Mentor guidance for ePAD - Leeds Beckett University Nursing

If you have problems accessing your student's workbook, please contact the Nursing Placement Unit at Leeds Beckett University.  They can check your external PebblePad account has been set up correctly and your email address is correct as held on the Practice Teacher register:

Email: nursingplacements@leedsbeckett.ac.uk

There is also a 24/7 Leeds Beckett library helpline number that you can use if you experience technical problems with PebblePad:

0113 8121000

Your student has also been provided with instructions on using PebblePad and sharing their workbook with you.

PebblePad is the University’s e-portfolio tool, that is becoming increasingly common in education and professional development. As well as being used by many Universities across the UK, it is also used by a number of organisations such as Dementia UK for their Admiral Nurse scheme.

PebblePad provides students with a private personal learning space that allows them to organise and structure their learning throughout their course as well as to present evidence of development and achievements.

Student nurses use PebblePad by creating ‘assets’ to store and organise notes, create reflections, make plans, and record learning experiences. At the end of their course, Alumni students are able to take away their PebblePad account and use it for ongoing Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and revalidation.

ePAD is the placement document that your student has been provided with as an asset in their PebblePad account.

In PebblePad terms, 'ePAD' is a workbook which is a multi-paged template used to provide students with structured learning and assessment tasks

It contains a space for all the placement documentation that students will need to complete throughout the course and will be used to record interviews, practical skills development and achievement of NMC standards (replacing the paper based workbooks).  

Your student has been provided with instructions on how to share their ePAD with you to enable you to carry out your role as a mentor. You will be able to access their ePAD to carry out placement assessments and you can input your feedback.

PebblePocket is an app that allows students to create assets ‘offline’ (no internet access required) to enable them to conveniently update and make notes via their mobile devices. When online again, they can then send it to their PebblePad asset store.

PebblePocket is a good solution for students with offline assessment and evidence of hours forms which can be signed by you as a mentor (similar to signing for a delivery).

If you are a registered mentor and you are on your organisation’s NMC mentor register and the mentor register for your clinical area or ward, you will be provided with an external PebblePad account to allow you to log-on at to view your student's workbook at www.pebblepad.co.uk/leedsbeckett. You will receive emails from PebblePad when your account is created and also when your student shares their workbook with you. The full process is as follows:

1. You are added to the list of external users in PebblePad (Username = email address as it appears on the NMC mentor register with no capital letters – any capital letters will be converted into small caps when you are added).
2. If it is the first time you have been added to PebblePad, you will receive an automated email from ‘PebblePad’ from the email address ‘noreply@pebblepad.co.uk’ with the subject line ‘A new account has been created for you’. The email contains username and password information and provides a link to the log in page at www.pebblepad.co.uk/leedsbeckett. You can follow this link to change your password.
3. You will also be sent a second email informing you that you have been added to a ‘workspace’. Each annual cohort of students at Leeds Beckett is organised within PebblePad into different ‘workspaces’ and, if that cohort includes a student who will be on placement in your clinical area or ward, you will also be added as an ‘external’ user to that student’s workspace. This allows the student to share with you if you are their mentor. You will receive this email every time you are added to a new workspace for future cohorts of students.
4. Your student shares their workbook with you by searching for you using your email address.
5. This triggers an automated email from PebblePad (noreply@pebblepad.co.uk) with the subject line ‘Asset share (With external assessor permissions)’. This tells you that you have been given access to the workbook and includes a link to the asset.
6. You can change your password at any time from the log-in page and also reset your password by clicking on the links on the log-in page and adding your username. This will trigger an automated email from PebblePad.
7. You can log on to view all the assets that have been shared with you at www.pebblepad.co.uk/leedsbeckett.

Firstly, you should check that you are on your organisation’s NMC mentor register and the mentor register for your clinical area or ward.

If you are not on your organisation’s NMC mentor register, you will need to contact an appropriate person within your organisation to have yourself added. This is not something that can be done by the Leeds Beckett Placement Unit or anyone else at Leeds Beckett. Whilst you are organising this, however, you are able to gain access to an external PebblePad account as follows:

Your student should be able to provide you with an NMC mentor Self Declaration form asking you to confirm that you are a recognised NMC Mentor. Once you have signed this, your student will be able to pass it onto the Leeds Beckett Placement Unit and they will provide you with access to PebblePad. You should then receive the email telling you that an account has been created for you.

If you are on your organisation’s NMC mentor register and the mentor register for your clinical area or ward, go to www.pebblepad.co.uk/leedsbeckett and click on the ‘Forgotten your password’ link. Enter your username (your email address), ensuring that you add your email address with no capital letters and using the exact characters and spacing. Then click on Reset. This should trigger an email from PebblePad (noreply@pebblepad.co.uk) allowing you to reset your password. There might be a delay before this arrives and you should also check junk mail folder. If you do not receive this email, please contact the Placement Unit at nursingplacements@leedsbeckett.ac.uk.

Provided that you are on your organisation’s NMC Mentor register and the mentor register for your clinical area or ward, you should have been added to PebblePad. In this case, the most common problem is that the student has not entered your username correctly into the search field. This needs to be your exact email address as it appears on the mentor register but with any capital letters appearing as small caps. For example, if your username is annie.mentor@nhs.net and your student searches for Annie.mentor@nhs.net, they will not be able to find you. Please ask them to check this and retry. If they still cannot find you, they will need to contact the Leeds Beckett Placement Unit at nursingplacements@leedsbeckett.ac.uk.

If you are not on your organisation’s NMC mentor register and the mentor register for your clinical area or ward, you will need to contact an appropriate person within your organisation to have yourself added. This is not something that can be done by the Leeds Beckett Placement Unit or anyone else at Leeds Beckett. Whilst you are organising this, however, you are able to gain access to an external PebblePad account as follows:

Your student should be able to provide you with an NMC mentor Self Declaration form asking you to confirm that you are a recognised NMC Mentor. Once you have signed this, your student will be able to pass it onto the Leeds Beckett Placement Unit and they will provide you with access to PebblePad. You should then receive the email telling you that an account has been created for you.

The first thing to do is to check that you are logging on at www.pebblepad.co.uk/leedsbeckett and that you are adding the username exactly as it appears in your email from PebblePad. Your username should be your NHS email address with no capital letters so check that you are only including small caps. For example, if your username is annie.mentor@nhs.net and you attempt to log in as Annie.mentor@nhs.net, this will not work. If you have checked the log in URL and username and are still experiencing problems, try resetting your password. click on the ‘Forgotten your password’ link, enter your username, and click on ‘Reset’. This should trigger an email from PebblePad (noreply@pebblepad.co.uk) allowing you to reset your password. There might be a delay before this arrives and you should also check junk mail folder. If you do not receive this email or continue to experience problems logging on, please contact the Leeds Beckett Placement Unit at nursingplacements@leedsbeckett.ac.uk.

No, you will need to use your external account (Username=email address) to do this. Any existing PebblePad account you have will not be affected by this process and you can use this as normal.

Yes, you will need to contact the Leeds Beckett placement unit at nursingplacements@leedsbeckett.ac.uk. They will set you up with an external account in the same way as for the student’s formal NMC mentor so that you can access the student’s ePAD and complete assessor fields. When you are set up, however, your name will include ‘SLIP mentor’ in it.

This is to indicate that you are a trainee mentor and that there needs to be co-entries from an NMC mentor as well. This means that the assessor fields that you complete also need to be ‘signed off’ by an NMC mentor, mirroring the process we would have been using with the blue books where your mentor would have been co-signing and working alongside you to support the student’s placement learning. They can do this by adding to your comments in an assessor field and then scrolling to the bottom of the page to ‘save’. The history will show your entry and their addition with the dates that they were added.

Yes, once you have been set up as an external PebblePad user, you will just need to log on at www.pebblepad.co.uk/leedsbeckett to view all the workbooks that have been shared with you by any Leeds Beckett student. If a new cohort contains students who will be on placement in your setting, you will be added to their workspace which will allow them to set up a share to their ePAD workbook. This will trigger an email telling you that you have been added to their workspace and you will then receive another email as and when a student shares with you.

You will be set up with an external PebblePad account for both Universities and you will receive emails from both telling you that you have been added as an external PebblePad user. Your username will be the same (your email address as it appears in the mentor register) but you will need to log in to a different log in page for each University and you will have a different password for each initially.

However, the first time you log into the second University, the system will recognise that you have external accounts at more than one University and you will be given the opportunity to ‘link’ your accounts so that your students’ workbooks will appear on the same ‘dashboard’ page regardless of which University they are at. Doing this will make it easier for you to access students’ work from different Universities.

You need to log on and complete assessor fields on the pages of the workbook. When you save, the contents of these fields will be made available to the student and your name and the date you edited the assessor field will be recorded. Please ensure you scroll to the bottom of the page to save and release your comments and checked skills.

Yes, you can edit and add to assessor fields that you have already completed later. The history will show all additions/changes and the dates that they were made.

Your student has access to an ‘offline assessment form’ through an app called PebblePocket. This allows them to record the details of an activity and allows you to add your details and sign the form using a signature pad on the touchscreen (similar to signing for a delivery). They will then be able to link this form to their ePAD workbook at a later date.

Yes, you can add to or edit assessor fields that have been completed by someone else and then scroll to the bottom of the page to ‘save’. The field will display the most recent contents and the history will show all additions/changes and the dates that they were made.

You can add to any assessor fields that they have completed to provide feedback or sign off their additions and then scroll to the bottom of the page to ‘save’. Anything that you add to a field will be displayed in the history for that field.

No, you can log on to access their workbook at any time once they have shared it with you. If you add something into an assessor field and then save the workbook, this will be visible to your student. Equally, anything that they add to their workbook will be visible to you when they save the workbook.

To be able to complete an assessor field, you will need to be logged on using your external account details. If you are working with your students and you both have internet-enabled devices and internet connections, you will both be able to add to your sections of the workbook at the same time.

There is a page within your student’s ePAD workbook called ‘Attendance record’ which should contain an attendance record for each week of placement. If you click on a link to an attendance record, you will be able to see the hours that your student has recorded for that week. To confirm and sign off the hours, add the total for that week in the assessor field ‘Total number of hours for the week’ and save.

No, you must not share these details. If another registered NMC mentor also requires access to the student's workbook, they will also need to be provided with an external account and the student will need to share their workbook with them. Contact nursingplacements@leedsbeckett.ac.uk. Students on the SLIP course can also be provided with access.

If anyone else who is not a registered mentor needs to be able to contribute to a student’s ePAD, they can do so using the ‘PebblePocket’ app which students have been provided with. Students can use the app to present people with ‘offline’ assessment and attendance forms. These forms allow students to record the details of an activity and for the non-registered mentor to add their details and sign the form using a signature pad on the touchscreen (similar to signing for a delivery). This can be used on short placements or to record observation of a skill without access to the student’s ePAD.

No, you need to be a registered NMC mentor to be provided with an external PebblePad account which will allow a student to share their workbook with you. However, you can still contribute to a student’s practice assessment. Students have access to an app called PebblePocket which provides them with an ‘offline assessment form’. This allows them to record the details of an activity and allows you to add your details and sign the form using a signature pad on the touchscreen (similar to signing for a delivery). They will then be able to link this form to their ePAD workbook at a later date.

There is also an ‘evidence of hours’ form in PebblePocket which allows those who may be overseeing practice hours to ‘sign off’ these hours even if they are not able to log into PebblePad, allowing them to comment on any aspect of learning and to record aspects such as hours worked together and skills taught.

Your student will be able to use PebblePocket to record their activities in ‘offline’ assessment and attendance forms. They can then present you with these forms for ‘signing’ on a touchscreen (see above).

An example of a student workbook is provided here:

• An example of an ePAD workbook for Adult Nursing students

(NB This is not a working example but simply aims to show you the structure of a student workbook. The assessor fields and most of the student fields are empty. You will be able to add to the assessor fields on your own student's ePAD workbook when you view it after you have logged on using your external PebblePad account).