Liferay Portlets The Personal Competence Manager is integrated with the Liferay portal system, through a set of specialised portlets.
These are divided into two categories:
1) Portlets which support users in their orientation, planning, execution and monitoring of tasks related to their personal competence development:
Goal Orientation Portlet. This portlet provides the user with an overview of the competence profiles available in the learning network, based on personal preferences for certain activities, contexts and interests. These resulting competence profiles can then be further investigated through for example the Assessment Portlet to get a first personal positioning on the profile. A quickstart guide is available for this portlet.
Goal Selector Portlet. When a user has defined a professional or educational ambition, the Goal Selector Portlet is used to select a matching competence profile as the goal for personal development. The defined goals are reused in the next step of personal development planning, creating a plan to achieve the goal.
Test Portlet. The Test Portlet allows users to take tests in order to self assess aspects that are relevant in setting realistic goals, like aptitude, motivation, personality, learning style, etc.. These tests are created using the QTI Editor Portlet. The outcomes of the Test Portlet are informative, and not directed at a specific competence.
Assessment Portlet. The Assessment Portlet helps a user to perform a self assessment for the competences required to achieve the selected goal. After performing this self assessment a competence gap is determined.
Evidence Portlet. The Evidence Portlet provides the user with the opportunity to add evidence to the portfolio that provides proof for the mastery of a competence, e.g. linked to the self-assessment carried out through the Assessment Portlet. At the moment this portlet is only available as an integrated functionality in the Portfolio Portlet.
Activity Navigator Portlet. The Activity Navigator Portlet supports a user in actually achieving the selected goal, and thus is a key component in the personal development process. First it determines a suitable learning plan for the user, by matching the available learning paths with the identified competence gaps and user preferences. Secondly it directs the user through the appropriate learning opportunities that comprise the learning path.
SLeD Portlet. The SleD portlet is a version of the SLeD IMS Learning Design player, which is running in a portlet. SLeD plays content provided by the Coppercore runtime engine. The application is designed to be re-used and integrated with other systems to provide plug-in Learning Design functionality.
ASTRO Learning Design Player Portlet
The Astro Learning Design Player is an alternative, and newer, runtime environment to using SLeD. It allows for example modern graphical user interfaces, which are not supported by SLeD. Also this player is designed to be re-used and integrated with other systems to provide plug-in Learning Design functionality. For more information see the quickstart guide for the Astro player.
Social Help Portlet. This portlet provides an interface to communicate with other individuals, mainly experts, that can provide answers to the given questions and doubts. At the moment of writing this report, this portlet is still in the testing phase.
Progress Portlet. The Progress Portlet provides different configurable overviews on user behavior and data in the integrated Liferay environment. User data include progress information about competences, competence profiles, learning activities and evidence. The portlet has two main modes. A “journal” mode, where progress can be monitored in detail and a “current” mode, only presenting the current state of a user. The portlet is very flexible and can serve many purposes like that of a configurable portfolio. A screencast about the progress portlet is available below:
2) Portlets which support the creation and management of competence development networks and services:
Competence Model Editor Portlet. This editor portlet lets an author create and maintain the competence model entities. It includes the definition of competences, competence levels, competence profiles and competence profile levels. These entities are input for all portlets and tools that use competences. A screencast about the competence model editor is available below:
QTI Editor Portlet. This portlet lets an author create QTI assessments, according to the IMS QTI 2.1 specification. The tests that are created in this way can then be accessed by users through the Test Portlet and the Assessment Portlet. A screencast about the QTI editor is available below:
Learning Path Editor Portlet. A portlet for defining a course of actions which will help the learner to attain a particular set of competences. These actions may be formal (i.e. certified), non-formal (e.g. creative course, sports club training), or informal (e.g. ask a colleague). The result is a learning path compliant to the TENCompetence Learning Path specification. These pre-authored learning paths are input to the creation of personalised development plans with the Activity Navigator Portlet.
Learning Design Administration Portlet. This portles handles the administration of IMS Units or Learning created with the ReCourse tool. This comprises creating new ‘runs’ for online delivery of the Unit of Learning through the SLeD player, and assigning users to roles (e.g. learner, peer, assessor, coach, etc.) in those runs.