categories will therefore be visible to the entire institution’s instructors when creating a new FeedbackFruits activity - there’s no need to invite individual collaborators.
Step 3: Configuring your Framework
Setting up a Framework in an Institutional or Sharable Library
Once you feel confident in your set up, its time to add all your rubrics to the platform. You can do this either using institutional space or an department/programme specific space.
FeedbackFruits best supports a three level hierarchy. The steps of the hierarchy are:
-
Competency Groups: A way of categorising several skills under one underlying skill. So for example, an overarching category such as communication.
-
Competency Rubrics: The subset of skills making up the competency group, for example, written and oral communication.
-
Criteria: The criteria make up the competency rubrics, they are the facts of that skill you’re measuring.
Setting up a 3 Layer Framework
In this example, our competency group is collaboration, our competency rubric is interaction with teammates and our criteria are emerging, approaching proficient, proficient and exemplary.
Implementing this framework from the library would look like this:
Within the activity, the criteria would look like this:
Note:
If a naming convention is duplicated (e.g. you use the same name for the criteria and the rubric), this does not impact how we handle the data, as we always aggregate upwards.
It’s important to give meaningful names to the competency groups and competency rubrics, because those names will be visualised and represented in the portfolio. In the example below, the data from activities is aggregated as a Competency Group level, Collaboration.
You can read more about the portfolio visualisations here: Performance Overview Visualisations
In the Institutional Library
Institution Space: use this library when you want to create rubrics that every teacher at your institution can access. This is good to use if everyone at your institution, regardless of faculty are assessing the same skills. If you use this space then all teachers at your institution will be automatically able to use them, there will be no need to invite or enrol anyone anywhere for them to access the rubrics.
Click here for a step-by-step guide to Setting up Skills Frameworks in Institutional Libraries.
In the Shared Library
Shared Library: A place to define rubrics that teachers you invite can use. This is the preferred option if you have several programmes involved, and they all have their frameworks they would like to use. If you use a shared library, then you will need to enrol the relevant teachers in this shared library.