Abstract— This paper addresses the importance of Personal Development of students in virtual learning environments and suggests a system which can be embedded in the e-learning platforms for tracking and fostering their personal capabilities. This tracking system tries to monitor and document students’ progress in the different aspects related to their studies, research, personal development progress, etc., helping them extend their 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, a 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. Our primary focus is on allocating some technical capabilities in an e-learning platform based on the personal pedagogical experiences of participants, enabling both students and tutors to use them for their personal development planning. Before drawing the storyboard five 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 storyboard. 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.

Index Terms— Personal development, e-learning, storyboard, progress file.

Morteza Rezaei-Zadeh and John O’Reilly are with University of Limerick, Ireland (e-mail: Morteza.RezaeiZadeh@ul.ie, John.OReilly@ul.ie).
Brendan Cleary is with University of Victoria, Canada (e-mail: bcleary@uvic.ca).
Michael Hogan is with National University of Ireland (NUIG), Galway, Ireland (e-mail: michael.hogan@nuigalway.ie).
Mohsen Ansari is with Faculty of Entrepreneurship, University of Tehran, Iran(e-mail: ansarim@ut.ac.ir). Eamonn Murphy is with Enterprise Research Centre, University of Limerick, Ireland (e-mail: Eamonn.Murphy@ul.ie).

Cite: Morteza Rezaei-Zadeh, John O’Reilly, Brendan Cleary, Michael Hogan, Mohsen Ansari, and Eamonn Murphy, " Fostering Students’ Personal Development in e-Learning Environments through Designing an e-Progress File System," International Journal of e-Education, e-Business, e-Management and e-Learning vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 74-78, 2013.