Student e-Portfolio Feasibility Study

• 19 describe their primary purpose as reflection
• 13 as student evaluation and grading
• 8 as career planning
• 4 as program evaluation
• 2 as faculty evaluation and tenure
• 2 as advising
• 1 as integration of curriculum

• Start small with a period of pilot testing. It is critical in order to get the best fit with the institution’s culture and available resources. Several institutions that currently run e-Portfolio programs have invested considerable time in planning and pilot testing. Given the complexity of implementing a campus-wide e-Portfolio program at a large R1 institution, it seems evident that the program would be developed incrementally and carefully studied along the way.
  
• Agreement at institutional level on the definition and purposes of e-Portfolios. Faculty involvement in developing the institutional vision for e-Portfolios.
  
• Portfolios mean different things to different people. Portfolios have different audiences and purposes. They can be used for learning, assessment, advising, and career planning. Many different philosophies are used as guiding frameworks. In some disciplines, such as art, interior design, architecture and education, portfolios have well-established uses. For others, portfolios are a new concept. In order for e-Portfolios to have significant impact on student learning, there needs to be a shared vision of what role e-Portfolios can play in an institution of higher education.
  
• Connection of e-Portfolios in schools and colleges to some guiding educational goals and framework (student outcomes for the major, accreditation standards, etc.) This framework is the element that distinguishes e-Portfolios from personal web pages.
  
• Faculty involvement to identify the educational goals that provide a framework for e-Portfolios and in designing the templates. Faculty should also be supported to help them integrate the use of portfolios in their courses.
  
• Academic and Career Advisor involvement in creating the e-Portfolio elements and processes. Advisor involvement in creating the e-Portfolio elements and processes will be key as e-Portfolios can be a resource to assist advisors. If one of the main purposes is to assist students in their path through the university and into the work world, it is important to have advisors involved in the definition of an e-Portfolio initiative. Academic and career advisors currently do this work and are well suited to define the questions that could help students better reflect on their goals and experiences.
  
• Generic but flexible format(s) designed for e-Portfolios that colleges, schools and departments can adapt to their learning goals and culture.
  
• Reflection by students as a key activity necessary to make connections between and among courses and out of class experiences.
  
• Introduction of students to e-Portfolios as they enter the university. The earlier they are introduced and used, the more effective they can be in improving learning. The earlier e-Portfolios are introduced the more students can use them along the way to shape, guide, and document their learning. E-portfolios introduced early in an educational career can be viewed as a formative evaluation of a student’s educational career.
  
• An e-Portfolio initiative should be seized as a means to teach students the technology and communication skills they need to be effective in today’s learning and work environments. This contextualized real world learning provides an important way to help bridge the digital divide in both computer and information literacy skills.
  
• Support for students in all phases of e-Portfolio development—in guided reflection and feedback as well as in assessment and development of computer technology skills.
  
• Feedback mechanisms built into the e-Portfolio process. Depending on purpose, feedback can be provided by peers, faculty, academic and career advisors, or potential employers.

• Assessment of students’ technology skills at the outset Tutorials and classes for e-Portfolios, including student peer trainers Reconfiguring of existing services to support e-Portfolio preparation Working directly with faculty in developing e-Portfolio process and templates Assessing training needs relative to e-Portfolio development as students move through their course of study A basic template that can be used by students who are not technology-savvy.
• Feedback to students in the process of development.>

What is the level of interest on this campus around e-Portfolios?

• In the fall of 2002, the Teaching Academy formed an interest group on e-Portfolios. The interest group, which includes faculty and staff, would be an asset to further campus exploration of e-Portfolios.
  At least seventeen majors on the UW-Madison campus report using portfolios already to assess student learning. For the most part, these are paper. Majors that currently have a tradition of using portfolios offer a good starting point for possible pilots for developing e-Portfolios. Faculty members who already use portfolios for assessment should be approached first to identify who is interested in transferring to electronic format. Other faculty from the Teaching Academy, Agricultural Journalism, Engineering, and the School of Human Ecology who indicated an interest in moving to e-Portfolios are also be candidates for possible pilot projects. Available support resources will determine the size, type and number of pilot projects.
  DoIT’s Student Software Trainers already offer a workshop on creating e-Portfolios. It is open to all students. Several classes were conducted in the fall of 2002. These classes will be offered in spring of 2003. DoIT’s Student Software Training Group is also interested in supporting any additional campus effort and possibly working with pilot projects.
   Interest was expressed by the L&S/SoHE Career Services Center and employers, as well as programs that support students in their out of class or non-traditional learning such as the Student Leadership Group and Morgridge Center for Public Service.
  
• The Graduate School studying the potential for on-line publication of dissertations. Several of the issues of the e-Portfolio would inform the process for e-publishing of dissertations. E-Portfolios could also enhance application for graduate study.

1. Start small with a period of pilot testing in Spring/Summer 2003. Work with interested parties in developing a variety of e-Portfolio pilots including in and out of classroom learning, advising and career development. Faculty members who already use portfolios for assessment or who have indicated an interest in e-Portfolios should be approached first. Available resources will determine the size, type and number of pilot projects. Continue to work to identify an appropriate cross campus advisory group that would help to define and monitor pilot projects, articulate a vision, link with school and college Academic Planning Councils, and define broad institutional goals for e-Portfolios. The Teaching Academy working group on e-Portfolios can assist in this effort.
2. Use a web-based approach to portfolios that allows flexibility and additional capacity beyond paper portfolios. Although the traditional literature of paper portfolios recommends that a portfolio be designed to serve only one of those purposes, we believe that students can use an e-repository of artifacts for different purposes at different times throughout the course of their university education.
3. Pilots should utilize off the shelf software and services of DoIT’s student software trainers. Supported secure space should be provided for web-based e-Portfolios in the pilot phase.
4. Develop Campus promotions and events both to disseminate lessons learned from pilots and to continue to collect comments and suggestions from stakeholders.
5. Integrate e-Portfolio concepts into DoIT's current comprehensive planning process for the campus e-learning infrastructure (including archiving services for e-Portfolios Potential exists to transfer student e-Portfolios to the Wisconsin Alumni Association servers after students graduate).
6. Continue to follow national developments in standards and the custom system software approach that would integrate with other campus systems. Careful attention must be paid to interoperability with other campus software such as portals, learning management systems, registrar services and human resource databases as well as to the issues of sustainability and portability.
   
7. To ensure that UW-Madison can continue to learn from other institutions, participate in e-Portfolio activities of AAHE, the National Learning Infrastructure Initiative (NLII), the CIC Working Group when reactivated. Continue dialogue with School of Education faculty and staff.