The potential role of ePortfolios in the Teaching Excellence Framework

Current debates on HE policy in the UK are dominated by the evolving Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) which will soon involve the government establishing key metrics. In this context, and seizing this valuable moment in policy formation, we here provide a brief foray into the multiple aspects of ‘teaching excellence’ (TE) as a basis to highlight both the complexity of identifying ways to measure it and the shortcomings of existing official developments. In the absence of a clear conceptual understanding of the learning processes and the role of teaching which apparently underpins the TEF, we present a model of the learning process to which the indicators currently proposed by the authorities can be related. We propose that ePortfolios can play a special role in the TEF in capturing the qualitative outcomes of learning processes which, importantly, reflect the student perspective in terms of goals, learning experiences and achievement. These are both crucial yet missing elements of the proposals to date. Finally, we provide some examples of how information from ePortfolios could be used by HE institutions to enhance their institutional submissions to the TEF.