Teaching, Learning and Assessment with E-Portfolios: Opening Remarks

Abstract

This Focus Session is designed to report to the higher education community on current thinking, issues, and concerns, and provide an opportunity to get feedback that will inform development activities under way or planned. Some of the questions that will be addressed during the day include:1.What are the teaching & learning issues associated with e-portfolios
Why do we need e-portfolios? What are they good for? What are the pedagogical benefits? What should the content standards be for e-portfolios?

2. What are the higher education system issues associated with e-portfolios?
What are the key challenges faced by higher education in moving from the paper transcripts to those that include e-portfolios? What are the short and long-term policy implications of e-portfolios (security, privacy and access, long-term legal implications, definition of official record, need for institutional gatekeepers, FERPA) What are the implications of a potential shift from institutionally-based to lifelong learner-based records?

3. What are the institutional planning, implementation, and programmatic issues associated with e-portfolios?
What are the institutional policy implications (e.g., intellectual property issues associated with content)? What are the support and long-term maintenance implications (financial models, storage and archiving, lifelong portfolios)? How can we use our understanding of prior efforts to avoid some of the pitfalls?

4. What are the technical issues associated with e-portfolios? How can existing technologies be used to design effective e-portfolios?
How can e-portfolios be integrated into existing enterprise systems (student information systems)? What are the standards and technical specification issues?

5. What are the marketplace issues associated with e-portfolios? Are there guidelines for e-portfolio system development by universities?
Are there guidelines for influencing vendors to meet higher education's needs?