Since 2005 all staff and students within the University of Wolverhampton have had access to an ePortfolio system - PebblePad. In 2007 the University ran a HEA Pathfinder Project 'embedding ePortfolio at level 1' which involved 1800 level 1 learners and 31 members of staff across all academic schools. The staff development activities used to develop teacher capabilities tried to mirror the student experience to great success. The knowledge gained from this project was then taken into a University-wide impact evaluation. The evaluation identified anticipated and unanticipated outcomes of pedagogic processes for personal development planning (PDP) and e-portfolio development. This paper will deal with two key areas: 1 the early identification of risk and 2 the reduction in non-submission of work. This work now feeds into the University's Blended Learning Strategy (2008). The overarching aims of this strategy are to enhance student learning and to improve each student's learning experience. This is articulated via student entitlements of which the following are directly addressed by this work: All students should be entitled to: formative assessment/s opportunities on line with meaningful electronic assessment feedback; have the opportunity to participate in electronic Personal Development Planning (ePDP); The paper will look at how an ePortfolio system was used to develop learner skills, learner support issues and how staff from a central department worked with discipline-based staff to help support their students, finally addressing institutional strategy and support issues.

This paper is a synthesis of the findings of three research projects to identify Personal Development Planning (PDP) progress at the University of Wolverhampton. The three projects look at PDP from a number of perspectives. Firstly, a university-wide e-Portfolio evaluation that explored e-Portfolio practice through the measure of PDP objectives evident in practice - the objectives used within this provide the structure for the discussion within this paper. Secondly, the paper is informed by the Inter/National Coalition for EPortfolio Research INCEPR) project, which involved looking at the facilitating and inhibiting factors affecting the scalability and sustainability of e-Portfolio and e-Portfolio based PDP across the institution. Finally, a Doctoral research project that looked at factors that contribute to engagement with PDP. Aspects of three of these pieces of research were pulled together as part of the Higher Education Academy/National Teaching Fellowship Scheme National Action Research Network On Researching and Evaluating Personal Development Planning and ePortfolio Practice Project (The NTFS NARN project).