Spotlight on Service: e-Portfolios

A faculty member not familiar with e-Portfolios may ask: What are e-Portfolios? Is there a need for them in my own courses? Who can help if I decide to use e-Portfolios? These are questions University Libraries can answer.

e-Portfolios, or “electronic portfolios,” are digitized collections of objects such as recorded presentations, resources, and accomplishments that represent an individual or group. These collections can be text, graphics, or multimedia elements on a Web site or other media such as a CD-ROM or DVD.

An e-Portfolio is more than a simple collection; however, it can also serve as an administrative tool to manage and organize work created with different applications, as well as to systematically review bodies of work. e-Portfolios can involve the exchange of ideas and feedback between groups of students and between students and instructors.

e-Portfolios can take on many forms. For example, the “business e-Portfolio” can be designed with the student’s future employment prospects in mind focusing on examples to impress a potential employer. A “personal e-Portfolio” might be designed to encourage the student to reflect on lessons learned throughout years of college. Another, and perhaps the most popular, the “student e-Portfolio, might be designed to both provide a venue for the student to showcase work while also allowing for reflection.

Whatever the type, e-Portfolios include a variety of digitized files that reflect different aspects of the student’s personality, accomplishments, and educational objectives. Unlike a paper-based portfolio, the student is not limited to static files filled with text or immovable images alone. With an e-Portfolio, the student is freed from the confines of the manila folder to produce animated versions of files that more adequately express his or her viewpoint. These files might include a short film, a PowerPoint, images, or text files.

e-Portfolios can be produced with a number of different applications including Blackboard, Dreamweaver, and FrontPage. University Libraries offers workshops on the production of e-Portfolios using Dreamweaver. These workshops are available to faculty and students and a schedule is listed online at <www.libraries.uc.edu/instruction/workshop/index.html> or contact James Krusling at <james.krusling@uc.edu> or at (513) 556-1754.

The options are limitless with e-Portfolios and their use can be easily modified for any curricular purpose.

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