How an APEL.Q Portfolio Builds on Your CV
Your CV gives an overview of your career. In an APEL.Q portfolio, you choose experiences from that history and show what you learned, which evidence supports it and how that learning aligns with the programme outcomes you will be assessed against.
Use your CV to find relevant experiences
In Malaysia’s Accreditation of Prior Experiential Learning for Award of Academic Qualifications (APEL.Q), the portfolio documents learning gained through formal, non-formal and informal routes. The Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA, 2020) asks applicants to organise their evidence around the programme learning outcomes (PLOs).
Read the outcomes and the institution’s portfolio template first. Then look through your CV for a role or project that gave you an opportunity to develop the knowledge or skill an outcome calls for. Describe the responsibility you held, the decisions you made and what you learned through that work.
Choose evidence that supports a specific claim
An appointment letter can confirm your role, and a certificate can record training you attended. A report you wrote, a work sample or a project record that identifies your contribution can help show how you used the knowledge or skill you are claiming. Explain what each item demonstrates and which outcome it supports.
Cedefop (2023) describes how a portfolio can bring together a CV, work samples and other records to document prior learning. In a study of prior learning assessment, Joosten-ten Brinke et al. (2010) found that assessors valued both the evidence and the reasoning that connected it to the candidate’s claim.
Build a portfolio entry around one learning outcome
A CV might say Led the redesign of a complaints-handling process. If the programme has an outcome on evaluating operational changes, the portfolio entry can explain how you evaluated the redesign and point the assessor to the records that support your account.
| Part of the portfolio entry | What you could show |
|---|---|
| Programme learning outcome | Evaluate an operational change using evidence. Use the actual wording of your programme’s outcome in your submission. |
| Experience and personal contribution | You led the redesign and compared response times and repeat complaints before and after the change. |
| What you learned | Workload can affect response times, so you learned to check complaint volumes and compare similar periods before judging the results. |
| Evidence and how it supports the outcome | Use a dated project plan to show your responsibilities and point to the section of the review report where you compared the results, explained their limitations and reached a judgement. |
Conrad (2008) describes building a prior learning portfolio as a way to develop knowledge through reflection. In your own entry, explain how the experience changed your understanding or how you would approach similar work in the future.
How Swiss Academic Support helps
Swiss Academic Support (SAS) can help you identify relevant experiences, select verifiable records and organise your portfolio around the programme’s learning outcomes. SAS can also review whether each claim is clear, supported by evidence and easy for an assessor to follow.
You provide the evidence and explain your own learning. The authorised institution assesses the portfolio as part of its formal APEL.Q process and makes the assessment decision.
References
Cedefop. (2023). European guidelines for validating non-formal and informal learning (3rd ed.). Publications Office of the European Union. https://doi.org/10.2801/389827.
Conrad, D. (2008). Building knowledge through portfolio learning in prior learning assessment and recognition. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 9(2), 139–150. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRDE-06-2008-0005.
Joosten-ten Brinke, D., Sluijsmans, D. M. A., & Jochems, W. M. G. (2010). Assessors’ approaches to portfolio assessment in assessment of prior learning procedures. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 35(1), 55–70. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602930802563086.
Malaysian Qualifications Agency. (2020). Guidelines to good practices: Accreditation of prior experiential learning for award of academic qualifications (APEL.Q). MQA guidelines (PDF).
