Hello Julien from CYIM in France

Welcome Julien we look forward to working with you on this project

Welcome Raquel and Caroline from Spain

Hello Raquel and Caroline thank you for wanting to be involved with the cobafolio trainee project

e-portfolio SWOT Analysis

Welcome more authors to the blog

Thank you Tobias,Georg and Shelley for subscribing and please feel free to post to this blog
we have a new trainee joining our group this week from Finland - Stepani Bendel
So we now 28 participants in our e-portfolio group here is a list of names and the countries they represent:-
Austria - Georg Roth & Ulrich Thaler,
Bulgaria - Tzvetan Filipov & Nadia Keremidchieva,
Croatia - Ana Vujaklija
Czech Republic - Andrea Vlkova
Denmark - Brigit Riis Anderson
Finland - Stepani Bendel
France - Jean Della Monica
Germany - Utz Bartels & Tobias Ninke
Greece - Pontikis Kostis , Apostolakou Heleni , Nina Maghina
Hungary - Andras Mikor & Tamas Leiner:
Ireland - Ivan Hayes
Israel - Shaul Lev
Italy -Laura Ferla, Christina Santonocito
The Netherlands - Annechien Van Hove
Poland - Tomasz Albrecht
Portugal - Sónia Teixeira & Ricardo Freitas
Switzerland - Christina Passath
UK - Anwar Shah, Nick Lees, Shelley Vamadevan

Thank you Cristina

thank you very much to invite me to discuss about portafolio. I think that it is a very intresting initiative, I agree to do it..and with enthusiasm,also because no study can demonstrate a danger of portfolio for the results of education. I like this initiative..!
Cristina Santonocito (Italy)

Invitation to the e-portfolio blog forum

Dear Coba Trainees,
thank you for joining this blog -the aim is to be able to share our ideas and thoughts and produce a research framework to develop the cobafolio

One of the popular forums used in many portfolios are discussion boards by the peer groups of a trainee cohort and I hope that this invitation only blog will provide us with a similar experience.

Feedback-Yes or No to Portfolios

To bring together our e-portfolio trainee group following the Lisbon Meeting, I sent out an article from the BMJ titled Are portfolios worth the effort?http://www.bmj.com/cgi/section_pdf/337/jul11_1/a513.pdf
Here are the responses so far
Dear CoBa Contributors So far in my training I've had only limited contact with portfolios, but in the last few months I've been asked to perform assessments of junior colleagues and I gained the impression that e-portfolios are a very powerful tool because of the use of repeated assessments over time, rather than the half-hour appraisal every 6 months or so. This produces a real body of evidence. There is real potential for the portfolio to reinforce an indivdual's evaluation of their own weaknesses and to identify weaknesses that the trainee may not have been aware of. Hopefully positive reinforcement, and even identification of excellence as discussed in Lisbon, can become integral. However it would also be easy for the process to become sterile and repetitive with meaningless grading scales questioning facets of performance that may not be relevant to the particular discipline being assessed. This diminishes the value of what was intended to be a thorough and comprehensive tool. The other element that diminishes one's opportunity to evaluate is the trainee selection of their assessors - there are one or two trainees who are never going to ask me for an assessment!! The CoBa Folio will have the relatively narrow remit of delivery of intensive medical care, and can therefore be tailored to the skillset required in this domain. Ideally this would allow skills to be evaluated in a more open way. Hopefully there will be flexibility and the ability to assess trainees' adaptability in a dynamic environment, their ability to recruit the assistance of their nursing and other colleagues when needed, their ability to make their 'workspace' tick and buzz with enthusiasm, and how well they translate this into clinical patient progress through their stay in ITU. Perhaps there may be facility to record feedback from patients/families as it is occasionally given unsolicited. I think nursing feedback is essential. I'm sorry to be so vague in my suggestions, but I am trying to contribute to a flavour of the portfolio. If I ever manage to formulate how this may translate into an e-form I will surely speak up. Best Wishes Anwar, (UK)

thanks for the invitation to an open discussion about the worth of a "learning portfolio“ for the CoBa project.We see a ProCon discussion about the worth of portfolios in the education of medical students and doctors. And thats the reason why this discussion is worthwhile for the CoBa project.
I supported the idea of a portfolio during the last times of our meetings and I`m still convinced the portfolio should be a part of our work.
We have to resumee that effectiveness of portfolios per sè could not been shown in studies in the past.But even so no study can demonstrate a danger of portfolio for the results of education.
In my opinion till now we have no other opportunity to find a connection between the declarations and definitions of our project and the reality in education of young doctors in intensive care.We defined a list of items young physicians have to learn during trainieeship.

I totally agree with G. Norman that a portfolio is worthless until it`s filled with life.But in my opinion the CoBa comittee had been founded to fill a new concept of education with life. And for that reason we shall pubilsh a CoBa portfolio in direct contact and response to our trainees and we are responsible to will the lines of the portfolio with emotions and impact!
Best regards Yours Utz (Germany)

Thanks for the article. I agree with the authors that keeping a portfolio is not a target in itself, it only needs to be kept if the information collected in it can lead to a clear view of progression and/ or a guideline to adjust your education to your personal needs. The advantage is the offering of a concrete way to structure evidence of progression/ training.
What I keep is a list of practical activities (placement of lines, intubation etc) as a indicator of experience/ competence. Furthermore the results/outcomes of previous evaluations and a list of (relevant) courses followed
All the other things in my mind are not major issues helping in planning your education, unless they are a returning problem for example bad presentations/ lectures. But I think that those problems wil also be discussed during the periodical evaluations and so will come to attention if there is need for it.
The major problem is defining it to much in that in then only becomes an obligation and not a useful tool. An other important thing is the conviction by the users in that it is indeed a useful tool. I think you can help that conviction if only basic guidelines are provided and the users define and finetune the endproduct to their specific needs.
Best wishes,Annechien (The Netherlands)