Introduction

TIPEIL - Transfer of an Innovative Portfolio to Evaluate Informal Learning (2007-2009), is a Transfer of Innovation project (ToI), co-financed within the LLP Programme - Leonardo da Vinci sub-programme, focused on the valorisation of competences that young and adult workers developed within informal and non formal contexts.

The availability of methods and tools applied to reach this goal has been identified in the European Inventory on validation of non formal and informal learning. If, then, on their side many countries have implemented specific initiatives and worked out tools to foster the recognition of competences acquired outside education and training formal contexts, due to their insufficient divulgation, it is still necessary to strengthen processes for their wide transfer and application.

The project TIPEIL, based on the successful results achieved within previous transnational pilot interventions and experiences (E.G.E.I.S - European Guidance and the Evaluation of Informal Skills - Developing a Standard Curriculum and a Training Model for the Qualification of European Guidance Practitioners – LdV I/03/B/F/PP-154080 - and INTRA – Informal training: recognition and accreditation -European Commission, DG Education - Youth programme 92372-5.1.XL-IT-16-2001-R), aims at the transferring of a Model of Digital Portfolio + Training courseware to its use addressed to the operators, associating to this basic goal the one of facilitating its adoption through experimentation, training and coaching activities addressed to operators to whom will be asked to use the portfolio within their specific working contexts.

Main objectives are, so, the following:

• to analyse and promote the willingness to change/adaptability of the currently practices in use in the different national contexts, so as to realise a real integration and permeation among different needs and cultures;

• to integrate the contents, already identified and experimented on transnational dimension, included in the Model of digital portfolio (methodology + training courseware) on which the proposal is based;

• to adapt the prototype at linguistic and technological level, so as to widen its use and application, starting from the organisational and technological analysis of the different national working contexts represented by the partnership;

• to transfer directly and efficaciously (through training and coaching) the adapted prototype to a wide range sample of organisations that, with specific roles all interlinked (e.g. education, training, counselling, employment, etc), can benefit from the adoption of the Model defined.


Transnational Partnership

The partnership involves public and private Universities, research and training Centres, Social Parts services Centres, operative in Italy, France, Spain and Greece, all holding a long and meaningful experience in the management of transnational interventions and the scientific, administrative and technological competences required to positively develop the project proposed.

IT - Ce.Ri.S. – Social Research Centre - Soc. Coop a r.l .
GR - IEKEP - Institute of Training and Vocational Guidance
ES - Mondragon University - Faculty of Business School (ETEO S.Coop)
FR - Estia - Ecole Supérieure des Technologies Industrielles Avancées
IT - Solco - Services for the Organization of Labour and the Creation of Employment – Limited Company
IT – University of Rome “La Sapienza” - Department of Development and Socialization Processes
IT - Trust - Technologies and Human Resources for Development and Transfer - Limited Company


Target Group

Direct beneficiaries are included in two main categories:

1. operators (tutor, trainers, etc.) working within training, counselling, guidance and employment organisations, providing these services to subjects that for different reasons are in social and occupational disadvantage;

2. organisations providing the services above mentioned, with respect to TWO main typologies of beneficiaries: young and adults.


Potential Users

The whole of outcomes and outputs planned are indirectly addressed to a range of potential users as:

- Young with low education levels who, for example, have left compulsory education pathways and are attending or have attended alternative training coursewares through which have acquired competences and capabilities difficult to be valorised or formally recognised by the system and that are at risk of “employment exclusion”;

- Young and adults who have realised fragmentary and heterogeneous working experiences, within which have acquired capabilities and skills potentially usable and improvable if properly identified, measured and valorised;

- Adults at risk of unemployment, whose competences acquired during their work-life-cycle do not meet within the systems effective tools and devices to valorise them.


Tipeil Context Of Reference

The need to develop methodologies to evaluate those competencies that are acquired outside traditional educational structures, in the so-called non formal and informal learning contexts (Bjornavold, 2000; White book, 1994), is recognised throughout Europe.

In fact, the recognition of informal competencies could facilitate the reintegration of people in the labour market and thus their life-long employability, contributing in this way to the European Area of Life-long learning which, according to the Communication no. 678 of the European Commission, is fundamental for Europe to become a competitive and dynamic knowledge-based society.

Many countries have recognised this crucial role of non formal and informal learning, and the results of this growing awareness has been the launching of various initiatives at different political and/or social levels that aim at recognising learning that takes place outside traditional educational contexts.

Varied tools have been created to respond to this need of recognising these competencies that are acquired outside formal educational contexts. These tools are the fruit of legislative impulses or agreements between social parties, or stem from specific initiatives in the field of labour policies. Examples are the so-called Bilan de Compétence in France, APEL (Accreditation of Prior Experiencial Learning) and CATS (Career Accumulation and Transfer Schemes) in the UK, the Transfer of Credits between institutions in Schotland, and the Attendance Certificates in The Netherlands.

The next problem that emerges at this point is the necessity to respond to this common need of recognition and certification of this type of learning, with similar tools and methodologies, or even the same. As one can understand, this represents a genuine interest, not only in the field of active labour policies of the European Community and the implications for the labour market, but also at scientific level, as in the first place one needs to develop verification and documentation tools that are coherent with the learning to be recognised.


The Digital Portfolio: A Tool And A Method

TIPEIL is based on the outcomes achieved by the implementation of the “INTRA” project that has contributed to the development of a specific tool – the digital portfolio – and a methodology , with the aim of supporting the identification and valorisation of informal and non formal learning.

Though the portfolio in itself has ancient roots, its most recent use (as a methodology for the recognition of acquired competencies and for the empowerment of the cognitive capacities of students) implies an innovation that stems from the recent changes occurred in the theoretical conception of learning: according to the studies realised, it is necessary to focus on the complexity and pervasiveness of learning considering it as a part of the human behaviour linked to the different situations to which all individuals take part.

In this view, different types of learning are distinguishable with respect to the contexts in which the learning takes place and the characteristics that learning encloses. In particular, there have been identified three typologies: formal, non formal, informal.

• Formal learning takes place in specific institutional contexts and , regarding its contents, it refers primarily to disciplines (e.g. School).

• Non formal learning is intentional, based on a deliberate choice made by an individual (in cooperation with the person responsible for his/her training). It refers to specific activities (e.g. learning how to dance or to play an instrument); the knowledge acquired is mainly connected to an action - implying an aim - and its results are easily visible and recognisable (the person becomes able to do something that initially was not able to do, by committing him/her self).

• Informal learning results from daily life activities and from activities related to work, since it is intrinsically connected to the participation in situations in which an individual feels completely involved and of which understands the sense: this is what normally happens when human beings act. The contents of informal learning are considered “fluid knowledge”, not systemised nor organised, with margins that are not clearly defined: essential characteristics are that knowledge is connected to tailored actions, and to the solution of problems, whether in the strict or in the wider sense of the word.


Tipeil Activites

The general articulation of the intervention implies the following step of implementation.

1. Research actions aimed at:

• verifying the original prototype (e.g. transferability towards targets and new countries, also considering existing rules and regulations such as Europass, citizen leaflet, competences analysis) in order to avoid its redundancy with respect to existing tools.

• identifying possible margins of adaptation of the model with reference to its use (organizational and technological assets analysis of the identified centers)

• creating a map of potential beneficiaries of the experimentation and transfer actions planned.

• starting-up the involvement of direct or indirect beneficiaries of project results/outcomes


2. Development and production of the reviewed version of the Model (digital portfolio + training course) - from a linguistic (all partnership national languages), technological (web-based platform) and content point of view – to be used during the experimentation activity.

3. Experimentation of the Model (draft version) within all four countries involved, by a representative sample of different typologies of entities. On the whole, this action implies information, training, coaching and evaluation activities.

4. Development and production of the final version of the Model (web-based platform to edit and publish digital PORTFOLI + training course introducing the digital portfolio methodology and process) in all partnership national languages, to be used during the transfer activity.

5. Transfer of the Final Model on a wider number of operators and organisations, in Italy and Greece.