What are E-Portfolios?
As the University of Delaware (UD) continues on its Path to Prominence, the need to engage the student body, both graduate and undergraduate, in their total academic experience is critical to the University’s success. Electronic portfolios, or e-portfolios, provide an opportunity for students to make connections between their academic experiences and their futures while at the same time documenting evidence of learning. E-portfolios provide a structured framework that guides student learning and allows students to visualize transferring that learning to new situations.
The University of Delaware has two goals for
e-portfolios: student-centered education and assessment.
- Student-Centered Education
Student e-portfolios increase student engagement by allowing students to showcase their work, interact with their work in new ways, reflect on their work, and visualize connections between their schoolwork and their future professional or academic careers. - Assessment
E-portfolios offer a meaningful mechanism for accessing and organizing evidence of student learning. They facilitate the retrieval of student artifacts for learning outcomes assessment and help track student progress toward specific learning goals.
Portfolio use on campus is not new. In the past, students would be asked to gather a collection of their work or artifacts in a format that could be presented to a class, instructor, potential employer, or accreditor. Often work was manually collected in a binder where everything could be located in one place. With the advances made in computer technology, it is a natural progression to move this manual process to an electronic portfolio format.
“The point of the portfolio (electronic or paper) is to provide a “richer picture” of a student’s abilities, and to show growth over time“ (Barrett, 2002).
How are e-portfolios used?
The term e-portfolio can mean different things, depending on how the portfolio is used. Common purposes for the e-portfolio include:
- As an electronic storage device for students to save and back up their work samples.
- For assessment where students’ progress toward specific learning goals is tracked.
- For students to engage in self-reflection.
- For external constituents: employers, graduate school admissions personnel, or professional licensing agencies.
Why create an e-portfolio?
E-portfolios allow students to develop a professional presence on the Web. Because they are using the digital medium to create papers, presentations, multimedia projects, etc., it is necessary to consider the most effective way students can present what they have learned or what they have accomplished. Likewise, the University can share examples of student work to meet program and accreditation needs.
"At the moment, e-portfolios represent perhaps the most promising strategy for responding to calls for accountability and at the same time nurturing a culture of experimentation with new forms of learning." (Bass & Eynon, 2009)
What is the best way to get started using e-portfolios?
Use the links at the top of this site to help you understand the process of creating an e-portfolio which includes the gathering of artifacts, reflecting on learning and demonstrating accomplishments.
Links on the left provide specific information for both faculty and students, resources on e-portfolios, support information, and a showcase of what others have done.
To get started, complete the Interest Form on the Get Started page, and someone from IT will contact you.
