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The Electronic Portfolio Boom: What's it All About?
11/26/2002
ePortfolios vs. Webfolios
Since the mid-90s, the term "ePortfolio" or "electronic portfolio" has been used to describe collections of student work at a Web site. Within the field of composition studies, the term "Webfolio" has also been used. In this article, we are using the current, general meaning of the term, which is a dynamic Web site that interfaces with a database of student work artifacts. Webfolios are static Web sites where functionality derives from HTML links. "E-portfolio" therefore now refers to database-driven, dynamic Web sites, not static, HTML-driven sites.
So, What's the Bad News?
Moving beyond the familiar one-semester/one-class limits of managing student
learning artifacts gets us into unfamiliar territory. How do we alter the curriculum
to integrate portfolios? How do we deal with long-term storage, privacy, access,
and ongoing vendor support? What about the challenge of interoperability among
platforms so student work can move to a new campus upon transfer?
In short, how do we make the ePortfolio an enterprise application, importing data from central computing, serving the application on a central, secure server, and managing an ever-enlarging campus system? Electronic portfolios have great reach in space and time so they will not be adopted lightly. We've seen how extensively learning management systems such as WebCT, Blackboard, and Angel can alter our campuses. ePortfolios are much more challenging for large-scale implementations.
Still, ePortfolio implementations are occurring on dozens if not hundreds of campuses. Schools of education are especially good candidates, as they're pressured by accrediting agencies demanding better-organized and accessible student work. Some statewide systems are adopting ePortfolio systems as well. The Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system and the University of Minnesota system have ePortfolios. Electronic portfolio consortia are also forming. The open-source movement, notably MIT's Open Knowledge Initiative (OKI), has embraced the ePortfolio as a key application within the campus computing virtual infrastructure.
Moreover, vendors, in order to establish themselves as the market begins to take shape, are already introducing ePortfolio tools. Several companies, including BlackBoard, WebCT, SCT, Nuventive, Concord, and McGraw-Hill, are said to either have or are developing electronic-portfolio tools.
Why Should We Believe?
Let's look in detail at how three groups—students, faculty, and administrators—may
benefit from ePortfolios.
Students seem most interested in the ways ePortfolios can flesh out their resumes, both before and after graduation. If internship interviewers or potential employers can see an online resume that includes views of a student's actual work, that student may be more likely to obtain the position. Students also want to see where they are in their college career regarding requirements. ePortfolios can facilitate this.
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