ePortfolio Task Force
Final Report to the
Academic Senate
(rev.
The ePortfolio
Task Force was created by the Academic Senate via SM-S05-4
(http://www2.sjsu.edu/senate/SM-S05-4.htm) and convened by Mary Jo
Gorney-Moreno in Spring 2005 to do the following:
1.
Identify
current efforts underway to enable students in some programs to create
ePortfolios and what tools they are using
2.
Identify
purposes for the use of ePortfolios
3.
Identify
issues and opportunities associated with the use of ePortfolios
4.
Identify
policy and resource implications of the use of ePortfolios
To meet these
goals, committee members did the following:
1.
Organized,
in collaboration with the Center for Faculty Development and Support, a highly
successful ePortfolio Symposium in Fall 2005 which brought together almost 100
participants from within and outside campus -- ranging from experts to early
users to persons planning on implementing ePortfolios in their
departments. Proceedings here: http://www.sjsu.edu/cfd/docs/schedule.htm
2.
Committee
members visited four of the seven colleges (Business, Social Sciences, CASA,
Science) and the student affairs leadership team (SALT) to gather information
from across campus on current efforts, level of interest, potential uses,
opportunities and issues associated with ePortfolios. We also gathered information on efforts
underway in the
3.
Committee
co-chairs participated in the system-wide and national conversations regarding
ePortfolios. Attended the first all-CSU
systemwide meeting on ePortfolios in March 2005 and actively participating in
the development of a proposal to join a research cohort organized by the
National Coalition on Electronic Portfolio Research. The former has resulted in a potential
collaboration among CSUMB, SJSU, SFSU, several
4.
The
committee piloted and developed an on-line survey, recently approved by the
IRB, that may be used in the future to undertake a full scale campus-wide
survey of ePortfolio requirements and interest.
Current Efforts
at SJSU to implement ePortfolios are primarily in the early pilot stages – with
the exception of the one in the
|
Unit |
Tool/Technology |
Status |
|
Geography |
Off-line
repository of student work on CDs |
In use as
repository |
|
Communication
Studies |
Off-line
repository of student work on CDs |
Piloting Sp 06
repository |
|
Recreation
& Leisure Studies |
KEEP Toolkit |
Pilot started
in Fall 2005 |
|
|
TaskStream |
Pilot started
in 2004 in the Integrated Degree/ Credential Program of Child and Adolescent
development. Pilot to be expanded to
one program each of all departments starting in Fall 2006. |
|
Illustration
& Animation |
Student
designed and managed websites with close monitoring by department |
In use but
without reflection |
|
|
PLONE |
Pilot to start
in Summer 2006 |
From our various
conversations with current and potential ePortfolio users, the following
purposes for the technology emerged:
1.
Assessment
– This is the primary impetus for most current implementations, particularly in
Colleges of Education within the CSU system.
There are ePortfolio tools that are specialized for this use (e.g.
TaskStream, Livetext). These tools are
excellent for structuring the process of drilling down from state/national/professional
standards to learning objectives and matching class activities and grading
rubrics and for rolling up data into reports required by the various agencies
charged with administering standards.
2.
Reflection
– another much talked about use of ePortfolios is its potential for supporting
learning through providing a convenient venue for students to reflect on their
learning within and across courses during their tenure at the university. This use of ePortfolios ties in very well
with current national and SJSU-local discussions around integrative learning –
e.g. AACU’s Greater Expectations
initiative[1]
and campus strategic planning efforts.
3.
ePortfolios
can greatly facilitate professional review efforts including our own internal
reviews of faculty and staff dossiers.
Additionally, departments such as Health Science and Recreation
Studies currently collect paper dossiers
of their students and send them out to professional reviewers on a regular
basis. These procedures can be made more
efficient by the use of online, well protected dossier repositories that can be
accessed by reviewers 24/7. Students,
Faculty, and Staff can benefit from templates to structure their input into the
dossiers and 24/7 access to their online repositories.
4.
Once
ePortfolios are built, subsets of the data collected in them can be used to
showcase the University and its students, faculty, and staff to various
audiences including potential employers, prospective students and their
families, press, and funding agencies.
ePortfolios may also be used to encourage continued connection with our
graduates building a long term, extended sense of community with them as well
as encouraging their involvement in life long learning.
ePortfolios are
at the early stage of development, particularly as tools for supporting
integrative learning. Opportunities
exist for getting involved in the development of ePortfolios to support such
efforts and for determining their effectiveness for doing so.
1.
Our
collaboration with other units within the CSU and involvement in a National
Coalition for Electronic Portfolio research will enable us to be involved in
leading edge work on the effectiveness of ePortfolio in supporting educational
initiatives – e.g. integrative learning – which tie in quite closely with our
local strategic imperatives.
Furthermore, our cohort at the National Coalition for Electronic
Portfolio research includes Indiana University/Purdue University Indianapolis
(IUPUI) which has struggled with implementing ePortfolios for the past ten
years[3]. We expect to learn much from interaction with
IUPUI representatives, particularly in avoiding the mistakes that have
prolonged their own implementation.
2.
Our
collaboration with CSUMB, SFSU, Minnesota Universities, and the ePortfolio
vendor AVnet will enable us to build a tool that matches our needs most closely
– particularly in terms of using ePortfolio to support learning and hopefully
in the development of a system that allows flexibility of presentation to meet
the needs of a wide range of campus users and their constituents.
Issues:
1.
Need
to demonstrate to faculty
the educational value of ePortfolios as it will take some investment on
their part to transition to the new platform.
Studies such as those identified in the opportunities section will help
with this effort.
2.
Need
for Training – faculty will need assistance with building their local templates
for using ePortfolios and with just the basics of using an online repository to
upload materials and build reports of their own and their students’ work. Students will be more comfortable with this
technology as many of them use similar tools on a regular basis (e.g. myspace)
however, they will need training in refining their skills and materials to
match the more professional ambiance of an ePortfolio space that reflects on
the university’s brand image.
3.
Privacy
– Many students and faculty members are concerned about controlling access to
materials posted to the ePortfolio site – particularly in light of recent
breaches of our campus servers.
4.
Digital
Rights – Who owns the material posted to the ePortfolio is another important
issue to consider. While there are
technologies to control how and how many times material is accessed (e.g. Adobe
Acrobat and Adobe Livecycle Policy Server), it’s important to make sure that
any material posted is copyright protected when necessary and that students,
faculty and staff are aware of their rights and how to protect them. Also, when negotiating contracts with any
vendors who might host the ePortfolios, it should be noted that rights to
content remain with the creator and/or the university as agreed upon by all
parties concerned.
5.
Who
pays? – will the university provide this as a service to all students, faculty,
staff or will students be required to purchase ePortfolio services during their
time at the university and beyond? If
the latter, who will have control over the quality and access to any materials
posted by students?
Recommendation
At this point it
is too early to commit to a single ePortfolio solution for the entire
campus. There is no single solution that
meets both our student learning and
assessment requirements. Furthermore,
most of the ePortfolio solutions are still in early stages of development so it
is unwise to commit at this point – particularly since major CMS vendors with a
significant number of SJSU customers (e.g. the now merging WebCT and
Blackboard) are planning entry into this market.
We recommend
that:
·
the
university undertake several ePortfolio pilots in the next year, including the
following:
o An integrative learning pilot in
collaboration with MUSE and the Integrative Learning Panel along with CSUMB and
SFSU using AVnet (core to our collaboration with the National Coalition on
Electronic Portfolio Research)
o a server-based, storage only solution for
the Communication Studies Department
o A Health Education pilot to assess the
use of ePortfolios to support professional reviews of student credentials as
well as learning activities within disciplines such as Nutrition, Health
Science, Recreation & Leisure Studies.
·
the
university continue to collaborate with other universities in the CSU system –
to conduct research into the learning impacts of ePortfolios (as part of the
National Coalition on Electronic Portfolio Research cohort) and influence the
development of an ePortfolio system that addresses our unique requirements (in
collaboration with a motivated ePortfolio provider such as AVNet)
·
the
Senate extend the term of the ePortfolio Task Force for another year, adding a
representative from the King library to make sure that the task force
recommends a solution that is compatible with the library’s digital repository
solution. The task force will meet
quarterly to monitor and integrate findings from various ePortfolio pilots and
efforts. At that point we expect to have
research results that will potentially convince most of the university
community that ePortfolios are worth the investment of effort and
resources. This critical mass of
university users – along with other users systemwide –stronger vendor
relationships, and advances in ePortfolio offerings will place us in a better
position (vs. right now) to negotiate an attractive pricing and support
arrangement.