Exemplar 2

Engineers Australia (EA) is the professional body that oversees the professional accreditation of all graduate engineering students in Australia. Since 2008, e-portfolios have been progressively introduced into various engineering disciplines at RMIT at a course, and now at a programme level. The introduction of e-portfolios into engineering ensures that students have opportunities to evidence Engineers Australia’s graduate attributes. This exemplar outlines the successful introduction of e-portfolios into a first year engineering course, Professional Practice 1, within the School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering (SAMME). Here, e-portfolios were introduced in orientation week and subsequent assessment tasks were embedded in the curriculum. The use of PebblePad enabled rapid and personalised feedback from a specially-selected teaching team which resulted in a significant rise in the Course Evaluation Survey results to nearly 80%. This forms stage one of a broader longitudinal study of e-portfolios with an engineering programme.

Institution: e-Portfolio context:  Introducing e-portfolios at a programme level into a first year Engineering course for students to start to evidence their professional graduate attributes 

Dates of provision: 2010

Reason for implementation: To provide students with an e-portfolio to span their programme for evidencing learning and for professional accreditation

Purpose/s: Transition from the institution, Work Based Learning, Employability/Graduate attributes, Assessment, Lifelong Learning

Learning processes involved:  Information capture, Information retrieval, Reflection, Feedback,

Practice: (Developing the model in 2010. Worked successfully)

Key staff involved: 

Dr Caleb White - Course coordinator Professional Practice in School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering (SAMME)

A/P Tom Steiner - Director of L&T in School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering (SAMME)

Meaghan Botterill - Senior coordinator: Educational technology integration, Educational Technology Advancement Group

GAs in Engineering 2010.pdf