Welcome to the
Skills-Based introduction
to the ePARs
Personal Evidence Database
(PED)
Keep clicking and this slideshow will
take you through the system
What you can put into the Personal
Evidence Database (PED)
• Information about your key activities
and achievements – useful for:
– progress review meetings with tutors
– job interviews
– CV writing
• Evidence of your academic and
employability skills
– Capture your skills experience while the
details are still fresh in your mind
– Retrieve the details whenever you need
them, e.g. for a module report or to quote to
a potential employer
What you can get back from your PED:
• An at-a-glance visual display of how your
skills evidence is growing.
• Instant updating of your Skills Progress Chart
every time you enter a new piece of information
• Selections of your data emailed to you, for use
in reports, review meetings, job applications,
job interviews, CVs etc
• Direct export of your data into the ePARs CVbuilder coming soon
Welcome page
How to start
The welcome page offers you
two good ways into the PED,
when you begin
Access the Skills Progress Chart
anytime via the menu bar, which
appears at the top of every screen
1. Try the SKILLS route: Which
skills have you already got?
The PED helps you locate some
to get you started
Or 2. Try the ACTIVITY route:
Taking a key module? Working part-time?
Running a society? Doing community
action? Travelling?
Start capturing the key aspects of it here.
A note for later: Once you’ve got data
in the PED, the Skills Progress Chart could
be your favourite way into the system
Please note:
Some sections of the PED are PRIVATE
Other sections are SHARED
The Activity route provides a log or notes, as
well as skills evidence. The log and notes are
private to you, but you can opt to share items
from them with tutors and students in your
School if you wish.
In a few Schools, the PED is used within the
curriculum and it may be a module requirement
for you to share logs or notes with your tutor.
Your Skills Progress Chart -- and the
evidence you enter behind it -- are
shared with your personal tutor,
automatically (read only).
The chart may be useful to look at
in personal tutorials. The skills
evidence will help your tutor write
references for you.
Once you get going, please yourself!
The two routes illustrated behind the help links
on the Welcome page are just to get you
started.
Once you get going, you can mix and match
them, picking out the sections that work best
for you.
Unless your School requires you to work with
part of the PED, it’s all optional, so you can use
as much or as little as you like.
This introduction to the PED shows
the Skills-based route
From the PED Welcome page you click
here to go to the Identify Skills page
This is the Identify Skills page
You start with a simple,
fun exercise to identify
your skills
When you’ve done,
click Submit
Which of these qualities
do you have? Click the
boxes next to all the words
which describe you.
Your selections come
back highlighted.
Click on one to go
through and enter some
evidence.
Next: Link your highlighted
quality to an activity where you
have used it
Think of a specific activity where
you have shown the skill. First,
does it relate to Study, Work-based
experience or Further activities?
Set the Activity Type from the
drop-down menu.
Note: Introducing your material to the
database in this way makes it possible
for you to search it later
Is the specific activity
already on your list of
activities? (A few students’
PEDs contain modules
entered by their Schools.)
Select it from the drop-down
menu here.
If you need to add a
new activity to the
list, click here.
Your highlighted
quality falls within
this broad skills area
It relates to this
specific skill
The PED takes you to the
New Activity page
First set the Activity Type:
choose Study, Work-based
experience or Further
activities from the dropdown menu.
Then enter the title of your
new activity.
Now fill in further
information if you
wish. But you can
come back later to do
this, if you prefer.
Lower down the same screen …
Fill in these boxes,
if you wish, for an
activity that is
ongoing
Then click
submit
Now write about how you used
the skill in that specific
activity
Every entry you make
in the PED is dated for
you automatically
Enter your
evidence in the
Notes textbox
If you wish, click a button to indicate
how confident you are feeling with
the skill. The rating will appear on
your Skills Progress Chart
Note: Your entries
will build up and
be displayed lower
down on this page
Click Submit
The PED will then show you the whole entry
What would you like to do next?
You now have some further options
Stay with the same activity and add
evidence for same/different skill
If you need stronger evidence
of this skill, turn it into a target
(creates an orange square on
your Skills Progress Chart)
Or stick with the same skill and add
evidence from a different activity
Click here to display your
dated entries in ascending
or descending order
Your skills evidence changes the display
on your Skills Progress Chart
Also the broad skills headings.
(You can click on these to get to
the specific sub-skills)
The chart shows the
three basic areas of
activity. (You can
click on these to get to
the specific activities
you have entered)
Each grey square represents a specific
skill. Hover with the mouse to see the
name. Click on it to make it a target or
to enter evidence.
Once evidence is entered for a skill, its square
changes colour. Click on it to go to the evidence.
The number is the latest confidence rating (optional).
This is what is displayed below the chart
on the same screen
You can call up a
snapshot of your
progress for any
time-window you
like.
There are links
to other sites
with ideas for
further activities
The chart uses
5 colours.
Here’s the key
You can print the chart out, e.g. for a
meeting with a careers adviser. For
any screen, use a PED Print button or
the print function on your PC
Using the To Do list
Click here to add
an item to the list.
Enter details and
set priority level.
Press submit.
The PED can
remind you to
review your To
Do list if you
wish
Target skills come next, automatically. Click
on ‘evidence skills’ to add some evidence
This tool is private to you
Access it from
the menu bar
Your items come to
the top of the list, in
priority order
You can edit and
delete them
Using the Select Outputs tool
There’s a choice of 5
ways to collate your
data, depending on
what you want it for
This is the tool you use to get the
read-outs of your data which you
will need for various purposes
Click on any heading and you
can go on to choose the
specific material you want.
Press an email button and the
PED sends you the collated
details as an email attachment.
You can then incorporate
them in reports, jobs
applications, CVs, etc
Thank you and Good Luck –
but before you go …
• The PED is NEW. It was developed in 2002-03 with the
help of Nottingham students and staff. The ePARs team
hope you will find it useful and enjoy using it.
• You are one of the first people to see it. We would
really appreciate receiving your feedback, so that we
can improve it during 2003-04.
• Please send us an email ePARs-ped@nottingham.ac.uk
You can use the email link on the PED Welcome page.
Let us know of any problems – tell us what you do like
and what you don’t like – send us your suggestions
• Click on the other help link on the PED Welcome page if
you would like to tour the Introduction to the Activitybased Route.