Integrating digital curriculum mapping and eportfolios to better respond to stricter initial teacher education accreditation requirements

The imposition in Australia of stricter regulatory conditions onto initial teacher education (ITE) institutions raises questions about the structures and procedures necessary to ensure effective, ongoing generation of valid evidence of graduate classroom competencies to meet both student certification and program accreditation. This paper presents the benefits from combining a digital curriculum design tool (CDT), that ensures alignment and structural calibration of graduate competency requirements at the design stage, with the artefact management and evidentiary output capabilities of eportfolios. Combined, they can stimulate new pedagogies where an improved collaborative and transparent course design and evaluation cycle assures quality, and guarantees the progressive, efficient production of authentic relevant evidence for accreditation and student certification. In addition to suggesting a point for effective eportfolio integration into course planning, the paper proposes an eportfolio integration model adaptable to other highly regulated professional studies programs.