“Graduate Attributes, e-Portfolios, and links to Profiling at the University of
Glasgow”.
Overall Aim of report
This report describes some of the current approaches at the University of Glasgow which relate to Emerging
Approaches to Profiling 3-18. The aim of the report is to provide some background and context on related
work in a University setting; to highlight areas of good practice; and to draw parallels with some of the
themes and issues relating to profiling in schools. Closer partnership working between schools and higher
education institutions in this area of profiling, in the future, could lead to smoother transitions to university
for our home students and a significant increase in their abilities to reflect on and articulate their
development of core skills and attributes.
The report illustrates practical ways in which students can be encouraged to reflect on and capture their
skills, using the Graduate Attributes matrix and e-portfolios (Example 1), and describes ongoing work with
local schools as part of the Widening Participation scheme, extended to include some elements of profiling
and encouraging pupils to consider their skills and attributes (Example 2).
Background/context
A number of years ago due to several factors, graduate employment and unemployment became a topical
issue. Around the same time it was recognised by both the University and employers that students required
support in thinking about their prospects following university, and in articulating the skills and attributes they
had developed. It was also recognised that there was a need to improve and develop links with employers.
In 2008 the University of Glasgow’s Employability Strategy Review found that while there were three
separate strands of activity (Employability, Personal Development Planning (PDP) and Work-related
Learning), there was however no overarching development strategy. In January 2009 the Graduate Attributes
Working Group was therefore set up, to explore Graduate Attributes, a concept from Australia promoted in
the Quality Assurance Agency’s Enhancement Themes. Perhaps one of the main drivers was the observation
by employers that while our graduates are very good, the same graduates, in contrast, were not so good at
being able to recognise and articulate the skills and attributes they had developed alongside their academic
studies.
Graduate Attributes
The University of Glasgow’s Graduate Attributes were identified following consultation with staff, students,
SRC (Students Representative Council) and employers. An action research project was then carried out by
students, who interviewed staff and peers, and designed guides to the Graduate Attributes for both staff and
students.
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The University of Glasgow’s Graduate Attributes are defined as “The academic abilities, personal
qualities and transferable skills which all students will have the opportunity to develop as part of their
University of Glasgow experience.”
•
Rather than simply listing the attributes, these are presented in a matrix, with each attribute having
three dimensions (academic, personal and transferable). This provides a more easily accessible
framework that encourages students to see how they can develop each attribute either in their
course, in their personal life, or elsewhere for example at work.
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The agreed University of Glasgow Graduate Attributes (each with an academic, personal and
transferable dimension) are: Subject Specialists; Investigative; Independent and Critical Thinkers;
Resourceful and Responsible; Effective Communicators; Confident; Adaptable; Experienced
Collaborators; Ethically and Socially Aware; Reflective Learners.
The Graduate Attributes project was supported and promoted by the Vice Principal for Learning & Teaching,
who then set up the Graduate Attributes Implementation Group (GAIG). The GAIG is composed of staff in
various roles throughout the University, including the Director of the Learning & Teaching Centre, the
Director of the Careers Service, and a Graduate Attributes Champion from each of the four Colleges within
the University. The GAIG meets regularly to share information and disseminate good practice relating to
Graduate Attributes and related initiatives throughout the University and elsewhere, including other Higher
Education Institutions.
A Graduate Attributes area on the University website was also developed. This is regularly updated, and can
be viewed here: http://www.gla.ac.uk/students/attributes/. There are various resources for staff and
students, including the Graduate Attributes matrix, the student-produced staff and student guides, podcasts,
downloadable resources such as presentations which can be used freely by staff or adapted, and other useful
links.
Graduate Attributes, Curriculum for Excellence, and Profiling
The Graduate Attributes named above have clear parallels with the four capacities of the Curriculum for
Excellence (Successful learners; Confident individuals; Effective contributors; Responsible Citizens). There are a
number of other ways in which the Graduate Attributes agenda relates to the Curriculum for Excellence and
profiling:
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Developing ongoing dialogues with learners, so that pupils/students are more able to reflect on their
learning, have a greater awareness of their own skills and attributes, and crucially, are able to
articulate these, particularly at transition points.
•
Encouraging the development of links with a range of stakeholders, particularly employers.
•
Profiling and the Curriculum for Excellence relate to positive destinations, with learners at the
centre. Graduate Attributes clearly relate to employment or further study, but engaging properly
with the scheme will also enrich the learner’s experience, so that an increased motivation could also
enhance their employment prospects.
•
It is increasingly recognised that success at school or university is about more than the qualifications
alone, so developments such as Profiling and the Graduate Attributes matrix provide support and
resources for capturing wider achievement and skills development including work experience.
Implementation/emerging practice
There are several initiatives at the University of Glasgow that aim to make Graduate Attributes more visible
on our courses and elsewhere, and to support students in documenting and evidencing their skills. Two
examples are presented here, that relate to some of the key aspects of profiling and the Curriculum for
Excellence.
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Example 1: Graduate attributes development through the Graduate Skills Programme
Background and rationale
Launched in October 2010 the Graduate Skills Programme (GSP) – www.glasgow.ac.uk/gsp - supports
students from across the College of Social Sciences to reflect on and enhance the Graduate Attributes they
are developing through their academic studies and their participation in other activities including workrelated activities. Interest in this voluntary skills programme has been significant with approximately 400
undergraduate and postgraduate taught students registering within the first two months of the Programme’s
launch. In 2013-14, 556 students registered to take part in the College’s Graduate Attributes and
employability programme.
GSP participants are supported through workshops, the GSP skills handbook, a dedicated Virtual Learning
Environment and annotated reflection tables to compile online ‘Professional Development Portfolios’ 1. These
ePortfolios include personalised competency frameworks, critical incidents reflecting on specific examples of
skills and attributes development, and reflection on the impact of this skills and attribute development on
their academic studies and future employability. They also contain detailed professional development plans.
The Programme was developed to address a range of college-specific and institution-wide student
development issues, including:
•
•
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a need to provide a strategic impetus for student engagement with personal development planning
and Graduate Attributes reflection
a professed student interest in a more structured approach to employability development
an emerging interest in mapping and enhancing students’ Graduate Attributes and their ability to
identify, reflect on and take ownership of their development of key attributes and skills
Graduate Skills Programme, Curriculum for Excellence and Profiling
GSP shares a range of common factors with 3-18 profiling initiatives in schools. Firstly, the reflective process
that learners undergo in both school and higher education is underpinned by a skills framework – the
Curriculum for Excellence capacities, on the one hand, and our Graduate Attributes Matrix, on the other. For
GSP, the Matrix provides a clear structural framework and reflective starting point for our students as they
reflect on and plan their personal and professional development. As previously outlined, the Matrix is very
similar to the four Curriculum for Excellence capacity areas, offering a mix of academic skills and attributes
(eg. critical thinking; subject specialism), personal and interpersonal skills (eg. collaboration; confidence;
communication), and value-based attributes (eg. socially and ethically aware).
Like 3-18 profiling, GSP seeks to engage students in deeper reflection on the nature of their learning and their
broader personal and professional development, thereby making links with their academic studies and
increasing their understanding of the transferable value of this learning. One of the key outcomes of GSP is
the ability of students to articulate their skills and attributes to an external audience (eg. employers). This
ability is assessed through learner-led personal and professional development ePortfolios which - similar to
school profiles - are constructed in dialogue with the GSP staff.
Like 3-18 profiling in schools, GSP goes beyond a focus on academic studies to encompass other activities
including work-related activities engaged in by our students, thus formally recognising their achievements in
these areas. GSP has become a space where early year undergraduate and postgraduate students can plan
their work-related and other activities throughout their academic studies. This helps to ensure holistic skills
development, and to maximise the students’ employability and attractiveness to employers by the end of
their degree programmes.
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You can find full details of the Graduate Skills Programme at www.glasgow.ac.uk/gsp. You can also view examples
of GSP ePortfolios at https://portfolio.gla.ac.uk/view/view.php?id=833.
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3-18 profiling stresses the importance of being able to articulate skills and attributes at key transition points.
Similarly, GSP ePortfolios provide support for students’ exit from higher education into the job market, and
prospective participants in GSP often focus on the employability benefits of the Programme when deciding
whether to participate.
In one or two respects there are differences between GSP and 3-18 Profiling, for example, students receive
detailed formative feedback from the GSP Coordinator and tutors on their first submission of their
ePortfolios, and the final ePortfolio is then made accessible to external viewers and employers. These
ePortfolios provide a reflective space for students to think about their future career plans and also act as
online self-marketing tools to support their interactions with employers. Employers – including Morgan
Stanley, PwC, and Ernst and Young – have been involved in GSP since its foundation and have provided advice
and guidance on the relevance of programme content to entry to the world of work. These same employers
now provide formal prizes which recognise the most effective ePortfolios produced by our students at our
award ceremony each year.
Concluding remarks
There are numerous examples of the GSP’s impact on students’ securing of graduate jobs and internships.
There is also an impact on other key transition points such as the initial period after entry into Higher
Education, where participation in the Programme has enabled students to better understand the vocational
relevance of their academic studies and to better plan their time at university.
GSP is just one way in which the University of Glasgow is attempting to engage its students in reflecting on
and articulating their skills and attributes development. However, GSP’s use of learner-led ePortfolios based
on an explicit ‘attributes’ framework, its focus on key transition points and positive exit routes into the
workplace, and its inclusion of work-related and other broader activities, make it an interesting case study of
a consistent and complimentary continuation of 3-18 profiling in schools. Closer partnership working
between schools and higher education institutions in this area of profiling, in the future, could lead to
smoother transitions to university for our home students and a significant increase in their abilities to reflect
on and articulate their development of core skills and attributes.
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Example 2: Widening Participation and Transitions to Higher Education
Background
One of the ways in which the University of Glasgow is involved with schools is via FOCUS West (Focus on
College and University Study in the West of Scotland), the largest division in Scotland of the national Schools
for Higher Education Programme (SHEP). 2 The programmes supported by FOCUS West are fully collaborative
and are facilitated by staff within all West of Scotland Higher Education Institutions (University of Glasgow,
University of Strathclyde, University of the West of Scotland, Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow School
of Art and the Royal Conservatoire).
Primarily targeting schools in areas with low rates of participation in Higher Education, the overall project
aims in FOCUS West are to stimulate pupils towards achievement at school, ambition in Higher Education,
and further into rewarding careers paths. In addition, the project provides invaluable opportunities for
individual reflection and personal development in their education, instilling self-belief and confidence in their
own ability, and opening up their learning experiences. This can aid the learners in their reflections and
learning conversations during the profiling process.
S5/S6 Top Up Programme
A major contribution to the FOCUS West initiative is the ‘Top Up Programme’. Top Up has been working with
schools in the West of Scotland since 1999 and has been designed with the intentions to (i) help S5 and S6
pupils who have considered Higher Education as an option, and (ii) promote Higher Education after school as
a rewarding and viable option for all.
Top Up is a rigorous, 10-week academic programme that promotes school students’ awareness of Higher
Education. Fully-trained university postgraduate tutors help prepare pupils for the transition from school to
university or college, and help pupils make informed choices about their futures. Participation in the
programme enhances existing skills and equips pupils with essential key skills required for successful Higher
Education study, with emphasis on encouraging critical thinking, independent learning and reflection. Pupils
attend lectures, seminars and science lab workshops, and this introduction to University Campus life
establishes a unique familiarity with essential Higher Education learning approaches and required individual
learning attributes. The students benefit from new learning methods and environments, supporting their
advancement as successful learners and confident individuals, and allowing key individual skills to flourish.
These opportunities can lead to the learners having a deeper understanding of their own skills development,
which can then be part of learning conversations that happen in school.
At the end of the Programme, students are assessed by their postgraduate tutor on three components:
(i) overall performance; (ii) seminar participation; (iii) written assignment.
Students then receive a certificate with the grades awarded for each component, and a report card-style
assessment from the tutor commenting on the students’ performance during the programme. Students can
then use these reports to reflect on and draw from their experiences. The reports can be used to create and
inform learning conversations. The experiences students gain throughout the Top Up programme help to
develop young people as effective and competent students, well prepared for embarking on their Higher
Education journeys and future careers as effective contributors and responsible citizens.
The Schools for Higher Education Programme works with S3 to S6 pupils. Further information can be found on their website http://www.sfc.ac.uk/funding/FundingOutcomes/Access/SchoolsforHigherEducationProgramme/SchoolsforHigherEducationPr
ogramme.aspx
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S1-S3 Pilot Programme 2014
To be inclusive of all school learners, the Widening Participation initiative at University of Glasgow has now
developed pilot S1-S3 sessions in 2014. These include individual sessions, which initiate forward thinking and
aim to engage school pupils with a range of prior attainment in assessing and understanding their own
learning. As with Top-Up, the S1-S3 pilot also uses fully trained postgraduate tutors and a collegiate
approach, so that young learners have an opportunity to engage with knowledgeable and experienced Higher
Education practitioners. The primary focus of the S1-S3 pilot is to recognise the parallels between school
learning, transferable skills, and progression to Higher Education and potential career paths.
A key concept in this programme is to instil resilience and improve retention in education, by actively
engaging S1-S3 pupils in making informed choices about their future, to facilitate progression to Higher
Education and other positive destinations. This pilot involves individual and collaborative projects, where
pupils, working with trained postgraduate tutors, are encouraged to build and reflect on key transferable
skills they gain during education and consolidate within their wider activities. The opportunity to draw
parallels between these key skills broadens their understanding of the attributes required for Higher
Education and career paths. Recognising their own skills achieved through school education and hobbies or
interests allows learners to appreciate and reflect on their individual skill set, and this recognition helps to
instil confidence in young learners. Moreover, the raised awareness of the importance of learner attributes
introduced in these sessions has encouraged, motivated and challenged pupils to engage with their own
learning to achieve their potential. This increased awareness can also help the learners to recognise the skills,
attributes and capabilities that they gain in different contexts and to reflect on these in learning
conversations as part of profiling.
Integral to this pilot is the opportunity for pupil profiling where the pupils also consider “What have you
learned?”, “Is university or college an option for you and why?”, and “What goals do you need to achieve
between now and applying?”. This is a clear and focused process, which provides learners with a reflective
opportunity on their skills and attributes to connect their immediate learning and education with their
future. It is important that the learners build on the skills and attributes they have recognised and developed
through this programme and learning conversations and profiling could lead to motivating them to make
further progress.
Impact
All of the examples discussed here (Graduate Attributes, GSP, Widening Participation/Top Up/S1-S3 Pilot)
have led to a greater, more explicit recognition of wider activities as being important in developing,
supporting and evidencing skills and attributes. The Graduate Attributes initiative in particular has resulted in
much closer links and greater interaction/integration with the University Careers Service, and also with
employers. Ways in which these initiatives are having an impact are shown below:
• The GSP provides consistent continuity of opportunities for students to profile and reflect on their
personal and professional development in a post-secondary context. This is resulting in increasing
student awareness of the transferability of their academic and wider learning to a post-higher
education context, i.e. work.
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A short-term impact of the S5/S6 Top Up programme is the “confidence boost” for students, gained
through the opportunities for engaging with postgraduate tutors during schools and campus
sessions. The long term impact for these students is an improved retention in Higher Education,
through the enhanced support available to them as they apply and progress to University/College.
This programme also improves students’ attainment and comprehension of the mature and
responsible attributes desired in Higher Education.
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A short-term impact of the S1-S3 Pilot is that it enables pupils to better understand the significance
and value of key skills and attributes they are using throughout education and their wider activities.
This pilot ran for the first time in 2014 so the longer-term impact is only speculative. However, we
believe the learners involved may be more likely to consider Higher Education as one of their positive
destinations.
Review/reflect and Next Steps
All of the initiatives described here highlight the importance of students’ self-awareness and reflection, and
have also led to increased communication with both schools and employers. The Graduate Attributes matrix
provides a very useful and practical framework for both students and staff and, like 3-18 profiling, helps to
support an ongoing dialogue and narrative. This matrix is used within the GSP and more widely throughout
the University of Glasgow, and can also facilitate discussions within the Top Up (S5/S6) and S1-S3 Pilot. The
Graduate Attributes initiative still needs to be more visible for both university staff and students however, so
in addition to the broader GAIG meetings, the Graduate Attributes Development Adviser has now set up a
series of regular meetings with the College Graduate Attributes Champions, to share expertise on how to
increase student and staff engagement with Graduate Attributes. We will continue to develop and improve
links with employers and schools, to support students in developing their attributes from when they enter
University, throughout their time here, and when they leave. Central to this will be to increase our
understanding of the implementation of 3-18 profiling in schools as it develops. This will help to ensure
continuity of approach in our support for student reflection on Graduate Attributes, and to provide a
smooth transition to higher education for home students. It may also provide valuable insights into how
we can best support students who have not experienced the Curriculum for Excellence or 3-18 profiling.
Conclusions
It is hoped that this report may help to encourage engagement with 3-18 profiling in schools, by providing
evidence and support for the view that both school and university students are on a “learner journey” with
various points of transition, and that these continue right through to higher education and beyond. We also
hope that this report will encourage you to consider how you might foster links with local colleges and
universities to develop a seamless approach to profiling for all learners.
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