EPortolios are becoming increasingly popular in higher education and in schools. However, the real potential for e-Portfolios is in the widening contexts in which learning is taking place - or is recognised to be taking place - and in the ability to bring together personal learning gained in multiple contexts. E-Portfolios have particular relevance for vocational education and training as they allow the recording of learning from the home, from work and form institutions. They also allow reflection on competences gained through learning. In the past six months researchers and developers have been considering the extension of e-Portfolios towards a Personal Learning Environment.

The last five years have seen a major uptake of VLEs by colleges and universities. The vast majority of these are large, institutional systems, which are predominantly course based providing support for content distribution, discussion and assessment, mainly through proprietary tools. There are several problems with this approach of which two are of most concern.

• VLEs are not easily customised to suit the needs and preferences of individuals
• As learners move between institutions, they may need to learn the interfaces to different VLEs.
• PLEs are not well suited to work based learning

An alternative approach would be to locate a large amount of VLE functionality with the learner either as a desktop application or an independently hosted portal. Institutions would still provide content via repositories, undertake assessment and so on, but learners would interact with these using their personal systems (Personal Learning Environment), comprising their preferred tools and ways of working.

The paper will consider the implicatiosn of these developments for Vocational education and training programmes and epdagogy, institutions and systems.