Research Projects

  • PI: Exploring the Functions of Assessment Driven ePortfolio Use in the Context of Vulnerable Communities

A National Study across 7 Australian Universities — Ethics Clearance in all Universities received.
The aims of this research were to 1. Understand current practice across institutions and these confidentiality challenges. 2. Identify some of the unintended outcomes when using an e-portfolio. 3.Develop guidelines to be used by staff and students to address the unintended outcomes of using an e-portfolio.

From 2017 until early 2020, I led a team of multi-disciplinary researchers across seven Australian universities investigating current ePortfolio practice across Health and Education faculties.  We have had a great deal of international interest in our project, as it has intersected with Digital Ethics and eProfessionalism. Throughout 2020, I have continued dissemination of our work, especially now, in a time of the global pandemic of Covid-19, as so much teaching has moved online.

See our scoping review of the literature we published in October 2018 for more information around digital ethics.

As our group highlighted in the 2019 ePortfolios Australia forum (pp 71-75), as well as this year’s Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia (HERDSA) conference in Auckland in July 2019, university students need more support about what to place in their ePortfolios and about how to build their online personas whilst protecting the privacy and consent of patients and/or school age students.

We drafted guidelines for ACT Health Services for students doing Health work integrated learning placements. To further support development for students and staff, a suite of online resources on eProfessionalism to support Digital Ethics was created by the University of Queensland, and is available with Creative Commons to be widely used and adapted for local contexts.

  • PI: Professional Identity Formation of Regional Australian Teacher Education Students

Building capacity and supporting a Level A Lecturer for promotion through collaboration on a research project examining the process of identity formation from preservice to inservice for regional Australian preservice education students.