The book chapter on the visibility of graduate students’ employability skills published by IGI Global is now available online

The chapter “Visibility of Graduate Students’ Employability Skills: An ePortfolio Solution Addressing the Skills Gap” by Lourdes Guàrdia, Marcelo Maina and Federica Mancini has been recently published by IGI Global. The chapter, which is featured in the book ‘Cases on Active Blended Learning in Higher Education’ edited by Brenda Cecilia Padilla Rodriguez and Alejandro Armellini, is now available online in the UOC Institutional Repository (O2).
The book chapter is based on some of the results obtained from the H2020 ‘EPICA project – Strategic Partnership for the Co-Design of an Innovative and Scalable ePortfolio’ which concluded in December 2020.

CHAPTER EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This chapter highlights the contributions of the EPICA project in reducing the skills gap of graduate students in sub-Saharan Africa. It presents the solution designed and implemented to improve the quality of employability skills development and visibility to prospective employers. The first part of this chapter provides an overview of the skills gap between higher education institutions and the workplace in sub-Saharan Africa. It includes the description of the specific eAssessment pedagogical framework and methodology supported by the EPICA ePortfolio as a transition tool designed to address this gap. The second part of the chapter outlines the challenges that could hinder the solution’s implementation and the full exploitation of its benefits. Solutions and recommendations are also discussed with the aim to increase the impact in the EPICA stakeholder community and encourage the implementation of the proposed solution in other universities, especially those adopting blended and online learning models.