Kristina Hoeppner: 0:05

Welcome to'Create. Share. Engage.' This is the podcast about portfolios for learning and more for educators, learning designers, and managers keen on integrating portfolios with their education and professional development practices. 'Create. Share. Engage.' is brought to you by the Mahara team at Catalyst IT. My name is Kristina Hoeppner. Today I'm speaking with Professor Dr Olga Göransson from the Medical Faculty at Lund University in Sweden. There she is responsible for a compulsory PhD course that is assessed through the completion of a portfolio. Recently, a few community members had been asking about the use of portfolios at the PhD level, and so it's great to have the opportunity to talk with you today, Olga. Thank you so much for making time.

Olga Göransson: 0:57

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Kristina Hoeppner: 1:00

So Olga, can you please tell us a little bit about yourself? What do you do at Lund University besides being responsible for the PhD course?

Olga Göransson: 1:09

I'm a professor in molecular nutrition at the Medical Faculty of Lund University. My research has a focus on hormonal regulation of metabolism in fat cells. It's connected to diabetes research and also obesity research. Apart from my research, I have a strong engagement in undergraduate teaching at the medical programme and the biomedical programme where cell biology is my main teaching subject. In addition to that, I've had a long standing engagement in the research education. So I've had several PhD students of my own, and then I've had this responsibility for the compulsory course. It's called 'Generic knowledge and skills (Portfolio)'. That's since eight years back. In addition to that, I'm also Head of PhD studies in my department, the Department of Experimental Medical Science where we have 80 PhD students. I'm in charge of assessing their individual study plans, etc.

Kristina Hoeppner: 2:06

That's quite the responsibilities that you have at your university.

Olga Göransson: 2:10

Yeah, I'm quite busy.

Kristina Hoeppner: 2:12

Yeah, so, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day for this chat. Olga, you just said that you've been working with portfolios now for about eight years. How did you come to the practice? How did you discover them?

Olga Göransson: 2:26

So I was asked by our faculty to take on the role as director for this course. We've had a portfolio system in place at the PhD programme for a long time actually, since 2010 or so, but it didn't become formally a course giving credits until 2015. The first few years, there was no single person in charge of the course, and the need for such a person was evident, someone who could develop the concept and provide support. I've always been very interested in developmental work, organisational work, things like that, in the undergraduate teaching programmes, but in other contexts as well. So I guess this is why I was asked. This was my first big task within the research education. I would say, through this engagement that I've become more and more interested in the research education.

Kristina Hoeppner: 3:18

Who is supporting you, Olga, in making the portfolios happen for your students?

Olga Göransson: 3:24

I have a very good support from our library section. So I have had always a research librarian supporting me because we have a web based tool for the portfolio work, and they are in charge of that technical platform. They also have training in eLearning and how you can use digital tools for learning, and they've had an interest also in portfolios. So this person has been my main support, but also the administrative head of our research studies. We also have a course director who has an overall responsibility for our PhD courses. They've also given input and discussed portfolio issues with them.

Kristina Hoeppner: 4:02

So portfolios are really established in the Medical Faculty so that you do have that support, rather than you needing to find where you can scrunch up some time from some other person to help you.

Olga Göransson: 4:14

Yes, but this was a process. This was not really in place from the beginning, I think. Now we have that in place.

Kristina Hoeppner: 4:21

Then how have you integrated the portfolios into the studies of your students?

Olga Göransson: 4:28

The Medical Faculty in Lund has almost 1,200 PhD students.

Kristina Hoeppner: 4:33

Wow, that's a lot of PhD students.

Olga Göransson: 4:35

Yeah, that's a lot. We have many, many clinically active both doctors and nurses, physiotherapists, etc. who do a PhD. Then we have 300 to 400 full time PhD students as well. When they are admitted to the programme, at the same time, they are admitted to the compulsory course,'Generic knowledge and skills(Portfolio)'. The portfolio has a two-fold aim. First, there is the learning aspect. We call it the learning portfolio. They are informed that the portfolio is a personal tool or documentation and reflection on their attainment of the outcomes for the degree with a strong focus on those outcomes that are linked to generic knowledge and skills. This means the competencies that they do not necessarily reach through their thesis project, more things like presentation, writing, interaction with the wider society, ethical considerations, things like that. Students, from the very start, they're expected to make entries in their learning portfolio where they describe activities that they take part in as part of the research programme, things like seminars, conferences, teaching tasks, activities where they interact with the wider society. So they are expected to both document and also reflect on these learning activities and how they develop competencies through them. Then the second aim or purpose of the portfolio is assessment. The portfolio also constitutes a tool for the students to demonstrate their attainment of learning outcomes, and they create a presentation version of their portfolio when they're halfway through their education. There is a half time seminar where they present it, and they get formative feedback. When they approach the defence, they are examined in the course by presenting their portfolio. The portfolio system is a very important tool also for the faculty to ensure that all our students attain all the outcomes for the PhD degree.

Kristina Hoeppner: 6:31

So that is throughout their entire PhD studies that they are keeping their portfolio?

Olga Göransson: 6:36

Yes, as I said, we have 1/3 or a bit less of our students are full time students, and they finish their PhD in four years. But we have many, many who are part time students, and it can take up to eight years for them to finish their degree.

Kristina Hoeppner: 6:53

How many students do you then have in your course the 'General knowledge' one?

Olga Göransson: 6:57

All the 1,200 students are admitted to the'Generic knowledge and skills' course. I'm the director of that course. Because they are admitted for the whole duration of their programme, we admit students as they are admitted to the programme. We admit new students all the time. So this is a bit special. We don't have admission at certain times of the year. They come in as they start the PhD programme.

Kristina Hoeppner: 7:21

So the course, I can't imagine like a course that starts, say, in fall semester and runs for 12 weeks. It is more the course of the studies that is encompassing the entire time they are a PhD student.

Olga Göransson: 7:37

Yeah. So it's very different from most courses in this regard. The only thing that the course entails is to keep a portfolio and actively work with the portfolio. There are no other learning activities or requirements. We provide supporting workshops quite frequently, but they are elective, so they can come there if they need support for their portfolio work, either regarding the web based tool or what to write in their portfolios.

Kristina Hoeppner: 8:04

Do you know why the university went to integrate portfolios into the PhD studies? Why they wanted students to have that experience of creating their learning portfolio, tracking their outcomes, reflecting on their practice, and then also having an assessment portfolio? Most of the other outcomes, or many of them, are linked to

Olga Göransson: 8:21

There was a very clear reason, and it was that it was realised that we didn't really or necessarily examine all the outcomes for the PhD degree. Historically, there has been a very strong focus on examining the thesis work, so the research project. Strong focus on research papers and this book that they produce and the defence of that book. But this only constitutes one out the ten national outcomes for the PhD degree that we have in Sweden. generic knowledge and skills. It was realised that we were not so good at examining these goals, and we also didn't necessarily provide a good support for students to attain them, or at least there was a very large variation because it was previously very much up to the individual supervisors. So some supervisors supported this development in the areas of generic knowledge and skills in a very good way, but some supervisors didn't. So this was a way to enable students to develop more broad skills and also to ensure that they have the competencies needed for the degree at the end.

Kristina Hoeppner: 9:30

Does it then also constitute the benefits of using portfolios in the PhD studies that you can ensure that your students have attained those competencies? Or are there also additional benefits that you've seen over your eight years of using portfolios with your students?

Olga Göransson: 9:46

I think that there are other benefits because there are other systems for the examination of the learning outcomes. I've had a look at what other medical faculties in Sweden do, and I would say the benefit of the portfolio is two

words here: 9:59

learning and flexibility. So if we think about learning first, other common systems for examining PhD outcomes are more reporting at the end or demonstrating their activities at the end of the programme, often in the form of lists. So there is a strong focus on the assessment part, and the assessment is in the form of checking different boxes and lists. I think the portfolio encourages students to both document and reflect on their activities throughout the programme, and this gives the added value of maximising their learning and also improving throughout the programme and increasing the quality in what they do throughout. The portfolio forms a very good basis also for revising their individual study plan, and they do that yearly. This is something we encourage them to do because what they can do in a learning portfolio is to identify areas of weakness or that are in need of development, and then they can adjust their individual study plan accordingly. That's a benefit. And also there will be usually a stronger focus on competencies than experiences because competencies usually can't really be described in lists of activities. It needs more work so to speak.

Kristina Hoeppner: 11:12

Yeah, it's good to see the actual evidence of having reached those competencies.

Olga Göransson: 11:15

Yeah, and then I think also flexibility because our large group of PhD students, it's very heterogeneous. As I mentioned in the beginning, some work full time, maybe with experimental research, some work clinically as doctors, nurses. So I think that our students will achieve and will be able to demonstrate the outcomes for the PhD degree in very different ways. So while one student may have to, for example, receive high school students in the lab to learn how to communicate in layman terms, our clinically active PhD students, they perhaps do this all the time in their work, in their interactions with patients. So one size doesn't really fit all. I know that it is common in other faculties to provide lists of compulsory learning activities, like X number of seminars, X number of presentations, things like that. But I think the portfolio gives our students a bigger flexibility. You know, they can fill them with different types of activities and through them, provide evidence that they have reached certain competencies, but in different ways.

Kristina Hoeppner: 12:20

How do your students then share the portfolios, or which parts of the portfolios do other people see? Is it then just for you or for their supervisors, or do they also share that with fellow PhD students in the area of speciality?

Olga Göransson: 12:36

We stress the dual aim. So we talk about their learning portfolio and their assessment portfolio, and these two things are a bit separated. Their learning portfolio, this is really their personal tool. They are not really meant to share their learning portfolio with anyone because we think it's going to be more efficient in supporting their learning if they can be very free so to speak and outspoken in their documentation and reflection, and they can test ideas there and be very critical, even towards their supervisors. And then when it is time to become assessed in some way, or when they share their portfolios, they make a presentation version of the portfolio. This is created based on what they have in their learning portfolio. They can import interest from their learning portfolio into their presentation version of the portfolio. In that way, they can also adapt the presentation version to whatever the target group is. It's not compulsory to involve their supervisor in the portfolio work at all, actually. It is rather personal thing, but more PhD students do because supervisors can give valuable feedback. The ones that assess their portfolio are two external persons who assess their progress halfway through. They share their presentation portfolio with them and also the heads of PhD studies in our various departments, they also assess a PhD student portfolios, both halfway through and they are the ones who examine them at the end. I'm sure some people also share portfolios with each other, mainly to learn from each other how portfolios can look like and what is a good way to structure, for example, a portfolio.

Kristina Hoeppner: 14:11

Yeah. So if I understand it correctly then Olga, you have these two different types: the learning portfolio and the assessment portfolio, which is a presentation taking evidence from the learning portfolio. The learning portfolio is kept throughout the entire PhD studies,...

Olga Göransson: 14:26

Yes.

Kristina Hoeppner: 14:27

... and then they have two points during their studies, halfway through and at the end, where they share their portfolio with a selected audience,...

Olga Göransson: 14:36

Yes.

Kristina Hoeppner: 14:36

... in order to demonstrate their competencies.

Olga Göransson: 14:40

Yes, exactly.

Kristina Hoeppner: 14:42

I love the aspect of the learning portfolio that it is not shared because that, as you just said, it can open up a conversation that is a bit franker than you might want to have when you do know that there is an audience there, but also that the students then learn how to take evidence from that learning portfolio, rejig and put into their assessment portfolio so that they can take advantage of that different representation. So those are the benefits that you and your programme and your colleagues see for the portfolio. Do your students agree with that? Do they like working on the portfolio?

Olga Göransson: 15:19

Yeah [laughs], it has been a challenge to reach that point, and we are not quite there yet, but many students do appreciate the portfolio and do use it as a learning tool, but it has been a challenge. It is quite evident that some students don't really use the portfolio as it is intended. So they are not so active with their learning portfolio. I would have wished that we were able to maybe assess the portfolio every year because I think this would encourage students to get started earlier and use it more actively and maybe discover the benefits. But throughout my years as course director, I have noted a very, very positive development. In the beginning, the portfolio was perceived by many as an administrative burden rather than something that was good for them. But I do think that this has changed a lot. More and more students do appreciate the benefits of the portfolio.

Kristina Hoeppner: 16:17

Is that perception of being just another thing they need to do that doesn't really help them, is that the main challenge? Or are they also other challenges for the students why they are not engaging so much?

Olga Göransson: 16:30

Well, they are very busy. They are under a lot of pressure. Clinical PhD students, they are doing a clinical career in parallel, and because we are a university hospital, they also need to take courses, etc. within that context. So just time. Making time for this is a challenge. It can be a challenge navigating the supervisors a role in this. Some supervisors strongly support the portfolio system. Some are sceptical and also think that it's just something that takes time away from the research work, and those are the supervisors who do not really acknowledge the educational aspect of the PhD studies, maybe. So there are some challenges like that. Some students struggle with understanding the difference between the individual study plan, which is a very important document for them and the portfolio. My explanation is that the study plan relates to the future. The portfolio is about the past, what they have done. But this is also a challenge.

Kristina Hoeppner: 17:32

Yeah, lots of challenges to overcome, and it's good to hear that over the years, the students have taken on the portfolio more and engage more with it, which, of course, is due thanks to all the work that you and your team put in in order to really also showcase the value that the portfolio has for them. Now, Olga, we've been talking about the past a bit of what your students have been doing so far with portfolios, what you and your team have been doing. What are your plans then, for using portfolios in the coming academic year? Are you planning on making any changes?

Olga Göransson: 18:08

Yeah, we are almost constantly improving the portfolio system, making developments. Another challenge that maybe it's not a challenge for the students, but for us, it relates to equal assessment. I mentioned to you that we have over 1,000 PhD students. So it's a huge material that someone needs to read. So obviously one person cannot do that. The portfolio is of a nature that there is a subjective component here in the assessment. This is something that we're constantly working on improving so that the assessment and examination so that it becomes more equal. What we are doing at the moment is developing a support material for assessors with supporting questions and some assessment criteria. So that's one thing that is in process. We are also in process of revising the study syllabus. We are slightly changing the course outcomes with the aim of making them even easier to understand for the students, but also easier to examine. These are two things we are doing at the moment.

Kristina Hoeppner: 19:07

I look forward to hearing what is coming out of those changes and how the students take them on, but I probably have to wait at least a couple of years until the first assessments are being done according to the new rules then. Yeah, maybe. Olga, is there anything that you would like to be able to do with portfolios, but can't yet?

Olga Göransson: 19:29

One thing that we would like to do is perhaps work more with templates. We get a lot of questions about, 'How should I structure my portfolio? What should it look like?' I also get contacted by assessors who are confused because of the fact that portfolios can be rather heterogeneous and they have a different look. So assessors find themselves searching, 'where can I find this and where can I find that?' So we would like to be able to work with a template so that there is a pre-existing structure already when the students are admitted. This is complicated by the fact that we do not force them to use a specific technical tool. This is because the portfolio should not be about the tool. That's just the means to get to the goal. That's one complication. But also, there are some technical challenges. We tried in the past working with templates, and this is something that we would like to achieve so that students can spend more time on filling their portfolios than creating them.

Kristina Hoeppner: 20:28

Yeah, especially when you have specific outcomes already established or work with competencies that all your students need to fulfil. I'd love to talk to you and your team about templates, because we do in New Zealand work quite a bit with them, with nurses and pharmacists because they have annual or reviews every three years and therefore, like your PhD students, are very busy in their careers helping patients, and therefore want to focus very much on adding their content and adding their reflections rather than figuring out how the tool works or how to make things look nice when the important part really is that reflection for them. Now we are already coming to the end of our session with our last three quick answer round sessions (sic!), Olga. Are you ready for them? Yeah, absolutely. Which words do you use to describe portfolio work?

Olga Göransson: 21:22

I try to think about this, and there are three words that I use a lot. The two that I use the most: documentation and reflection. This really defines what we want the students to do. The third word is 'learning'. You should not underestimate the first word, documentation, although it's about much more than that, but many students even forget this or the value of documenting. We all think that we will remember in two years or five years, but we don't[laughs]. It's very important to write down what you've done.

Kristina Hoeppner: 21:57

Locating it, documenting it, and then reflecting on it, which then also leads to the learning and taking it further into their career. What tip do you have for learning designers or instructors who create portfolio activities?

Olga Göransson: 22:12

As I mentioned before, one of the main challenges that we encounter is that the portfolio is perceived as administrative burden, as opposed to something that is of value for them. So my advice is to spend a lot of energy and time on making sure that everyone that comes into contact with the portfolio understands the underlying purpose of using the portfolio. Stress the value- what is the value for the PhD students and also the people surrounding them, i.e. supervisors. So I stress this, and I try to not focus so much upon in which way it is valuable for the faculty. There is a value for us as well in making sure that our students have reached the goals. Everyone understands that. I spend a lot of energy on that explaining the value for the PhD students and also the supervisors because if those PhD students learn in a better way and keep track of their activities, this is very good for their supervisors as well. Another tip is to focus your efforts to the beginning of the programme because that's when you really need to reach them so that they get into the habit of making entries. The portfolio work is something that is really a natural part of their research education. Early on, reach them early on.

Kristina Hoeppner: 23:30

Thank you. Now, what advice do you have for the portfolio authors, for your students that are engaging with the practice?

Olga Göransson: 23:38

All of these students, I meet them in the beginning of their programme, and I have some very clear

advice to them: 23:44

start now. That's the most important thing. Don't postpone. Just start now. Another advice I have is, don't overdo it. Don't be over ambitious because then it becomes a hurdle and you're likely not to do it at all. It's just so much better to make very short but regular entries than not doing it at all. And then a third advice that I always give them a take home message is, use a model for reflection. We did not talk so much about that, but there are excellent models of reflection, and there is one which I think is excellent because it's so easy to understand and remember.

It's Rolfe's model: 24:20

What? So, what? Now, what? So this is three parts. They can structure all their entries according to this. The 'What?' that's the descriptive part. 'So what?' that's the more analytical and reflective part. What did this mean to me? Was it good? Was it bad? 'Now what?' that's the looking ahead part. How will I use this knowledge and what will I do next? Those three rather concrete tips, I guess.

Kristina Hoeppner: 24:48

I also really like that framework, actually, because it is so all encompassing, yet also simple enough, and you can pack a lot of very specific questions still into it.

Olga Göransson: 25:00

I have found that I use it myself a lot since I started with the portfolio work. I don't have a portfolio of my own as such, but I use this framework a lot, and I write down the what, so what, and now what of my activities.

Kristina Hoeppner: 25:15

With the portfolio it's all about that process, rather than the product that is the end, which I think is beautifully exemplified by the importance that you put onto the learning portfolio for your students. Thank you so much, Olga, for sharing the experience that you're having with the portfolio at Lund University, working with a lot of PhD students in it and giving them the opportunity to reflect on their learning and encourage them also to use portfolio techniques to attain their skills and make sure that what they are learning is also reflected and they can be better practitioners going forward in their chosen field of work.

Olga Göransson: 25:58

Thank you. It was very nice to share our experiences.

Kristina Hoeppner: 26:02

Now over to our listeners. What do you want to try in your own portfolio practice? This was 'Create. Share. Engage.' with Professor Dr Olga Göransson, Head to our website, podcast.mahara.org, where you can find resources and the transcript for this episode. This podcast is produced by Catalyst IT, and I'm your host, Kristina Hoeppner, Project Lead and Product Manager of the portfolio platform Mahara. Our next episode will air in two weeks. I hope you'll listen again and tell a colleague about our podcast so they can subscribe. Until then, create, share, and engage.