EPortfolios: an Overview

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• E-Portfolios an Overview

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Types of Portfolios

• Creators
• Students
• Details on subsequent slides
• Faculty
• For tenure review
• Benchmark course portfolios (current state of
  learning)
• Inquiry course portfolios (track change across
  sections)
• Institutions
• Accreditation
• Recruiting

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Student Portfolios

• Functions
• Career portfolios demonstrate skills and
  supplement resume and cover letter
• Assessment portfolios help determine if students
  have mastered information
• Developmental portfolios help students make
  connections and articulate the intangible
• Forms
• Paper, Web, CD-ROM, video, combination

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Career Portfolios

• Often viewed as Electronic Resumes
• Demonstrates skills, samples of work, pictures,
  etc.
• Allows employers to view the level of detail they
  want to see
• Motivating power High similar to a resume

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Career Portfolio Dangers

• Resume and cover letter must stand on their own
• Employers may not take time to look at them
• Technology may be a barrier
• Too much flash and not enough substance
• Mid-level computer skills might not be good enough

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Career Portfolio Example
Lisa Abate (Student of Indiana University's
Instructional Systems Technology program, which
requires a final professional portfolio)
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Assessment Portfolios

• Determine if students have mastered information,
  skills, concepts
• Used to assess writing, studio or applied art,
  teaching materials, etc.
• Require collections of artifacts--papers,
  photos, drawings, lesson plans, etc.
• Mid-term and final assessment of learning
• Motivating power Mid similar to an exam

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Assessment Portfolios Dangers

• Poorly expressed or nonexistent goals for the
  Portfolio
• Collecting too much information
• End of course may be too late
• May be redundant or inefficient, esp. for
  objectively-evaluated materials.
• Do you really need a Portfolio to do the job?

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Assessment Portfolios Example
Mark Kenefick (Student of Indiana University's
Instructional Systems Technology program, which
requires a final professional portfolio)
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Developmental Portfolios

• Help students make connections and articulate the
  intangible
• Enhance experiential learning through reflection
• Help students make informed, intentional
  decisions
• MAKE STUDENTS THINK!
• Motivating power Low similar to a journal

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Developmental Portfolios Dangers

• Collection without reflections
• Runs risk of becoming just another requirement
• Must be completed thoughtfully to be beneficial
• Web format does not guarantee connections
• Students and faculty both need to understand why
  they are participating

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Developmental Portfolios Example
Kate Jenks (Student of Kalamazoo College, which
requires an ongoing developmental portfolio)
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Portfolio Types

• Misnomer most portfolios serve more than one
  purpose
• Need to address each purpose individually and
  consciously

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Web vs. Paper Portfolios

• Web advantages
• Easy accessibility and storage
• Cross-linking capabilities
• Improvement of computer skills
• Web disadvantages
• Software learning curve
• Too much focus on format instead of content
• Software and training costs

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Portfolio Software Overview

• Disciplines usually create new electronic
  structures that suit their needs
• ? too much time programming and not enough time
  developing program structure
• Have not yet found any commercially available
  software suitable for all three student portfolio
  types
• Flexible, usable software could save time and
  money, possibly be marketed

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Portfolio Software Needs

• Essential for all disciplines
• Easy to use
• A central, sharable place to store pfolios
• Hyperlinks
• Suitable for multiple disciplines
• Highly desired for most disciplines
• Multi-purpose, multiple views w/o re-entering
  data
• Comment feature

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Software Need Easy to Use

• Software A computer-literate person should not
  need more than 10 minutes training
• Artifact creation Docs, PDFs, photos should
  upload and link easily
• The structure of the software templates should
  explain the portfolios conceptual requirements

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Software Need Server Space

• Portfolios are shared need a central repository
  for documents.
• Ideally, objects are created, reviewed, and
  commented online reduces confusion of multiple
  copies
• Developmental pfolios might be restricted-access
• Career pfolios need full access

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Software Need Hyperlinks

• Need to be able to link among pages
• All doc types
• No coding visual link procedure
• Highlight text, click Link, then browse to file

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Software Need Suitable for Multiple Disciplines

• Education, sociology, art, architecture,
  business, nursing, etc. all have different
  uses/needs
• Format must be generic enough to suit all, but
  specific enough to be of some use
• Must be completely customizable so sections of
  the portfolio can be added/changed without losing
  data

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Software Need Multi-purpose, Multiple Views

• Most portfolio programs have an assessment or
  developmental purpose AND a career purpose
• Ideally, can create new views with a few clicks ?
  database driven
• Writing style can be a serious issue
• Privacy issues public/private sections of
  portfolio

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Software Need Comment Feature

• Works like comments in Word or Acrobat
• Allows faculty (or others) to comment on
  reflections or artifacts
• Must be in-line (i.e., positioned next to the
  item they comment on)
• Word has been used in the past, but this causes
  complicated upload/download issues

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Common Conceptual Features

• Comparing pfolios from several disciplines, most
  have the following features
• Requirements (set by the college)
• Benchmarks (set by state or a board)
• Artifacts (collected student work)
• Reflections or annotations (by student)
• Comments (from professor or advisor)
• Resume view (for employers)

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Schematic