Fostering students personal development in e-learning environments through designing an e-Progress File System

This paper addresses the importance of Personal Development of students in virtual learning environments and designs a specific approach for fostering their personal capabilities facilitated by a Personal Tutorship Programme in e-learning platforms. This programme tries to extend students learning beyond the disciplinary focus and engage them in acquiring some essential competencies they will need in their professional and personal life. To do so, one storyboard has been drawn based on the current literature as well as experiences of some experts including students, entrepreneurs and academics represented through some focus groups. This storyboard designs a structured on-line framework for supporting students personal development via an interactive and bilateral personal tutorship facility. Our primary focus is on allocating some technical capabilities in an e-learning platform based on the personal pedagogical experiences of participants, enabling students to use them for their personal development planning. Before drawing the storyboard four descriptive components named Functional Specifications (FS) have been written based on the participants experiences, trying for defining different aspects of the storyboard. Descriptions and examples are given of some different approaches that are being used to support this facility. While the paper is written from an e-learning perspective, the issues and processes raised are applicable to any higher education system that seeks to value and reward personal development via designing an academic advisory system for their students.