Stephen Downs wrote a very nice overview paper about E-Learning 2.0 and its trends. In that, he describes the evolution of Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 and maps the process to the evolution of e-learning by identifying Web 2.0 patterns and explaining how to use them in e-learning. Here are few nice quotes:

•  ”People in networked markets have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another than from vendors.”
• “… the structures and organization that characterized life prior to the Internet are breaking down.”
• ” … the Web itself was being transformed from what was called “the Read Web” to the “Read-Write Web,” in accordance with Tim Berners-Lee’s original vision.”
• “In a nutshell, what was happening was that the Web was shifting from being a medium, in which information was transmitted and consumed, into being a platform, in which content was created, shared, remixed, repurposed, and passed along.”
• “… Web 2.0 is not a technological revolution, it is a social revolution. [...] Web 2.0 is an attitude not a technology. It’s about enabling and encouraging participation through open applications and services. By open I mean technically open with appropriate APIs but also, more importantly, socially open, with rights granted to use the content in new and exciting contexts.”
• “… online learning software ceases to be a type of content-consumption tool, where learning is delivered, and becomes more like a content-authoring tool, where learning is created
• “It also begins to look like a personal portfolio tool.”
• “… e-learning content is syndicated …”
• In a ubiquitous computing world, we expect to “have learning available no matter what we are doing.”

Electronic Media offer many possibilities, but information can be misused. To protect an individual’s right, appropriate laws are needed. E-portfolios are vulnerable to misused data. For instance the data stored in an e-portfolio might break the copyright of the origin author or the data can be accessed by an unwanted party. In both cases, protection is required. In a company environment, the employer does not want to be accused for his employee’s being suspected of plagiarism, and employees do not want the employer to access all their e-portfolio data.

In the following, an illustration of German data protection laws is presented. It shows that an implementation of e-portfolios in the public and commercial sector is quite difficult and requires in each scenario a proper setting of many legal issues agreed upon by all participating players. Note: most information is retrieved from Wikipedia (here and here).

Data protection: context

The importance of data protection gained more and more significancy in parallel to the development of the digital technology as data accquisition, data storage, data transfer and data analysis became simpler. Technical innovations such as Internet, e-mail, mobiles, video control, and electronic payment open new facilities for data accquisition. Public agencies as well as private corporations are interested in individual-related information. For instance, security agencies wish to reduce the crime rate by dragnet investigation or by the surveillance of communication channels; tax authorities are interested in account transactions to reveal tax delicts; companies wish to achieve a higher efficiency by surveillance of their employees, customer profiles can help to devise marketing strategies, access to bank accounts can provide information whether a customer is solvent. However, the majority of Germany’s population has an indifferent attitude towards this development and its consequences for the individual.

Due to the wordwide network, and in particular due to the Internet, the risks related to individual-related data protection keep growing stronger.

Data protection: regulation

The international valid Guidelines on the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Data Flows of Personal Data exist since 1980. Their objective is to harmonise data protection regulation between states, to facilitate a free exchange of information, to prevent unjustified handicaps to trade, and to prevent a gap between European and US-American developments.

In 1981, the European council passed a data protection convention, one of the first international agreements on data protection. The convention is still in effect. However, it has merely a recommending character. In contrast to this, data protection guidelines established by the European Union are binding and have to be nationally implemented by the Union’s members. Germany implemented the guidelines in 2001. They also regularise the transfer of individual-related data to non-EU states. According to article 25, a transfer is legal if the target state ensures a suitable protection level. In Germany, data protection is considered a base right (right on informational self-determination). Basically, only the individual decides to whom he passes what personal information. However, this base law is not mentioned explicitly in the basic constitutional law. As opposed to this, most federal state constitutions include the base law.

On federal level, the federal data protection law (BDSG) regularises data protection for the federal agencies and for the private sector. In addition, the state data protection law of the federal states regularises data protection on state and regional level. Also, there exists a multitude of sector-specific data protection regularisations which precede regularisations of the right on general data protection.

Data protection: practice

Key data protection principles are

• Data prevention and data economy
• Necessity
• Earmarking

Once data is collected technical and/or organisational means have to ensure data protection such that only authorised agents are allowed to access the data. In particular, automation of data access methods (also online methods) requires special attention.

From the principles of data economy and necessity it follows that information that is not needed any more has to be deleted or in case of documentation liabilities it has to be locked.

In addition to the basic data protection requirements, the concerned individual has the right to ask for information. Also, the data should be supervised by an independent data protection entity.

At the international data protection conference in 2005, the data protection commissioners reminded in their Declaration of Montreux the internationally accepted data protection principles. These are:

• Principle of legitimacy of data acquisition and analysis
• Principle of correctness
• Principle of earmarking
• Principle of commensurability
• Principle of transparency
• Principle of individual self-determination and access guaranty
• Principle of non-discrimination
• Principle of safety
• Principle of liability
• Principle of an independent controlling instance and of legal penalties
• Principle of an appropriate protection level for transnational data transfer

Data protection: control

For control in the public sector there exist:

• The federal data protection commissioner for federal agencies
• The state data protection commissioner for state agencies
• Special data protection commissioners for corporations, institutions, and foundations of the public law

Additionally, agencies can appoint official data protection commissioners. These are in charge of single tasks, but they do not prevent the control of the superordinate commissioner.

In the non-public sector, data protection control is handled on the state level. This can be the regional government, Ministry of the Interior, or the state commissioner for data protection. From a certain company size, an operational commissioner has to be appointed according to the Federal Data Protection Law.

Data protection: critics

From a semantic point of view, it is criticised that the jurisprudential requirements for a terminology have not been fulfilled yet. The normative terms are incoherent and with no clear objectives.

Critics say that too much data protection (in wrong places) can also cause damage, e.g., insufficient data exchange between attending physicians (electronic card in eHealth) or the obstruction of research. However, research data is rather anonymous and therefore, less relevant for data protection than individual-related data.

Also the access to private data by the federal or state police is extensively discussed. Agents criticise that data protection complicates their work in reducing the crime rate. However, for many arrangements by the police, the accuracy of the protected data cannot be judged beforehand. Also, the rate between the value (security) and the damage (privacy, citizenship) has a lopsided overbalance to the disadvantage of privacy. Hence, a big brother scenario is strictly rejected. Recent technological developments such biometric data or RFID chips in passports caused an intensive dispute.

Then, there is a tension between data protection and the wish for transparency in policy. Opposed to the transparency interests of the public (e.g., access to emission values of factories, or the salary of members of a board of managers) are the interests of the individual to protect his data.

Employee data protection

The employee data protection is the protection of rights to informational self-determination of individuals acting as employees.

It considers specific characteristics of the employment contract related to data protection of the employee. Employer and employee are legally equal partners, but in fact, the employer is economically and structurally superior to the employee. The employer decides on the details of a contract and on the working conditions. He orders when, where, and how the employee has to act. In general, the employer cannot elude these pre-established guidelines. Due to this dominance of the employer the employee needs specific protection.

The protection neediness becomes particularly apparent with regard to data protection: the employees right to determine if and what personal data can be passed to a third person collides with the employer’s right on direction. Hence, self-determination and foreign-determination collide. The employee data protection tries to establish a balance between these two interest groups.

Eventually, it is the question, what kind of employer access to employee’s rights on informational self-determination and his personal rights is legal.

Employee data protection regulation

Despite of the practical and legal importance, the German employee data protection is not explicitly regulated by law. Therefore, data protection in an employer-employee relationship is ruled by the federal data protection law. Additionally, specific arrangements such as the telecommunication data protection law or the works council constitution act have to be considered in individual cases.

Though, this law for employee data protection is discussed for 20 twenty years and it is being strongly supported and put forward by data protectors and trade unions (DGB, ver.di) it is not expected that the German government will enact a law in the near future.

In larger companies, relevant issues related data protection are regularised by the operating agreement. The agreement can justify interferences in the employee’s right on informational self-determination. At the same time, it establishes limits that should not be exceeded by the employer. Typical operating agreements comprise arrangements on the usage of e-mail and Internet services at work and when and how the employer is allowed to control these arrangements.

In an e-portfolio scenario, works commitees and trade unions have to agree upon a compromise to successfully implement an e-portfolio solution. Typical problems and objections are that an analysing software can not only spot the 5 best employees, but also the 5 worst according to their portfolio and their list of competencies. Surprisingly, a list of the 5 best employees can turn into a problem, too, as these employees become “top products” and increase the competition between departments of a company to obtain that particular product.

As the the laws do not fully regularise data protection at work and as not all details are considered by operating agreements many new questions arise which are decided by local labour courts. The decisions provide further directives.

A special case of e-portfolios are language portfolios. It appears that the description of language competencies is particularly applicable to e-portfolios. An explanation for this could be that experts were able to devise a general template of language sub competencies. This template has been implemented in the Electronic European Language Portfolio and taken up again in the Leipziger Lernportfolio.

• EELP – Electronic European Language Portfolio
• Leipziger Lernportfolio

Commonly accepted reasons for the usage of web-based e-portfolios are among others:

• growing interest for new media
• online-portfolios are accessible at anytime and anywhere as long as a broadband connection exists
• online portfolios are secure when access is limited by passwords
• paper-based portfolios grow over a period and get unmanageable
• web-based systems are maintained by some system provider not by the user, therefore requirements for the user’s working environment are minimal (a browser is usually sufficient).

In the following blog entries, some web-based systems with e-portfolio functionality will be briefly presented:

• ePortfolio Hessen
• InteLeC – Integrated eLearning Campus
• RPI-virtuell
• CLIX

The Leipziger Lernportfolio is a web-based e-portfolio solution for language learning. Against the background of a rising demand for self-responsibility and self-regulation of a learner’s learning processes the Leipziger Lernportfolio goes beyond ELP and focuses on supporting meta-cognition as well as on fostering autonomous learning [Baerenfaenger-Ionica-2006]. Both objectives are achieved by using e-portfolios fulfilling a process-oriented pedagogical function [kohonen-2000].

The selected pedagogical model for learning processes basis on hybrid processes [sands-2002, masie-2002, oliver-trigwell-2005]. As these include a content, a space, a time and an individual dimension, they resemble processes in project management [Baerenfaenger-2005]. Hence, the implementors decided to design the Leipziger Lernportfolio by phasing a learning process according to project management methods. The expected results were a stronger goal orientation, a more precise ability to plan, a higher transparency, and a much better success control.

References
Olaf Bärenfänger. Learning Management: A new Approach to Structuring Hybrid Learning Arrangements. Electronical Journal of Foreign Language Teaching, 2(2):14–35, 2005. Available here.

Olaf Bärenfänger and Lavinia Ionica. Fremdsprachenlernen mit Unterstützung elektronischer Portfolios: Probleme, Ziele und Perspektiven. Zeitschrift für Interkulturellen Fremdsprachenunterricht, 11(2), 2006. Also available here.

Viljio Kohonen. Exploring the educational possibilities of the �Dossier�: some suggestions for developing the pedagigic function of the European Language Portfolio, 2000. Also available here.

Elliott Masie. Blended learning. the magic in the mix. In Allison Rossett, editor, The ASTD e-learning Handbook, pages 58–64. McGraw-Hill, New York, US, 2002.

Martin Oliver and Keith Trigwell. Can’t blended learning be redeemed? ELearning, 2(1):17–26, 2005.

Peter Sands. Inside outside, upside down. strategies for connecting online and face-to-face instruction in hybrid courses. Teaching with Technology Today, 8(6), 2002. Also available here.

This European project has been carried out with the support of the European Community within the framework of the Minerva Programme. Its goal was to implement a European Language Portfolio (ELP) in a digital format, useful for learners of foreign languages [Schneider-Lenz-elp-guide, trim-1997-elp, Europarat-2004]. The Council of Europe has stated that language teaching and learning are key elements towards European integration and mobility. The ELP is an initiative of the Council of Europe to support life-long language learning as a way of responding to economic, social, and cultural changes in Europe. Its functions are twofold: a reporting and a pedagogical function. It exists in different versions in various countries and languages, but all the ELPs have the same structure and pursue the same objectives so that every ELP is an international comparable document that underlines an individual’s linguistic experiences and certifications. It comprises a passport, a bibliography, and a dossier per language .

The language passport is maintained by the e-portfolio owner regularly. He is provided with a grid and several questionnaires to document language competencies according to commonly accepted European-wide criteria. The bibliography helps the owner to describe his experiences in in each language (by a questionnaire). The goal here is to guide the owner in planning and assessing progress. Finally,the dossier is a is an instrument which helps the student to maintain assets (e.g. certificates) of personal work that illustrate and justify the owner’s language competencies.

From a pedagogical point of view, the developers concentrated on the following key issues:

• Student’ss self-awareness development
• Self-assessment tools and learner’s autonomy
• Transparency of the recursiveness of the learning process
• Multimedia evidence of language learning
• Avoiding information overload of paper ELPs

The developed software bases on research in ELP and it is a cross-platform desktop-based Java application. The information of the digital ELP is stored in a proprietary XML data structure that keeps trace of student’s modifications over time. For data representation in a user-friendly graphic way the PDF document format is used to show the evolution of the language learning process. The German partner in this project was Ingrid Boettcher de Lange from the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder) and helped to develop some parts of the software and made the translation of the whole program. The two-year project started in November 2003 and finished in November 2005. An extension of the project is not planned. The e-ELP is a not validated model (by the EU Validation Committee), although the project partners applied for it twice. The modifications that the Committee requires are of high impact on the model such that changes of the model are likely. This is one key reason why an extension of the project is not pursued.

References
Günther Schneider and Peter Lenz. A Guide for Developers of European Language Portfolios. Technical report, Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 2001. Also available here.

John Trim. The European Language Portfolio. In Council of Europe, editor, A European Language Portfolio: some questions relating to its nature, function, form, preparation and distribution, pages 3–12, 1997.

Europarat. European Language Portfolio. Principles and guidelines (33. rev), 2004. Also available here.

The commercial CLIX learning management system by IMC AG CLIX is a web-based content management system which enables to keep track of learning and knowledge processes via a browser. CLIX is a scalable, multilingual software product. It comes along with standard interfaces to HR and ERP systems and can easily be adapted to individual customer needs. CLIX meets the requirements of companies, universities, and schools.

Since version 6.1, CLIX puts more emphasis on social software and e-portfolio functionalities. Among others, it will provide Wikis, Blogs, and interfaces to Skype and ICQ for messaging as well as an interface to an own internal messaging system. From e-portfolio point of view, it implements certification management, grade books, and skill management taking the validity time into account.

According to IMC AG, CLIX is applied at several German universities, among others, at: the TU Munich, the TU Darmstadt, the RWTH Aachen and the Saarland University.

rpi-virtuell is a web-based learning environment originally developed for religious education in the Internet. It is initiated by the evangelic church in Germany. The environment is open for any discipline and can be used by any institution. It provides a set a set eTools. Some tools are template-based (notes, calender, evaluations, etc.), others are folder-based via an online-editor (topic folder, e-Xpedition folder, portfolio folder, etc.). Students have an account and can enter different seminar lectures by subscription.

The platform bases on ASP, PHP, and an MS SQL database.

The InteLeC (Integrated eLearning Campus) project is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research with a total of 2 Mio. EUR and runs from 01.05.2005 until 30.04.2008. InteLeC is part of the national program “new media in education”. The project specializes on the development of a new campus-wide conceptual and technical infrastructure supporting the further dissemination and a wide-spread use of eLearning and thus serving as an enabling platform for the University of Passau.

The e-portfolio part in this project comprises three major functions: a portfolio for collection, a learning diary for reflection, and a registration book for planning. Any information is secured by a multilevel permission framework which is controlled by the owner of the portfolio.

The portfolio function supports the collection and internal presentation of e-portfolio
items and envisions sharing of assets.

The learning diary serves for changing the profile, for keeping a diary in form of a blog or a web page, and for collaboration with fellow students and teachers. The registration book facilitates maintaining information related to the studied subject: finding information about the field of study or about the current term, receiving a list of appropriate lectures, getting a view on passed or failed exams including missing results. Moreover, the system will be able to recommend lectures to support the general term planning, and to synchronise with the succeeding term.

The first realization of the e-portfolio will be done in teacher education.

The school development project ePortfolio Hessen is a project in Germany for testing e-portfolios in school lessons. The test lessons started with the beginning of the school year 2006/2007 in several selected schools in Hesse (currently six schools). Teachers were prepared in training courses which were conducted by the Institute of Education (Department of School education) of the Jusus-Liebig-University Giessen.

The lessons were individualised. Students were supposed to learn how to reflect and present their skills and competencies. The constructive and productive ability by using new media (e.g. Weblog, Social Software) was also part of the teaching. One goal of this project was to build and invigorate these competencies in secondary school by using an e-portfolio.

E-portfolios will be evaluated to find out more about the students’ individualised, differentiated, and self-reflected learning.

The e-portfolio software runs on the official Hessian education server where the individual assets are stored.