ePortfolio: An Assessment Pyramid for Students, Faculty, and Institutions The NERCOMP ePortfolio SIG

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ePortfolio An Assessment Pyramid for Students,
Faculty, and Institutions The NERCOMP
ePortfolio SIGNovember 3, 2005

• Trent Batson
• University of Rhode Island

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My Perspective on ePortfolios

• English professor
• Chair of the Board of the Open Source Portfolio
  Initiative (Mellon-funded)
• Campus IT director responsible for rollout of
  eportfolios
• Founder of the New England ePortfolio Project (25
  institutional members)

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ePortfolios are not yet defined But here are
two for today

• Owned, architected, longitudinal student archives
  used by learners and guides to develop reflective
  practices.
• Aggregated data from student self-reported
  success in meeting a series of faculty-created
  rubrics from which program assessors can receive
  statistical reports tracking student progress
  toward learning outcomes.

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Major Types of ePortfolios for Learning
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And many providers have jumped in

• iWebfolio Nuventive
• Folio ePortaro
• e-Portfolio Chalk and Wire
• FolioLive McGraw Hill
• WebFolio Builder TaskStream
• College Live Text
• Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium
• Oracle, OPP, PeopleSoft
• Pupil Pages
• PEAKS
• Alverno College
• Lanit Consulting

• True Outcomes
• Masterfile ePortfolio Manager Concord
• Angel ePortfolio --Angel Learning
• Blackboard CMS
• TK-20
• Open Source Portfolio 2.0 (rSmart group) IBM
• efolio Avenet
• WebCT (in the works)
• Apple (OSP)
• Maps by TAG Learning, Ltd
• Georgia State University
• Sun, Adobe

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Assessment

• What happened to evaluation?
• Assessment in eportfolios
• Individual assessment of your own work
• Program assessment of a cohorts progress toward
  learning goals

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Assessment Pyramid
Presentation
Presenting to Assessment Manag System or for
course or resume.
Selection
Choosing What to Submit
Reflection
Organizing work
Collection
Individual Student Portfolios owned space sets
permissions
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Trents OSP

• http//woolworth.uri.edu8088/portal

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First, know thyself
Mirror
Competition
SELF
Facial Expressions of Others
Viewing own work I have a history
Reflection is a meaning-making process Deweys
Criteria for Reflection
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Progression in College (Perry)
1. Black and white true or false right or
wrong just tell me the answer Memory, not
reflection or critical thinking. 2.
Relativism its all relative it
depends Capitulation 3. Commitment I
dont know all the answers, but this is what Ill
do or believe Critical
thinking based on reflection
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Reflection Using ePortfolios
Wow, I wrote THAT?
Week 7
Week 1
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Once a person (student) recognizes a
problem, that person owns the solution. Im
writing a lot better now than when I first got to
campus. That paper in week one is EMBARRASING. I
can get a better grade. Responding not to red
marks, but to an innate desire to norm yourself
at a higher level.
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O w n e r s h i p

• eportfolios enable students to
• set permissions as to who sees their work
• retain work after the course
• use work for their own purposes
• discover needs for revision themselves
• take responsibility for their own learning record
• Core learning value is NOT tracking students, but
  in ownership of work

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Portfolios as Curricular Frame

• Content is Student Work
• Group ?individual work
• Brainstorming/Discussion ?synthesis
• Expand on synthesis
• Summarize
• Reflect a few weeks later
• Final project is portfolio

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A group process (all have access to the Net
during class)
Refugee ?????
Synthesis
S I M U L A T I O N
Bush New Or. Resident Jesse Jackson News
commentator ALL IN CHAT, email, wiki
Write the view you under-stood best
eportfolio
Intro
Free chat
time
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Homework

• Read the other students end-of-class writing
  after the chat-simulation
• Find commentary on the Web about use of the word
  refugee to describe internally-displaced
  persons
• Talk to at least one other person, friend,
  another faculty member, etc and briefly record
  their view

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Next Class
Create an argument in philosophical terms that
takes a stand about the ethics of classifying a
person by an experience they have
free chat ? Intro ? Face-to-Face
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Six Weeks Later
How would you change the terms of your argument
about the term refugee now?
How would you change the terms of your argument
about the term refugee now?
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ePortfolios Students Dont Hand in Work
Faculty
ePortfolio System
Kirk
Lynn
Guillermo
Nichole
Students set Permissions
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Student Portfolio public space
Permissions
Student Portfolio private space
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Faculty Rewards

• Opportunities for cross-semester collaboration
• Can include co-curricular work
• Pedagogical discussions around eportfolios
  (faculty themselves reflecting on teaching and
  learning)
• Evidence for letters of reference
• Providing an engaging project for independent
  work
• Easy way to check student progress

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ePortfolio as a Cultural Tool
It's clear from the research that some people
certainly do use eportfolios for their own
purposes, . . . In the survey, we did find
strong evidence that lots of users - 27 of the
survey respondents - used eFolio in Minnesota
in different roles, at once or over time, i.e.
as both a student and a worker or as both an
educator and a worker. I argue that this role
switching is strong evidence that people are
using portfolios for their own purposes, beyond
the institutional demands of a particular
academic program. Darren Cambridge, George
Mason University, email 9-21-05.
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ePortfolio as a Cultural Tool, 2
Difficult to say if students use eportfolios for
personal purposes. My guess is that around 5
(give or take 5) have used portfolio for personal
purposes. Maybe a tad higher. Far and away the
biggest set of users consists of enrolled
students who are "required" to complete
portfolio assignments. I frequently hear of
individuals (both faculty and students) who use
portfolio independent of requirements. The
reasons vary -- from curiosity to safekeeping of
records and, of course, job preparation. Use on
our campus is on the upswing, and it is much,
much easier presenting it to students because
they are more adept at web technology and are
far more eager to use that technology for
personal record-keeping. Paul Treuer, University
of Minnesota, Duluth, email 9-20-05
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• The largest IT corporations are getting involved
  in portfolios
• As with email, the education component will not
  determine the ultimate form or functionality of
  eportfolios
• Use of eportfolios on campus, as with email, will
  be taken for granted
• The critical aspect for universities, therefore,
  is to understand folio thinking first and to
  look at platforms second.

ePorfolio as a Cultural Tool Factors and
Implications
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The Open Source Portfolio OSP Portfolio

• www.osportfolio.org
• The rSmart group www.rsmart.com
• The Longsight Group, Scott Sidall of Denison
  www.longsight.com
• Unicon www.unicon.net
• All Sakai commercial partners
  www.sakaiproject.org

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Open Source, Community Source, and Proprietary
Code

• Traditional company owns code, you rent it,
  and the price for support services is included in
  the invoice.
• On your campus, a tech person is assigned to
  install and maintain the application

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A Common (mis)Understanding of Open Source

• The code is free
• Use at your own risk
• You have to have developers to use open source
  applications
• There is no where to turn for help

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Open Source Community Source

• A critical mass of developers within academia and
  the corporate sector have contributed code and
  continue to do so some formal organization
  organizes the community (OSP Sakai Foundation)
• At least one commercial company provides
  services, development, testing, and new versions
  for the application
• Code and services are therefore un-bundled

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Community Source, cont

• You do not need developers but just someone to
  download the code and maintain the application
  (the same person who maintains proprietary apps?)
• Pay the company for any enhancements or
  customization you need
• Contribute the purchased code back to the
  community so you will stay compatible with new
  versions
• Total cost is slightly less

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Community Source

• Risks, Proprietary
• Company is bought or goes out of business or
  discontinues an application
• Application is altered in ways you dont like
• Price may increase each year
• An up-front commitment

• Community Source risk mitigation
• More than one company supports app
• Community votes with its feet for modification of
  app
• Only price of services may go up
• Can pilot and test with less up-front commitment

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Cautions

• Portfolio market is rapidly expanding
• Its an immature market but has become global and
  cross-sector
• Shake out is inevitable
• Solutions will be offered for all five types of
  eportfolios
• A strategy should involve pilot, plan B, and
  possibly multiple platforms

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Ideas

• Find out what the high schools, community
  colleges, and universities are doing in your area
  and whats happening on your own campus
• Engage in regional collaboration
• Create or assign assessment leadership
• Coordinate with accrediting agencies

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other info

• Wiki is in Ward's original descriptionThe
  simplest online database that could possibly
  work.
• Wiki is a piece of server software that allows
  users to freely create and edit Web page content
  using any Web browser. Wiki supports hyperlinks
  and has a simple text syntax for creating new
  pages and crosslinks between internal pages on
  the fly.Wiki is unusual among group communication
  mechanisms in that it allows the organization of
  contributions to be edited in addition to the
  content itself.Like many simple concepts, "open
  editing" has some profound and subtle effects on
  Wiki usage. Allowing everyday users to create and
  edit any page in a Web site is exciting in that
  it encourages democratic use of the Web and
  promotes content composition by nontechnical
  users.
• Blog A blog is basically a journal that is
  available on the web. The activity of updating a
  blog is "blogging" and someone who keeps a blog
  is a "blogger." Blogs are typically updated daily
  using software that allows people with little or
  no technical background to update and maintain
  the blog.

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Resources

• http//www.eportfolios.ac.uk/ -- JISC
• http//www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/ocotillo/eport/b
  log.php -- Alan Levine
• http//www.deskootenays.ca/wilton/eportfolios/ --
  11 months since update
• http//www.elearnspace.org/Articles/eportfolios.ht
  m -- common definitions

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More resources

• www.eportconsortium.org the source for
  up-to-date eportfolio news
• http//linux.wdg.uri.edu/trent/ePortolio -- The
  ePortfolio Landscape -- Batson

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Coming Event

• OSP and Sakai conference
• December 7 9, 2005, Austin, TX
• www.osportfolio.org
• www.sakaiproject.org/

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Thanks!

• Trent Batson
• trent_at_uri.edu