Gateways

A gateway is a shared area in the e-portfolio system which can be used as a collection point, e.g. to publish assets for review, accreditation and assessment, or as a distribution point, e.g. publishing a template form for students to collect and use. It can be customised for particular uses, so on some gateways users may be able to see only their own work, whilst on others users may be able to view the work of others. Being able to share and review assets with others makes a gateway suitable for activities such as mentoring and group projects.

Gateway access permissions are set by the owner of the gateway rather than the user retaining access control as in the case of user shared assets. This allows the owner of the gateway to give access to others, for example, the gateway owner may wish to make portfolio items on the gateway viewable by an external reviewer.

Published items are not transferred to the gateway from the user’s account, but linked, allowing the user to update the asset published and a reviewer to see the updated asset through the gateway. This could, for example, enable ongoing work and review on portfolio items between a student and tutor, possibly for coaching, mentoring or formative work. A gateway can also be configured to have a publishing deadline, locking published portfolio items from that point and can be used as part of an assessment process. Other tools available for assessment of portfolio items on a gateway include grading and feedback.

Pebble Learning have a comprehensive overview of gateways and their uses. See…

See also this quick guide to ‘Using feedback forms for assessing work submitted to a Gateway in PebblePad‘

NB: The ‘Help’ section in PebblePad is excellent and can be accessed from anywhere in the system by clicking on the question-mark icon

You can use gateways in your teaching practice by talking to your local learning technologist who will set you up with a gateway of your own or by contacting us at tel@plymouth.ac.uk. Once you have a gateway you can create any number of gateways to use in your courses and activities.