Feb. 25, 2009 ePortfolio Day of Dialogue in San Francisco

We are gearing up to host a day long conference this month on Feb.25th in San Francisco. Co-sponsored by the CSU Chancellor's office (CDL), SF and San Jose State Universities: http://conference.csuprojects.org/eportfolios

This all-day event is designed to bring together K- 20 and workforce organizations who use or who are interested in using ePortfolios. Attendees will have opportunities to hear students, faculty, and experts address issues of teaching, learning, assessment, and tools. We will share successes, lessons learned, tips, and strategies using the latest electronic portfolio technology.
This event is open to the public and anyone interested in the use of ePortfolios in K-20 educational settings. The conference will be held at SF State's new, beautiful downtown campus, 835 Market Street.
http:eportfolio.sfsu.edu
We are also hosting the NCEPR (National Coalition of Electronic Portfolio Research) Our campus along with San Jose State have been members of a research cohort for 2 years, http://ncepr.org/cohort3.html
This week we will be joining with a new cohort (V) to share our results--the successes, failures, and challenges ahead in developing ePortfolio practices in higher education.
Update: Many of the presentations from this event are now archived at:
http://teachingcommons.cdl.edu/eportfolio/resources/eportdodgrid.html

eFolio Summit, 2008

It was a beautiful balmy week in Minneapolis--perfect time to gather to talk about projects using eFolio. My talk, "Learning Locally, Thinking Globally--eFolio Passport to the World" focused on the human potential that can be captured and expressed in a portfolio. Here's a link to the 2008 proceedings.

ePortfolio Visits in the UK: Wolverhampton Univ. & The Open University

We had a great visit to Wolverhampton University. Hosted by Lindsay Duncan-Pitt, we
toured the new building in Walsall. Note the cafeteria in the Social Tech area--what a concept. Loved the clocks with times from areas where many students are from...



Wolverhampton Library Social Tech Area
Lots of nice group interaction in this new library space and wireless access as well as desktop computers.

Upstairs in the Faculty Tech support area, again there are social tables & meeting spaces:



Emma Purnell shared her portfolio work using the Pebble Pad system

Can One-Size-Fit-All? ePortfolio Growth at San Francisco State

“If the shoe fits, wear it.” --Old Proverb

“If software fits, wear it!” --New Proverb, Academic Technology, SF State

Finding the right “fit” is always challenging when considering implementation of any new technology across a range of disciplines--each with unique learning and teaching needs. In 2005, we conducted a needs assessment of our campus relating to the use of student portfolios (both paper and digital). Many departments had begun using their own solutions to create student ePortfolios, raising fiscal and technical-support sustainability issues. Another worry was that students could be required to create different portfolios for different classes/majors, with no technical or pedagogical coherence. With 28,000 students across 90 programs/departments, a growing sense was that things could get “unwieldy” and that Academic Resources should prepare to recommend a unified campus-wide ePortfolio system.

Feedback gathered from more than 40 undergraduate, graduate, and credential programs has guided SF State’s ePortfolio Project in some unexpected directions over the past three years. Sixty-two percent of respondents (25 departments) already required some form of student portfolios (paper-based or digital) or expressed interest in using electronic portfolios at the course or department levels. Nearly two-thirds of those requiring student portfolios (17 departments) were already working with a range of digital portfolio solutions (hosted software such as eFolio Minnesota, Carnegie’s KEEP Toolkit, Taskstream) as well as CD/DVD, and SF State built software and websites.


Was it essential to rein in department level ePortfolio developments and push everyone towards one system? Was there a "magic bullet" system that we could afford and roll out campus-wide? If so, what was it, and how could we project a budget scenario for it? Moreover, what would this "top-down" decision do to the existing portfolio-using programs that represented our core expertise relating to the teaching and learning benefits of ePortfolios?


Focusing on the top primary purpose(s) cited for student ePorfolios gave us some directional clues. “Career development and supporting student professional preparation” were by far the most important reason for portfolio use. Most indicated that portfolios were used for senior seminar requirements, capstone “signature” assignments, Internship reflection, graduate research, culminating project presentation, and creative/design/performing arts professional portfolios. Portfolios needed to be “student-centered and controlled” yet archivable.


“Student assessment” portfolios, tying coursework and student artifact/evidence to stated program goals, state standards, or professional licensure requirements were second. Finally, program assessment—tracking groups of students to support accreditation needs and aggregate student achievement data was seen as a value. The I-CAP (Candidate Assessment Portfolio) system was created by the College of Education to help students meet their California Teaching Performance Expectations in Secondary Education, a “homegrown” example of a portfolio file repository system.


For some departments, a mix of these three core functions was seen as ideal. However, consistent faculty concerns included the need for freedom and flexibility of any portfolio tool--the importance of a student’s ability to uniquely reflect upon their academic work, life experiences, and professional goals. Faculty members expressed that a “one size fits all” system would not support these important aspects of portfolio development, and could impede student incentive to invest energy in creating a portfolio.

Inspired by Penn State’s use of open web-space, we established an ePortfolio clearinghouse site”, http://eportfolio.sfsu.edu and began creating web-templates and an online tutorial for students to publish ePortfolios to SFSU web-space (200 Mbytes). This has accommodated the request for attractive capstone ePortfolio templates in disciplines such as Public Administration, Professional Technical Writing, Information Systems and Interior/Apparel Design among others.


In English Education, we use the KEEP Toolkit to create student portfolios—also introducing the students to the rich archives of the Carnegie Foundation, where their portfolios are hosted. In Public Health Education as well as Recreation Studies, easy-to-use web-based eFolio has been successfully implemented, with graduates sites archived each year on the Health Education Department website.


In the long term, our campus may launch a repository ePortfolio system that would play well with our CMS, ILearn (Moodle). However, the core functionality of an ePortfolio management system would still need to accommodate the valuable “face to the world” capstone portfolio sites that benefit students as they enter careers. As one public health student told us, “When I went to Kaiser for the job interview, they had my ePortfolio site pulled up on the screen, and had printed out examples of my work. I’m convinced that the ePortfolio was important to my being hired.”


At this point, we have found that addressing the unique situational and contextual factors within a course or program appears to be working well to deliver the outcomes our institution desires. Regarding concerns that students may be asked to create several different portfolios, we have seen students become increasingly more comfortable with representing themselves on the web (with Facebook, MySpace, Google Pages, personal websites and multiple Picasa or Flickr albums). Creating a new portfolio is more like putting on a new shoe: the same basic concept, with different styles or software for different occasions. You can check out our gallery space to see examples created using a variety of tools.


We welcome your thoughts!



1

Growing a Solution

The VP of Academic Resources, Enrique Riveros-Schafer began to receive requests for funding related to ePortfolios. In response, in the fall of 2005, Kevin Kelly (Academic Technology Director) and I were asked to conduct a needs assessment of our campus related to the use of portfolios.

Portfolios were not a new idea, and many departments have used portfolio review as a primary assessment strategy for years.
We wanted to find: 1) identify depts. currently requiring student portfolios (paper or digital); 2) clarify emerging dept. needs (formative/summative/capstone use of portfolios); 3) analyze investigative data from other comparable universities.

Based on our findings, we were asked to recommend a preliminary course of action for Academic Resources.
The assessment was prompted by concern that each college/dept. were using their own approaches, which in the long term was not fiscally sustainable. It also posed issues for students who could be asked to create different portfolios for different classes/majors, with no technical or pedagogical parity.

An underlying assumption was that things could get unwieldy and we might want to recommend a universal/unified eportfolio system for the whole campus. The vendors certainly were keen on suggesting that this was the only way to proceed.

But from day one, it was clear that a "one size fits all" approach would not work on our campus. The use, definition and application of portfolios were varied, with existing portfolio use already established. What we had rather was a tree with deep roots in using portfolios some disciplines (Education, the Arts, Health and Human Services among others). Some departments have always used portfolios. And there were new branches emerging each semester. What we quickly discovered was that:

• 40 Dept. Chairs/Faculty)indicated that they already required some form of portfolios (paper/digital), or expressed interest in using eportfolios at the course or dept. in the 2006-07 year.

• 17 depts. were already using some form of digital portfolios [Hosted solutions: eFolio, Taskstream, homegrown solutions, ICAP, DIVA, as well as CD's, DVD's and websites

Was there a "magic bullet", or a tool that we could afford and roll out across our 28,000 student campus? If so, what WAS it, and could we afford it? And what would this "top-down" decision do to the existing portfolio using programs? These programs represented our core expertise and we didn't want to alienate them.

In looking at many tools (thanks Helen Barrett for pioneering the effort!), and given an extremely limited budget for new projects, we realized that we needed to take each departmental need on it's own terms. Which meant different definitions.
Oh, and...What WAS an ePortfolio anyway? (Definitions were slippery, even between colleges on our campus.)

In addition to writing the report, I made a concept map of our situation. It looked like a sea urchin with tendrils in all directions. Hard to get one's head around.
What would be an organic growth model that would allow for the rooted depts. to deepen their efforts, new projects to start, but the core trunk to be unifed in philosophy, approach, and ultimately in the technology?

The image of a tree arose. I sketched out the exisiting long-standing projects as roots, with strong branches, and the newer developments as new growth.
OK, so I AM a foresters daughter, but the tree metaphor really allowed me to drop the pressure that there would be one solution the University would need to impose.
And so...we now have solutions that are tailored to needs. We have student portfolios being created with many tools. Check out out gallery space to see some examples.
The best fit we could find at this point. And a way to support, deepen and nurture those programs with their roots already well established in the use of portfolios.

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To read more about the SFSU needs assessment approach: http://academic.sfsu.edu/ar/at/otl/eport.php

Guiding Questions for ePortfolio Development

Guiding Questions for ePortfolio Development
These are the kind of questions that we ask faculty/programs interested in using ePortfolios:

• Describe your student ePortfolio Project [Will ePortfolios be used at the Course, Program, Dept., Campus levels? Will the ePortfolios need to be shared with other institutions? FALL, 2006 or SPRING, 2007 roll-out? Focus on one project.] How are you defining ePortfolios?]

• What are your core goals in using ePortfolios? [Formative/summative assessment, capstone/culminating, professional development, demonstrating examples of work linked to institutional goals. Will multiple faculty need to view a student site, or comment directly on ePortfolios?

• What knowledge, skills, values/reflections will you want students to share in their portfolios?

• What types of media/artifacts/evidence do you want students to use/archive to demonstrate competencies in these areas? [Signature assignments/Documents, ppt., multimedia (audio/ video), websites/links]

• What resources will you need to support student’s creating/uploading various media?

• What standards/processes for evaluation of ePortfolios will you use? (Peer review, rubrics, signature assignments, instructor comment boxes etc.)

Please share any other approaches you may have with us!

View from the Hill--Carnegie's KEEP Toolkit as ePortfolio

The view from the top of the hill is magnificent as we drive up next to the 18th fairway on the Stanford Golf course to the Carnegie Foundation. Our consortium of community colleges and CSU's in N. California has been meeting once a month all year (Fall 2006-07) to scheme on ePortfolio solutions. We've been working all year on cracking open the puzzle of migratory students, who move between 2 year campuses as well as the 2 Yr. to 4 Yr. transfer issues using ePortfolios as as way to document and track students.
Yesterday and today, we are exploring the use of the KEEP toolkit for student portfolios. developed at the Knowledge Media Lab at Carnegie, KEEP was designed for instructors to be able to make quick "snaphot" websites of their best practices.
But on several of our campuses, we have been using the KEEP tool to create student sites.
For example, at SFSU, our English Education students are documenting their work:
http://www.cfkeep.org/html/stitch.php?s=16037422061001&id=70274436911824
The URL's for these portfolios have been unfriendly--today we learned that there is a new version of the toolkit that will shorten URL's and add a tagging function to make it easier to find one's work.
Our 2 days of work together (CSM, SFCC, De Anza, Skyline, SFSU, East Bay, Stanford) was fruitful. We deepened our discussions around use of ePortfolios in advising, transfer and at the course, program and institutional levels. Small group work yielded insights and anchored some pilots for the coming year within and between our campuses.
At Carnegie, we heard about their new "Teaching Commons" archive--an extension of a search able Gallery of snapshots, and a renegade "build-out" of KEEP by some grad students at Claremont College "KEEP Social Learning Suite 1.0".
Lots of potential & we will be creating a KEEP site for our DTLC (Digital Teaching & Learning Consortium) activities.