e-portfolios: Not There Yet

I read a piece online titled E-Portfolios: Are We There Yet? and thought I would add my own thoughts on that topic based on the 5 years we have been using them in our Writing Initiative at PCCC.

In Jennifer Demski's article, she interviewed Trent Batson, executive director of the Association for Authentic, Experiential, and Evidence-Based Learning (AAEBL) about the strength of e-portfolios in assessing "21st century learning."

E-portfolios have been seen for many years as a feasible way to deal with the issues of assessment and credentialing. But e-portfolios have not gotten the kind of acceptance that would be seen as really changing assessment practices.

Sine the traditional paper portfolio or collection of work for writing, art, music design etc. has been around for a very long time, you would think that the transition to digital would have been about as natural as the moves from pen and paper to typewriters, to word processors, to online.

Not so.

Batson says:

The beauty of e-portfolios is that they can enable learning theories that have been developed through intense study over the past 30 years of how humans learn using cognitive science, traditional psychology, and anthropology. It's important that we're now switching to an approach that's appropriate for adult learning. At the base of this research is the idea that learning is based on experience. Until now, we have not allowed students to have much in the way of experience; instead, we expect them to listen to someone who has had experience.

But he is cautious about saying when large scale adoption will occur. I agree with him that part of the problem is that using them requires redesigning how courses are taught. "Paradigm shift" is a bit overused these days, but a shift does need to happen that is larger than just "using e-portfolios."

A professor using e-portfolios as the basis for a course grade has to take a different approach from a professor using more traditional means of assessment. He has to help students build the evidence in their portfolios. It means the teacher must help them work on problems or projects throughout the semester. It's an active learning approach.

This doesn't mean that professors don't lecture at all. For young students coming into a college-level biology course without a biology background, there might be four weeks designated as the informational stage of the course. How does a biologist think? What kind of evidence does a biologist look for? The teacher would then build toward the questions that he's going to ask throughout the semester and the problems to which students will try to find answers. At that point, the teacher would turn to what we might call the transformational part of the semester: For 11 weeks, the teacher would help students work on projects, and create deliverables that they produce and respond to, and help them build evidence in their portfolio. That's a very different model from the one we've employed for centuries.

Our own barriers at PCCC have probably been typical of other schools.

1. Choosing an e-portfolio platform/product
2. Teaching students and faculty how to use the technology
3. Convincing students and faculty that there are learning advantages to using them
4. Determining how they can be assessed

The first two of those had the problems that you would expect in selecting and implementing any new technology on campus. But convincing faculty (not students) that there are learning advantages to using e-portfolios was the most difficult task - and the one we had the least success in achieving.

Sadly, even if we were persuasive in showing that portfolio use could improve student writing and that it was necessary to our program assessment, we could not win over all faculty because they did not see it as making their job any easier.

Our Writing Initiative has its own goals for e-portfolio use:

1. As learning portfolios (rather than performance portfolios)
2. As a repository of writing samples for our assessment of grant objectives and benchmarks
3. To provide continuity for writing-intensive courses
4. To develop a plan that would be product-neutral

I feel we were able to able to achieve those four goals.

The college also had goals in mind for our use of portfolios:

1. Institutional and program assessment (for Middle States etc.)
2. Interface with assessment software being used
3. Recommend a portfolio product for wider adoption
4. Consider expressive, transfer & career portfolio uses

Our data will be useful for that first goal.

We were not able to connect our e-portfolio product with the assessment program used. The two vendors don't provide APIs to allow that.

We use eFolio as our portfolio product, but there are problems we have with it that would probably send us to look at other platforms again. And, because cost is a big factor, we may end up implementing a portfolio that comes with our LMS (Blackboard) if the pricing is attractive. Users certainly like the integration and single sign-on.

We never had the time to really explore other applications of the portfolios, though we have allowed students to keep their portfolios and use them as part of their transfer package. Unfortunately, anecdotal reports from students are that the 4-year colleges they are applying to are not interested in looking at the portfolios.

According to Batson, about half of all American universities have some sort of e-portfolio initiative in place. We have looked at the initiative at nearby LaGuardia Community College in NY as a model. But my own post title here summarizes my conclusion - we are not there yet when it comes to e-portfolio use.

Here is a presentation we made at the mid-point in our e-portfolio launch.

Soft Launching An Institutional ePortfolio Initiative

View more presentations from Ken Ronkowitz

Course-Level Assessment Using Student Portfolios

The Writing Initiative team uses student portfolios to assess overall writing, the use of critical thinking and the use of information literacy in assignments. Writing Intensive students have been using an electronic portfolio product called eFolio.

Using a randomized selection of at least 10% of the student artifacts submitted to portfolios across all sections, the team evaluates assignments using the WI rubrics for writing, critical thinking and information literacy that are used in the WI course sections.

The rubrics for writing and critical thinking were aligned with the scoring methodology used for our College Writing Exam so that we could make some longitudinal comparisons with data on that exam that goes back well before the Initiative.

The information literacy rubric and scoring adheres to the methodology that has been used for a number of years prior to the grant to analyze IL in the College Experience classes.

Some instructors who find limited success having student use the electronic portfolios have been allowed to submit paper or electronic copies of student writing for analysis.


The percentage of WI students who upload at least one assignment to their portfolios each semester had consistently been about one-third, which was less than anticipated. However, during the Spring 2011 semester, portfolio use rose to 48%, nearly a 50% increase. There is certainly improved buy-in by faculty and students that has occurred as the Initiative progresses. Portfolios – and the Initiative as a whole – are a growing part of the institutional culture.

Students have access to eFolio tutorials and support documentation via LibGuides. Use of the online video tutorials, recorded with Echo360 lecture capture technology, has increased over 200% from 2010 to 2011. In-class eFolio sessions are conducted as needed, and students with eFolio questions can drop in or schedule an appointment with the Technology Resource Specialist.

The Writing Initiative has played a very important role in making the case for portfolios as a means of campus-wide assessment. Last year, the Vice-President of Academic Affairs outlined a five-year, three-phase plan to adopt portfolios for assessment in several academic programs. The Education/Early Childhood Education department has systematically adopted department-wide use of portfolios. Portfolios are also being piloted in a small sample of Composition I and ESL classes.

Electronic Portfolio Use at PCCC

Writing Intensive students at PCCC have been using an electronic portfolio product called eFolio since 2008.

The Writing Initiative has played a very important role in making the case for portfolios as a means of campus-wide assessment. The use of portfolios is slowly taking root in the campus culture. Faculty outside the Writing Initiative – including those in areas such as Early Childhood Education, English, and the College Experience - have successfully piloted or will pilot eFolio in their courses.

As a result of these efforts, the Vice-President of Academic Affairs has outlined a five-year, three-phase plan to adopt portfolios for assessment in several academic programs.

This year the Writing Initiative team is implementing strategies to increase use of electronic portfolios, including hiring a faculty mentor for portfolios, and discussing best portfolio practices at the Faculty Institutes. 

As the number of WI sections has increased, the Initiative team is unable to go in-person to the 20+ WI sections each semester. So, we have developed a set of online video tutorials recorded with Echo360 lecture capture technology. The short, highly specialized tutorials are available to students 24/7/365. Follow-up in-person eFolio sessions are conducted as needed, and students with eFolio questions can drop in or schedule an appointment with Ken Karol. In addition, all WC tutors have also been given training in basic portfolio use so that they can assist students if necessary.

Here is a presentation we made at the 2010 NJEDge.Net Faculty Best Practices showcase about the ePortfolio soft launch at PCCC.

Soft Launching An Institutional ePortfolio Initiative

posted by Ken Ronkowitz

Portfolio Mentoring

For the 2010-2011 academic year, we have added Professor Anita Kumar as a peer mentor for faculty teaching writing intensive classes.

Anita is full-time faculty in the Early Childhood Education department. She has been an enthusiastic proponent of writing in the disciplines. Though ECE courses cannot be offered under the Initiative as WI courses, she includes many of the WI components in her classes and has been using ePortfolios for two years.

She began using our eFolio product in her classes voluntarily because it was something that education departments at the 4-year colleges do as a regular practice.

Professor Kumar has presented to PCCC faculty at our WI Faculty Institutes. She also did a team presentation in March 2010 at the NJEDge.Net Faculty Best Practices Showcase at Seton Hall University along with Elizabeth Nesius and Ken Ronkowitz. That presentation, "Soft Launching An Institutional ePortfolio Initiative," highlighted PCCC’s decision-making process approach to piloting online portfolios to support student learning and assessment.

This year she was appointed by the Vice President off Academic Affairs, Dr. Jacqueline Kineavy, to lead a study on the adoption of portfolios across the college community. The committee will look at portfolio products, adoption strategies and methods of assessment. The plan currently is to introduce portfolios in the required College Experience course and in the Humanities department.

Because Anita brings a strong pedagogical background to portfolio use and has extensive use in the current portfolio product, we decided she would be an excellent choice to mentor WI faculty in portfolio use during this year.

Soft Launching An Institutional ePortfolio Initiative

Today, I presented along with Elizabeth Nesius and Anita Kumar at the NJEDge.Net Annual Faculty Best Practices Showcase at Seton Hall University. Our presentation, "Soft Launching An Institutional ePortfolio Initiative," highlighted the Writing Initiative's use of ePortfolios.

Beyond our portfolio use in WI classes, our experiences are acting as a pilot for PCCC’s use of eportfolios with all students.

We are using a decision-making process approach to piloting online portfolios to support student learning and assessment.

The Initiative has been using ePortfolios since Fall 2008 as a part of all writing intensive course sections.

Each of us looks at one aspect of portfolio use in the presentation.  First, I spoke about issues of concern about portfolio use at the institutional level. Anita addressed how she is using portfolios for departmental degree requirements in the Early Childhood Education program. Elizabeth then brought the focus down to the course level with both what we do in the WI classes and what she has done personally in her own English course.

Electronic portfolios are frequently used to enable students to use new media technologies, do reflective writing, and document and showcase their learning across courses, disciplines and semesters. Our presentation (available below) talks about the kind of data we have collected over the past four semesters that will be used to help make decisions about using portfolios with all students.

Soft Launching An Institutional ePortfolio Initiative

View more presentations from Ken Ronkowitz.

Beginning Portfolio Use at PCCC

Whether it is a collection of writings, artwork, photographs, computer programs, architectural drawings or videos, any portfolio is a compilation of work that has been put together for a specific purpose. Portfolios have long been used for job interviews and for promoting your services to a potential client. In educational settings, they are most often used as a way of documenting a student's progress and performance in a course or program.

At PCCC, we have several purposes in using them as part of our Writing Initiative. We expect them to help show student achievement as a writer and critical thinker in the writing intensive courses.

The members of the Initiative team will also use the portfolios as a way to assess program effectiveness.

We also expect that students will do their own self-assessment through the reflective writing that we ask instructors to include in their WI classes.

Some of goals in piloting ePortfolios at PCCC are:

• making these learning portfolios
• having a repository of writing samples for assessment of the grant objectives
• being able to set benchmarks for the future
• providing continuity for students taking multiple writing-intensive courses
• making the process "product-neutral"

The College also has objectives for this pilot:

• help provide institutional and program assessment for Middle States and other programs
• interface with assessment software
• examne and recommend portfolio products
• consider implications for the future including the expressive, transfer and career portfolio uses

eFolio is an e-portfolio product being piloted by students enrolled in Writing Intensive courses at PCCC. eFolio users can share academic and personal information with professors and peers.

We will be posting additional information about the pilot here and on our Portfolios LibGuide.