Canadian e-Learning Organization Launches ePortfolio Initiative

“LIfIA is pleased to provide access to an ePortfolio for all of its members,” said Dr. Kathryn Barker, Chairperson of LIfIA. “It is our mission to promote ePortfolio’s for every Canadian citizen by the year 2010. LIfIA, together with our international partners, is firmly committed to ensure that this means having one ePortfolio for life.”

The Avenet efolioTM is a multimedia web site designed to empower individuals to advance their educational and career objectives by managing and attractively displaying resumes, academic and career documentation, career goals and qualifications, achievements and other meaningful information. Unlike a one-dimensional paper document, an efolio can “come alive” and provide a “rich” display, including documents, images, audio, video, links, and detailed examples of accomplishments and achievements.

This new initiative of LIfIA is the result of a series of key factors:
– the accelerated growth of ePortfolio initiatives, North America-wide and world-wide, addressing public policy goals for educational accountability, labour mobility, and the promotion of lifelong learning;
– the level of maturity of ePortfolio and eLearning platforms that now offer robust and flexible solutions to learning management challenges in the global Knowledge Economy;

– new and better ways to foster and assess learning for all levels of students – beyond standardized teaching and testing;
– the necessity to better assess and use the broad range of skills and knowledge that individuals learn through both formal and informal education, workplace training, community and family involvement over a lifetime.

“One ePortfolio for life’ means being able to start your digital folio in school, utilize it through your training and education, and then continue to use it regardless of the work or business site to which you migrate”, said Barker. “This concept is now possible because of advances in the portability and interoperability of ePortfolio tools and solutions.”

“We share LIfIA’s vision and goal to provide portable, flexible, lifelong efolios that empower students, faculty, workers and career seekers to meet their educational and career objectives,” said Eric Johnson, CEO of Avenet. “By collaborating with LIfIA, we can help make that vision a reality in Canada and throughout North America.”

“The agreement between LIfIA and Avenet is a strong signal to the North American market that the eLearning revolution has entered into a new phase: the development of tools and services that, beyond the provision of flexible and innovative learning solutions, offer the means to fully value and empower the individual, the lifelong and life-wide learning citizen,” said Barker. “The ePortfolio will soon become vital to the management of human capital and social assets.”

LIfIA plans to spearhead the proliferation of ePortfolios across Canada and throughout the Americas. LIfIA is sponsoring the upcoming PanAmerican ePortfolio Working Forum in Vancouver, BC April 18-19, 2005.

LIfIA and Avenet have also pledged to remain active in consortia dedicated to the interoperability and standardisation of ePortfolio platforms, and to documenting the Return on Investment in ePortfolios. “The effort to create an ePortfolio should be rewarded in terms of utility for those who create and those who receive and process ePortfolios in learning management and human capitol management”, said Barker.

About LIfIA
LIfIA, based in Vancouver, British Columbia is a North American not-for-profit association dedicated to learning innovation and quality. LIfIA members are individual learning professionals, organisations, educational institutions, training organizations, consultants and regions. Its main goal is to lead the creation of a learning culture in North America: learning individuals, learning organizations and learning communities and regions. The ePortfolio will continue be central to support LIfIA’s members’ continuing professional development, and the assurance of competence in all aspects of education, training, learning and human resource development. LIfIA is formally affiliated with EIfEL (“European Institute for E-Learning”), a European professional association dedicated to learning quality and innovation and the organiser of major national and international conferences: ePortfolio 2003, ePortfolio London 2004, ePortfolio 2004 in La Rochelle, France. For more information, visit www.lif-fia.org.

LIfIA is also the organiser of major national and international conferences: ePortfolio Canada, Vancouver; ePortfolio Canada Montreal (with CSLP of Concordia University); and, with EIfEL, ePortfolio PanAmerica 2005 to be held April 18-20, 2005, in Vancouver, Canada. Other major events and initiatives will soon be announced.

About Avenet
Avenet LLC, based in St. Paul Minnesota, provides industry-leading web solutions to vertical markets, including education, government, nonprofit, advocacy and campaigns. Avenet developed the groundbreaking online ePortfolio system for the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system (MnSCU) which has been lauded as a national model (see www.efoliominnesota.com ). The system, which is designed to manage and display online portfolios for students, faculty and professionals to advance educational and career objectives, is the first statewide system in America. For more information, please visit www.avenet.net, and www.avenetefolio.com.

---

Media Contacts:
Victor P. Leginsky
Director and Officer
Learning Innovations FORUM d’Innovations d’Apprenntissage
Phone: 604-643-1289
website: www.lif-fia.org

Ross Heupel
Director of Marketing
Avenet Web Solutions
Phone: 651-290-2021
website: www.lif-fia.org

---