Electronic Portfolios: Systems & Communities

Abstract

The NLII has invested considerable work in electronic portfolios because of their potential to support learning - for the individual student, faculty person and staff member, and for the institution. Electronic portfolios have gained momentum as important enterprise-level academic software systems, with increasing institution-wide integration of implementations at the individual faculty member or student, course, program, and institutional levels. Increased integration also means increased complexity. Through this session, which will be informed by the experiences of project team members from large enterprise portfolio systems at University of Michigan and University of British Columbia, participants will: 1) explore the different uses of electronic portfolios (ranging from university admission, to courses, degree programs, professional practice, and to institutional self-study); 2) gain an understanding of some of the complexities involved in building and sustaining a campus-wide community with diverse members around conceptual and technical ideas involved in creating and using ePortfolio systems; and 3) will learn how other institutions are dealing with issues involved in creating and maintain ePortfolio systems.