Prof. Janice M. Karlen and Prof. Susan M. Sanchirico LaGuardia Community College/CUNY

 Role of the ePortfolio – Student Perspective  The ePortfolio is an electronic portfolio which allows students to showcase their work.  The ePortfolio program is an initiative at LaGuardia Community College that allows students to engage in the creative process of creating an academic website.  Role of the ePortfolio – Institutional Perspective  The ePortfolio is the primary way the College collects qualitative assessment data on student learning.  The ePortfolio provides anonymous samples of student work in written, oral, and multi-media formats.

ePortfolio Content  Each ePortfolio has several standard sections:  Welcome page  About Me  Resume  Educational & Career Goals  Links  Classes and Projects

 Self-directed learning  Experience as a learning resource  Problem based rather than subject centered learning approached  The social context of the adult learner Knowles, 1990.

Kolb’s ‘Experiential Learning Cycle’ Reflective Observation Abstract Conceptualization Concrete Experience Active Experimentation Actual learning experience ‘doing’ Comparing what learned with what already known Thinking about what happened Putting it into practice ‘relevance’ Kolb, 1984

 Lowest level – used for students within educational institutions to collect and prove achievement  Middle level – the organizational portfolio; more formal, grades, control of access  High level – the personal digital portfolio; store of accomplisments with verification, portable Waters, 2009

“All learning activity undertaken throughout life, with the aim of improving knowledge, skills and competences within a person, civic, social and/or employment-related perspective” Commission of the European Communities, 2001

The Regional Interoperability Project on Progression for Lifelong Learning  Established a model of cross-sector collaboration in personal development planning technology in the UK which lead to a draft interoperability standard for ePortfolios

 Study to study  Study to work  Data mining of ePortfolios  As a tool for development of learning opportunities by government or economic development organizations  As an intelligence agent for developing linkages for the user  Ethical issues Hartnell-Young 2006

“It is necessary to maintain a record of an individual’s growth in competency in a persistent and standard way to ensure that learners can search for new learning facilities that fit and extends their current knowledge.” Koper and Tattersall, 2004

 Development of ePortfolio learning networks that include  Learning packages that have defined competencies  Software agents that are integrated into the ePortfolio architecture to point out to the learner knowledge sources that support learning goals  Insight into the learning paths of others that have preceded them in the pursuit of learning or employment goals Koper and Tattersall, 2004

“Rather than limit people to the ePortfolio model, why not develop a model providing a personal Web space for everyone, for their lifetimes and beyond?” Cohn and Hibbitts, 2004

 Benefits  Educational continuity  Less record of educational pursuits are lost  A central user structured and controlled repository  Crossing of traditional boundaries  Allows for a centralized place where an individual may create linkages with other digital presences(e.g. Facebook, photo albums)  Creation of communities

An externally hosted ePortfolio is a more adequate solution because 1. students’ affiliation with an institution is only temporary, 2. life-long / life-wide learning should not be affected by course 3. boundaries, 4. learners need to be sure that private information cannot be accessed by their instructors, 5. learners need to feel free to use their ePortfolios for the purposes they see fit, rather than institutionally sanctioned ones. However, if students get ePortfolio services from an external provider, then this requires a sustainable business model, including services not readily available somewhere else Heinrich 2008

 eFolioMinnesota(tm) is a Web-based portfolio designed to help state residents to create a living showcase of their education, career, and personal achievements.  All Minnesota residents; including students and educators affiliated with Minnesota schools and people working in the state of Minnesota, can use eFolioMinnesota to reach their career and education goals.  eFolioMinnesota is a free resource for Minnesota residents, students, and workers provided by the Minnesota State College and University system.  It is available for licensing by other groups.

 The Open Source Portfolio Initiative (OSPI) is a community of individuals and organizations collaborating on the development of the leading non- proprietary, open source electronic portfolio software available.  A national trend in higher education towards the collaborative development of open-source application software -- ensure portability for use at other universities.  Why open source:  In brief, open source means that you are allowed to copy, use and modify provided you agree to:  include the source code when distributing to others;  not modify or remove the original license and copyrights, and  apply the same license to any derivative work.

 The larger educational vision is that learners will own and manage their personal portfolio information from childhood through career as a tool for reflective life-long learning.  Student ownership of ePortfolios.  The ability to set permissions of access to various groups.  Flexibility for formal or informal/social and personal or course-related areas.  Examples:  Elgg, an open source social networking platform primarily designed to be a Personal Learning Environment (PLE) and an Eportfolio tool Elgg  Mahara, an open source ePortfolio system (New Zealand) Mahara  OSP an open source portfolio based on sakai OSP  sakai an open source enterprise teaching, learning and academic collaboration platform sakai  Student Jotter an e-portfolio system for all education levels with free and licensed options Student Jotter  RCampus ePortfolios Part of the RCampus Learning Management and iRubric Assessment and Standards Systems -- Free and licensed options RCampus ePortfolios

 LaGuardia currently uses the Concord system that is integrated into Blackboard  Explored Sakai last year as one option – did not meet expectations/difficult for assessment/loss of personalized templates  Over the past year, experimented with WordPress, Digication, and Epsilen  Decision: Beginning Fall 2010, Digication will replace the current system – easy to use, ability to retain current templates for personalization, facilitates assessment

 Private vs public persona (generation gap?)  Lifelong education as a set of learning experiences (courses, travel, work, etc.)  Structure vs individualism in eportfolio  Costs and control