How the GLQF Works

The Global Learning Qualifications Framework (GLQF) is formatted in two ways: a student perspective and an academic perspective.

Student Perspective

Students are provided with prompts (questions) within an ePortfolio template that help them document and reflect on the ways in which their knowledge in a topic is college/university level. These prompts create a scaffold to guide students through the process and help them build their ePortfolio.

Students can opt to:

  • use as many prompts as they want
  • go directly to building their ePortfolios
  • go back and forth between prompts and their ePortfolio.

Students are also provided examples of evidence and sample ePortfolios to help them create their own.

Academic Perspective

The academic side of the framework provides learning descriptors across eight domains.

Each learning domain is represented in the student’s college/university-level learning, but in varying amounts. Students may have some domains highly developed while other domains may be fairly underdeveloped. This is expected; in fact, rarely would anyone have all the domains fully developed for any one topic.

What is important is that the student has some learning that interconnects across the domains. These connections become more and more obvious the greater the depth and breadth of learning.

Each learning domain has corresponding learning descriptors that have been split into introductory and advanced levels. The learning descriptors are like learning outcomes or competencies, but written specifically to describe the observed learning. Divided into two levels — introductory and advanced — descriptors can be used to help determine the level of learning.

Examples of evidence are coupled with the descriptors to help think through ways that students can demonstrate their learning in a topic.