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Electronic Student Assessment: The Power of Portfolio
9/18/2006
Two other institutions that have implemented ePortfolios across campus are LaGuardia Community College (NY) and the University of Denver. At the latter, an effort known as the DU Portfolio Community (DUPC) integrates ordinary ePortfolio sharing and assessment features with tools for community interaction such as asynchronous discussion. Each student’s portfolio includes information about the individual’s community membership and participation in collaborative activities. Not only can all constituents of the university create an ePortfolio, but each virtual community also has its own portfolio – a portal welcoming newcomers into the fold.
Julanna Gilbert, director of the university’s Center for Teaching and Learning, sees DUPC as a multipurpose application. If students and faculty users wish to grant public access, their personal portfolio accounts can be available for the world to see through the DUPC Web site. The public may also participate in DUPC as registered guests who may join communities and participate in discussion forums.
“The ability to search the content of the portfolios makes it possible for individuals who have interests in particular areas to find each other, and serves to build connections across disciplines and groups,” Gilbert writes in a recently published project summary. “For example, members of the public can be invited to participate in a course discussion forum with students on a particular topic, broadening the experience for students.”
Forward-Thinking Projects
At the University of Texas-Austin, Peg Syverson, associate professor in the department of Rhetoric and Writing, has developed a comprehensive ePortfolio effort that incorporates a number of features into one. Syverson’s system moves the learning record into a standalone application that UT faculty and educators at other schools can download for free and use at their convenience. The professor created the application with FileMaker Pro from FileMaker, and named it Learning Record Online. To date, more than 7,000 students in 14 schools are using the tool.
In a nutshell, the product is a freeware relational database that stores the most current version of a particular file. Teachers input course information and students, in turn, submit the most current copies of their assignments. The instructors make comments in the files and upload the comments. Students then import those comments into their versions and proceed accordingly. As Syverson explains, educators can see the observations students have been keeping for the duration of the process. Behind the scenes, teachers don’t need FileMaker Pro to use the software. They only need to download the standalone application, input the course information, and make it available for students.
Recommended Reading
- Getting the Money Right
A clear sign that online and distance learning is maturing is that we are struggling with how to organize and fund these programs on an ongoing basis.
- Technology and Campus Services
Can auxiliary services be mission-critical? You bet they can. With tuition on the rise, Auxiliary Services departments at a variety of colleges and universities are proving that they can innovate and still save their parent institutions cash.
- Ad It Up
Commercials on television tend to enrage me and laugh tracks are guaranteed to give me a headache. Plus, where do people find the time to watch TV?
- What Is the Purpose of an Electronic Portfolio? Is the Answer the Key to Your Successful Implementation?
Among many themes, Margaret Price explores the theme of purpose in her Viewpoint. One purpose of ePortfolio is to reflect on change from a beginning to a later point in time. In a future Viewpoint, Margaret will return to the SpEl.Folio and we’ll see how her thinking and her project have evolved.
- Making Faculty Smarter about Smart Technology
If you’re not also enabling the ‘why’ or ‘what’ behind the tech tools you give your faculty, you’re not enabling effective use of those tools.
- Smashing the Shackles of Intentionally Dysfunctional Technology
Until last week, it hadn’t "clicked" inside my head that the Library of Congress could or would make specific exemptions to copyright laws.
