The Dearing Inquiry into Higher Education (1997) recommended the introduction, over the medium term, of a HE Progress File comprising:
The Life-long Learner Record (LLR) extends this concept across the whole gamut of an individual’s educational experience, and is designed to enable the learner to take control of and improve their own learning and performance, and more easily to transfer learning between different contexts, for example between the classroom and the workplace. However, the rollout of a national LLR system will clearly require a much higher degree of technological and administrative co-ordination between educational institutions at all levels, and will inevitably pose a number of difficult legal questions with regard to issues such as:
The overall aim of the Legal Study has been to provide early and effective legal research and guidance to JISC LLR pilot projects and those engaged in drafting proposed learner information standards and specifications.
The specific objectives have been to:
The Legal Study has combined a number of research techniques - a literature review; interviews with key personnel from appropriate educational bodies, user representatives and regulatory agencies; the use of an expert group drawn from a range of organisations identified as key participants in the study, and the use of an advisory group of industry and other organisations. The Legal Study has focused in part upon existing JISC LLR projects, such as the SHELL and NIIMLE projects, enabling them and their home institutions to provide relevant background to the analysis of the existing key legal issues.
The Legal Study is producing 3 workpackages aimed at supporting various aspects of the work of the JISC LLR projects, and those working on developing standardised metadata vocabularies or schemas for the LLR. The 3 workpackages are:
In addition, a number of FAQ's have been produced in response to issues raised by JISC eLearning projects. FAQ's are available on the topics of:
Other reports include:
A project seminar was held on 11 April 2005, at Wolverhampton Science Park Conference Centre, entitled ''Developing Lifelong Learner Record Systems and ePortfolios in FE and HE: Planning for and coping with legal issues'. The presentations from this seminar are provided below:
The Legal Study team has worked with, and produced materials for, other projects in the area of eLearning and ePortfolios, including:
Union Education Online (JISC). The aim of the UEO project was to establish a replicable model for online distance learning delivery of national workplace-oriented learning programmes, designed in such a way as to simplify the flow of data between systems, to reduce the extent of multiple, parallel, hosting of learning materials and discussion-support tools It did so in the context of online distance delivery of TUC courses for trade union representatives. The Legal Study undertook an analysis of the data protection implications arising from the project, and produced an overview of issues raised by the UEO process (PDF, 112kb) and Data Controller, Data Processor and Data Sharing Agreement Templates (02/2005).
KEYPAL (EU Socrates). The aim of the Key-PAL project was to establish the relevance and potential impact of the use of ePortfolios on the development and assessment of key-skills (basic skills / key competencies) in Europe. The Legal Study provided a presentation on Legal Issues of ePortfolios (PDF, 66kb) at the KEYPAL Open Seminar at the Slovenian Institute for Adult Education in Ljubljiana (01/2006), and contributed a short chapter (PDF, 110kb), on the same topic, to the KEYPAL publication Tutor Guide to accompanying young adults in developing their ePortfolio (10/2006).
Managing Information Across Partners (DfES). The Managing Information Across Partners (MIAP) project aims to streamline how information on learning and achievement is collected, handled and shared across the education sector so that excellent services are made available to individuals, employers and communities. The Legal Study has engaged with MIAP over the legal issues relating to such data sharing that have arisen from the Legal Study's work to date, and is providing access to its ongoing work on legal metadata.
Start date: 1 March 2004
End date: 31 July 2007
Funding programme: MLEs for lifelong learning: building MLEs across HE and FE
JISC theme(s): e-learning, e-administration
Project Director: Mr Andrew Charlesworth
Project Research Associate: Dr Anna Grant (nee Home)