ePortfolio Guidance
for Trainees July 2015
Emily Hicks ePortfolio Development Officer
CEM ePortfolio Guidance for Trainees February 2014
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Contents
Purpose of the ePortfolio ........................................................................................................................ 3
Glossary of terms .................................................................................................................................... 4
Accessing your CEM Trainee account ...................................................................................................... 5
Profile Section ......................................................................................................................................... 6
Post/Supervisor Details ....................................................................................................................... 6
Add/Amend your new Posts and Supervisors .................................................................................... 6
Step 1: Details ................................................................................................................................. 6
Step 2: Specialties ........................................................................................................................... 7
Step 3: Supervisors .......................................................................................................................... 8
Add a Supervisor to an Existing Post ............................................................................................... 9
Personal Library ................................................................................................................................. 11
Download Portfolio ........................................................................................................................... 13
Printing your ePortfolio ................................................................................................................ 14
Other Profile Subsections ................................................................................................................. 15
Personal details ............................................................................................................................. 15
Declarations and Agreements ....................................................................................................... 15
Certificates and exams .................................................................................................................. 15
Absences ....................................................................................................................................... 15
Courses and Seminars ................................................................................................................... 15
Forms Section ........................................................................................................................................ 16
Summary Overview ........................................................................................................................... 16
Work–Based Assessments ................................................................................................................ 17
Educational Supervision / Meetings .................................................................................................. 18
Ticket Requests ................................................................................................................................. 19
How to request a ticket ................................................................................................................. 19
Multi Source Feedback Ticket Requests........................................................................................ 20
Curriculum Section ................................................................................................................................ 21
Curricula ............................................................................................................................................ 21
ACCS colour ratings of common competencies ............................................................................ 22
Signing off Curriculum levels using Logbook Output Report ............................................................ 23
Reflection .............................................................................................................................................. 24
Reflective Notes ............................................................................................................................ 24
Personal Development Plan .......................................................................................................... 25
Logbook of Procedures ................................................................................................................. 25
Help Menu ............................................................................................................................................ 26
Information ....................................................................................................................................... 26
RCEM Home page ............................................................................................................................. 26
Support ............................................................................................................................................. 26
CEM ePortfolio Guidance for Trainees February 2014
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Blank Forms ....................................................................................................................................... 26
Release Notes ................................................................................................................................... 26
Feedback ............................................................................................................................................... 27
CEM ePortfolio Guidance for Trainees February 2014
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Purpose of the ePortfolio
The ePortfolio is a record of your achievements and a method for collecting
evidence for your appraisal and ARCP.
The appraisal is a vital part of your development and is an opportunity to set out
your personal development needs, career path and goals, and agree an action
plan to achieve those goals. It is also an opportunity to review your performance.
In healthcare the appraisal adds value by considering your contribution to quality
and improvement of services.
The key element is reflection. When you submit documents to the portfolio, or
complete a work-based assessment, there is an opportunity for reflection to
consider your progress, your skills and potentially your weaknesses. This reflection is
an essential element of Good Medical Practice (see Reflection)
In order to prevent delays in completing essential assessments and to begin
recording your performance, the payment of the College’s Annual Training
Fee/ePortfolio fee must be completed before the start of your post. Following
payment you will be able to upload and update your current post onto your
ePortfolio account (see Post/Supervisor Details).
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Glossary of terms
Administrator – users who administer the ePortfolio. Currently only Administrators at
the College can administer posts and programmes on the ePortfolio.
Educational Supervisor - looks after a specific trainee for the duration of their
training programme, can view all their trainee’s public documents and will
complete their STR.
“A trainer who is selected and appropriately trained to be responsible for the
overall supervision and management of a specified trainee’s educational
progress during a training placement or series of placements. The educational
supervisor is responsible for the trainee’s educational agreement.” (GMC
definition April 2010).
Clinical Supervisor - looks after a trainee in a post, completes the end of post form
and educational forms.
“A trainer who is selected and appropriately trained to be responsible for
overseeing a specified trainee’s clinical work and providing constructive
feedback during a training placement. Some training schemes appoint an
educational supervisor for each placement. The roles of clinical and educational
supervisor may then be merged” (GMC definition April 2010)
Trainee - the primary user of the ePortfolio, an Emergency Medicine Trainee.
Training Programme - this represents the overall programme of training for a
trainee. This will be Core Training or Higher Specialty Training (HST) and will be
associated with a location.
Post - fits into a Training Programme and represents a particular period of training.
It is used to save forms and other information against. The post has a
grade/designation defined, as well as a location.
Grade/Designation - this refers to a trainee’s stage of training, such as CT/ST1,
CT/ST2, CT/ST3, ST4, ST5, ST6, non-trainee core level, non-trainee higher level.
The College or RCEM – The Royal College of Emergency Medicine.
NES - NHS ePortfolios
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Accessing your CEM Trainee account
Once you are logged into your ePortfolio you will then be presented with the
RCEM Trainees homepage which will provide you with any relevant and up-to-
date RCEM training news and information through the “Alerts” section. This page
will also display details of your current post and Educational Supervisor.
The menu at the top of the page is the main tool to navigate through the various
sections of your ePortfolio account.
The sections are divided as follows:
Select Role - Toggle between your academic roles. When accessing the RCEM
ePortfolio you should always select the role RCEM Trainee
Profile – Enter, edit and view your personal information, personal library and
post/supervisor details.
Forms – View, save and request assessment forms, including Work-Based
Assessments, and Educational Supervision Forms and Meetings.
Curriculum – Record your progress by linking assessments, and signing off
competences in the Curriculum.
Reflection – Enter your reflection on learning opportunities.
Messages – The College may use this tab to contact you.
Help - User guides, reference documents, and FAQs will be posted here.
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Profile Section
Post/Supervisor Details
From the Profile menu, select the “Post/Supervisor Details” option. This will take
you to a page displaying your previous and current posts.
Add/Amend your new Posts and Supervisors
Following payment of the College’s Annual Training Administration Fee/ePortfolio
fee, you will be able to update your current post onto your ePortfolio account.
This must be done immediately following the start of your post, in order to prevent
delays in completing essential assessments and to begin recording your
performance.
To add a post, select the button. You will then need to add the post
through a three step process.
Step 1: Details
a. Select your “Grade”
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b. Select your “Start Date” and “End Date” of the current rotation.
N.B. Post’s dates cannot overlap; they also cannot extend
beyond the programme’s dates. Should you see the error
"Post end date is outside the respective training programme
duration" when you try to add or amend your post you will
need to contact the College to pay the year's Annual Training
Administration Fee/ePortfolio fee. Once we have taken
payment we will extend the end date of your Programme.
c. Select your “Location”
N.B. At this point you can also enter your Training Period Year
and Reference Code, but the College does not require you to
do so. The Reference Code field can also be used to note
periods of sick leave/maternity leave
d. Click the button to move to the next step.
Step 2: Specialties
a. Select a specialty by selecting it from the list on the left and click the
right arrow to move it across to your post.
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b. Click the button to move to the final step.
Step 3: Supervisors
a. Type the surname of your supervisor into the Name field
b. Select either CEM Educational Supervisor or CEM Clinical Supervisor
from the Role drop down menu
c. Select CEM and CEM from the Location dropdown menus
d. Click . A list of all supervisors with that name should then
appear.
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e. Select your supervisor from the list, and click to move them
across to your post. You can also use to remove any incorrect
supervisors.
f. Click to save.
N.B. If you are unable to find your supervisor, click to save the
post, and then contact [email protected] detailing the supervisors
full name, email address and GMC number.
Add a Supervisor to an Existing Post
If you just wish to add a supervisor to an existing post:
1. Click on your post
2. Click through steps 1 and 2 by clicking .
3. At step 3…
a. Type the name of your supervisor into the Name field
b. Select either CEM Educational Supervisor or CEM Clinical Supervisor
from the Role drop down menu.
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c. Select CEM and CEM from the Location dropdown menus
d. Click . A list of supervisors with that name should then
appear.
e. Select your supervisor from the list, and click to move them
across to your post. You can also use to remove any incorrect
supervisors.
f. Click to save.
N.B. If you are unable to find your supervisor, click to save the
post, and then contact [email protected] detailing the supervisors
full name, email address and GMC number.
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Personal Library
Your “Personal Library” can be access by the “Profile” menu.
The personal library has 400MB of memory available for you to upload any format
of document. This is usually sufficient enough space, but should you wish to store
large files it is advisable to compress them before attempting to upload. You can
do this by using a zip function or by using low resolution pictures if necessary.
To create a new folder please select the “parent” folder you would like it to be stored
within and click . Enter the folder name and click .
You are advised to utilise this folder system to organise your Personal Library by
training year (see example below), so that all relevant documentation is easily
accessible.
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To upload a file click and browse your directory to find the file.
Once you have selected the file, set the “Shared” status, and entered a description
click to begin upload.
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Download Portfolio
You can download a PDF containing a snapshot forms and competencies
completed via the “Download Portfolio” page.
To create a new PDF Click this will take you to a page where you can
select the parts of your ePortfolio you wish to download.
N.B. If you choose to download forms, there is a limit of 50 forms in a single
request, but you are able to make more than one request to download from your
portfolio.
To select an item to download, select the item in the left hand box and click to
add it to the right hand box. You can also click the link to move all the
items at once.
Once all the items that you want to include in your PDF are in the right hand box,
click the button to generate the PDF.
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Once generated the PDF will be added to your list of PDFs Available for Download
(see below). From this list you have three further options: by clicking you
can Delete, Edit or View the PDF. By selecting “view” the PDF will download and
open in a new window using your computer’s standard PDF viewer.
Printing your ePortfolio
Downloading your ePortfolio to a PDF format is the only reliable way of formatting
the contents of your ePortfolio in a manner that will enable you to print without error.
For data security reasons, only the trainee can download and print out the contents
of their ePortfolio.
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Other Profile Subsections
Personal details
Here you can view and edit your personal details; upload a photo; and change
your password and username.
Declarations and Agreements
Here you can view and sign your Educational Agreements and Probity and Health
declarations that are required for training and revalidation. You should sign these
each year within three weeks of starting. To sign a form, click next to the
relevant form.
Certificates and exams
This area is to confirm you have the required exams, life support courses, etc. and to
upload the evidence.
Absences
This area is for you to record your annual leave, sick leave, secondments, Out of
Programme Experience, etc. Please also make sure to notify the College directly of
any absences from training, by emailing [email protected]
Courses and Seminars
This section is linked to the Courses & Seminars tab on the home page. When an
administrator enters details of a course or seminar in your region an outline will
appear on the home page in the Courses & Seminars section. On this page you can
view more details about the courses and seminars. It is not unusual for this page to
display no information.
N.B. This page is not editable by trainees
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Forms Section
Summary Overview
A “Summary Overview” of all forms completed can be accessed from the forms
menu.
You are able to create forms from this page and view the number of submissions for
each form type.
By clicking on the number of submissions, you will be taken to the relevant area of
the Forms section (i.e. “Work-Based Assessments” or “Educational Supervision /
Meetings”).
These sections of the ePortfolio are dedicated to requesting or completing
assessments and allow the user, by clicking on by the assessment, to link
assessments to different areas within the ePortfolio:
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Work–Based Assessments
To view your completed Work-Based Assessments select the “Work-Based
Assessments” option from the Forms menu.
You will then be presented with the “Work-Based Assessments” summary page.
Details of completed WBAs are provided (with date, time and Supervisor/assessor
information). The button next to each assessment allows you to link
assessments to other relevant areas of the ePortfolio.
This page also gives the options to:
– Takes you to the “Ticket Requests” area for assessments.
– Takes you through to the list of available Work-Based
Assessment forms. From this screen, to complete a Work-Based Assessment simply
select your current post and then click next to the appropriate assessment.
N.B. To ensure authenticity of assessment, it is advised that most WBAs be sent to
assessors via “Ticket Requests” (see Ticket Requests)
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Educational Supervision / Meetings
To view completed Educational meetings, STRs and ARCPs select the “Educational
Supervision / Meetings” option from the Forms menu.
The button will allow you to link Educational Supervision / Meetings forms to
other relevant areas of the ePortfolio.
N.B. Only Clinical and Educational Supervisors can create an Educational
Meeting or STR form. They will need to login first and complete this by clicking
through to your account via their login.
ARCP forms are created and saved on the ePortfolio by the ARCP panel and
Deanery Administrators. Trainees will only have access to this form once it has
been saved as final.
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Ticket Requests
To request an assessment using an assessor’s email address you can go to the
“Ticket Requests” page via the Forms menu.
By clicking on this option you will be taken to a ticket summary screen, which is
automatically calibrated to display outstanding tickets from the last month. This
timescale can be altered.
How to request a ticket
The Ticket Request process for WBAs is summarised below:
N.B. if an Educational Supervisor is doing the assessment for their Trainee, they can
log into their own account to complete an assessment for the Trainee; a ticket is
not required
1. When you are about to do a procedure and would like an WBA
completed, request the appropriate supervision and agree with the
assessor that they will complete a WBA for you
2. Log in to your ePortfolio account
3. Click “Forms” > “Ticket Requests” >
4. Select t h e relevant post and WBA
5. Click
6. Enter the assessor’s email and details
7. Select “Yes” to the question “Send email to assessor”
8. Then click
The ticket and code will be visible to you immediately and is also emailed to the
assessor.
The code is then used by the assessor to login to ePortfolio. This will take them to the
relevant page to complete the assessment.
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The assessor may wish to discuss procedure with you but complete assessment later if
time restricts full completion, in which case they can save the assessment as draft
and access the assessment later via their home page, or access it by using the ticket
code from their email.
When the assessor finally completes and saves the WBA online, the assessment is
saved within your account (and cannot subsequently be edited by assessor or
Trainee)
When you next log back in to your account, the assessment will be available to
view within your ePortfolio.
Multi Source Feedback Ticket Requests
Multi-source feedback (MSF) is a 360-degree assessment where colleagues
anonymously rate a trainee in different skill areas, including communication skills,
professional attitude and behaviour.
MSFs can only be created by raising ticket requests.
To request an MSF you will need to:
1. Agree with an appropriate assessor that they will complete a MSF
for a particular rotation.
2. log in to your ePortfolio account
3. Select “Forms” > “Ticket Requests” >
4. Select the relevant post and MSF
5. Click
6. Enter the assessor’s email and details
7. Select “Yes” to the question “Send email to assessor”
8. Then click
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Curriculum Section
The CEM Training ePortfolio curriculum section includes a multi-functional logbook
recording system, which allows Trainees and their supervisors to sign off their
curriculum competence ratings. It is then possible for Supervisors and
Deanery/School educational support staff to see how the Trainee is progressing
through the curriculum. The system also allows the Trainee to link work-based
assessments, reflective logs and personal library files to specific curriculum
competences.
Curricula
From the CEM Curriculum menu, Trainees can select the relevant curriculum and be
taken to the curriculum summary page, where the relevant
competences/presentations are listed. From there you can also see any relevant
transcribed logs, comments or links previously entered.
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To add a log, select next to the curriculum element (for example
“CMP1 Anaphylaxis”, above) and you will then be taken to a screen
where you can enter a rating, and any comments.
ACCS colour ratings of common competencies
In order to make it clearer to trainees and supervisors as to which competencies
need to be addressed, there is a colour rating system attached to the ACCS
curriculum. The different colours correspond to the different levels of achieved
competency.
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Signing off Curriculum levels using Logbook Output Report
From the Curriculum menu Trainees can select “Logbook Output Report”.
You will then be given the option to choose which Curriculum you would like to view in
the “Logbook Output Report”. Once your selected curriculum has loaded you can
then select to sign off curriculum elements you have completed.
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Reflection
Reflective practice is a continuous process and involves the learner considering
critical incidents in his or her life experiences. Reflective practice is associated with
learning from experience, and is viewed as an important strategy for health
professionals who embrace lifelong learning. By reflecting we can promote the
development of autonomous, qualified and self-directed professionals.
The reflection section of the ePortfolio can be accessed by selecting the Reflection
heading on the menu at the top of your account’s page.
This section contains Reflective Notes, Personal Development Plans and a Logbook
of Procedures. You can keep certain entries in this part of the ePortfolio private from
the Supervisors and the ARCP panel by selecting “Keep in the Private Area of my
ePortfolio before saving the entry.
Reflective Notes
By selecting “Reflective Notes” form the Reflection menu you will be taken to a
page where you can view a top down summary list of all logs. These entries can be
countersigned by the supervisor and therefore used as a pseudo communication
system between Educational Supervisor and Trainee.
To add a new Reflective Note:
1. Click . This will take you to a list of
Templates to enter your reflection.
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2. Selected next to the Type of log you wish to create.
N.B. Before saving the form please ensure you have selected whether you
would like the entry to be made Private or Shared.
Personal Development Plan
By selecting “Personal Development Plan” from the reflection menu you will be taken
to a page where you can set out what you expect to achieve during each post and
throughout the programme. It should be developed in conjunction with your
supervisor and should be updated following appraisal meetings.
The PDP should be reviewed at the beginning of each post. You should identify
learning objectives, outline the plan for the objectives to be met, and give an
indication of the timescale for the objectives, and an idea of how evidence for the
completion of the objective will be achieved. These should be agreed with your
supervisor. Once objectives have been achieved, they can be ticked off, and
remain on the PDP to reflect your achievements throughout training.
Logbook of Procedures
By selecting the “Logbook of Procedures” option from the Reflection menu, you will be
taken to a page to log how many specific procedures you have completed.
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Help Menu
Information
Documents that will soon be accessible through this page will include:
User Guides to ePortfolio for Trainees, Supervisors and Administrators
Guides to completing assessments
MSF Patient Survey forms to be printed and handed out to patients
Reference documentation for specific assessments
RCEM specific FAQs
RCEM Home page
This will take you straight to the Royal College of Emergency Medicine’s website.
Support
This is will take you to a support form to send through any problems you may be
having with the ePortfolio site.
Alternatively you can contact the ePortfolio team at the College directly:
Blank Forms
Here you will find blank versions of all the forms available on ePortfolio.
Release Notes
This takes you directly to the NHS ePortfolio’s Talkback blog where you can find
information about updates to the site, service downtime, or any problems that
have arisen with the site as a whole.
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Feedback
Should you have any feedback with regards to these guides or the ePortfolio
please send it into the ePortfolio team at [email protected].
The team will go through and consider all feedback received, and they will be
discussed at the annual ePortfolio feedback day organised by RCEM, which lines
up developments for the year ahead.
Though you may not receive individual replies to feedback received, any
improvements/developments implemented will be highlighted on the Alerts
section of your homepage.
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The Royal College of Emergency Medicine
7-9 Bream’s Buildings
London
EC4A 1DT
www.rcem.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)20 7404 1999
Fax: + 44 (0)20 7067 1267