E-portfolios from concept to implementation… OMDE 670 9040 – spring’08 E-portfolios from concept to implementation: In search of an enhanced MDE experience Stella C.S. Porto, D.Sc. Graduate School of Management & Technology University of Maryland University College S.C.S. Porto 1 E-portfolios from concept to implementation… OMDE 670 9040 – spring’08 Acknowledgments During these almost 7 years, in which I worked towards the MDE degree, many people were instrumental directly and indirectly in sustaining my motivation and supporting the everyday juggling of family, work and school. I‟d like to explicitly mention some of these people in a special way, as I finish this long endeavor. First and far most is my sweet and beloved husband – Wayne. He was the stronghold of all the difficult and stressful times. He was always the warm smile through all the happy moments and achievements. He was the main support when I just needed extra time… He has been part of my life in most of its memorable moments, and this one just adds to our loving story together. Bernardo and Gustavo have seen their mother studying for most of their lives now. I hope I will serve as inspiration to them in the future. They have learned to love this busy mother, and their hugs and smiles have always been a place that I come to for confidence and unconditional love.Family and friends in Brazil were always key in so many ways: for the love and caring they provided through my life and also their close contact despite the distance after relocation. Christine and Claudia, my “Anam Caras”... Despite the distance, our long conversations (via email or phone) always remind me that there are these special some ones who can understand and even share my complexities and idiosyncrasies. Heloisa with her partnership in work and lazy lunches… We have built such a winning team so many times! Every time we work together, trust and pleasure have always made projects feel like hobbies. Lisa, Jane, Gila and Dianne, strong women in the MDE… They have been sources of inspiration, companionship and loving care, for feminine jokes, revelations, losses, shared happiness and irritations. It‟s just plain good to have all of them around. Debra and Chris Mitchell, my dear neighbor from the Kentlands, filled many of our Friday and Saturday evenings with laughter and wine. They were testimonies of struggles and achievements with words of motivation and enthusiasm. They did make everyday life lighter… we sure miss them. Friends at UMUC, who in many ways have supported my dedication to the life long learning, and have valued my academic and professional work during this time. Some especial names are worth mentioning in this long list: Scott Wibbert, Michael Frank, Jen Thompson, Regina Massaquoi, and Fran Rogalski. Students and alumni in the MDE worked and shared their professional and personal experiences in so many classes. They have always been an inspiration and provided me with a great sense of belonging. S.C.S. Porto 2 E-portfolios from concept to implementation… OMDE 670 9040 – spring’08 Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. Institutional Context and the MDE e-Portfolio Case The Master of Distance Education Program Implementing the e-portfolio within the MDE Analysis of the existing e-portfolios Status summary 3. Understanding e-Portfolios and Implications for the MDE Purpose and definitions Types of e-portfolios Technologies supporting e-portfolios E-portfolio systems and standards 4. The proposal of an enhanced e-portfolio initiative Proposal of a minimum set of standardized requirements for e-portfolios Curriculum revision and anchoring of e-portfolio activities Rubric for assessment of students’ e-portfolio within OMDE 670 Action Plan strategies 5. Conclusions and further thoughts 6. References S.C.S. Porto Page 3 Page 4 Page 4 Page 6 Page 7 Page 11 Page 12 Page 12 Page 14 Page 15 Page 18 Page 22 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 3 E-portfolios from concept to implementation… OMDE 670 9040 – spring’08 1. Introduction The main goal of this paper is to re-visit and critically analyze the current use of e-Portfolios within the Master of Distance Education program, and further provide an enhanced framework for a more effective and efficient ePortfolio implementation within the program, based on main findings from the literature in the area of ePortfolio applied to the institutional academic programs, with particular interest in the graduate level programs. The Master of Distance Education program was launched in January 2000. The program is a partnership between the University of Maryland University College (UMUC) and the Center for Life-long Learning1 (C3L) at Oldenburg University. The program has been offered for more than 8 years now in a fully online asynchronous mode using WebTycho web-based virtual classroom interface developed and maintained by UMUC. The population attending the MDE program is composed of working adults, from distinct backgrounds, including corporate training, military, and academia. During these 8 years2, the capstone course has been the umbrella of two major activities for students: a research project and a personal e-Portfolio. The current description of the course states: “A capstone study of distance education and training designed to demonstrate cumulative knowledge and skills through two major projects: an electronic portfolio and a case study. The personal eportfolio documents credentials and accomplishments to date and also serves as an ongoing resource and record of continuing professional development. The case study, which focuses on a distance education/training program or organization, involves in-depth analysis of the setting and application of concepts and strategies to enhance practice and performance in distance education and training.” (http://www.umuc.edu/programs/grad/courses/omdecat.shtml#omde670) Although this description has been revised throughout the years, the main goals of the course have been consistent since its inception: Each student will develop a personal e-portfolio, which will “demonstrate the student's qualifications gained in the field” (Bernath & Rubin, 2003, p. 24) and provide evidence of his/her “competencies and skills in a variety of disciplines /roles” (p.24). Each student will develop on a Distance Education project, which should “reflect the student's sophistication in and knowledge of the field” (p.24). The project “is intended as both a reflective and a constructive activity” (http://www.umuc.edu/departments/omde/capstone/capstone.shtml). There are multiple definitions of e-portfolios available in the literature and these will be discussed in Background section of this paper. A simple definition is used within McDaniel's College website: A portfolio is an organized, goal-driven collection of documentation that presents a student's growth and achievement over time. (http://www2.mcdaniel.edu/its/digital_portfolios.htm) More commonly than not, these definitions include the following e-portfolio traits, which also constitute the basis of the e-portfolio concept embraced within the MDE (Stefani et al, 2003; Walti, 2006): e-portfolios are electronic versions of portfolios, and as such they are collections of artifacts in different digital media; e-portfolios serve the purpose of assessment of competencies, skills and knowledge; e-portfolios showcase and evidence abilities and achievements in specific areas; and e-portfolios promote reflection of one's development and learning. Independently from the type or format of the e-portfolio, the literature states that it should “encourage learners to develop the skills to continue building their own personal portfolio as a life-long learning tool” (Siemens, 2004, p.1). This aspect will be further explored in this report. Pedagogically, it is understood that e-portfolios have enormous educational potential. They promote the integration of students' works in such a way that students' are encouraged to reflect on their achievements and 1 Former Center for Distance Education 2 Currently the program has around 130 graduates and 230 active students. S.C.S. Porto 4 E-portfolios from concept to implementation… OMDE 670 9040 – spring’08 competencies. It serves the purpose of not only looking back and showcasing abilities and skills, but also planning future professional development steps. As Helen Barrett (2002) states, “An online portfolio system needs to support a culture of evidence”, which the collection of artifacts created by students, reflections of the learner on his/her development and learning and some kind of validation or external feedback from other stakeholders, in this case peers or instructors. Considering technological aspects, the development of e-portfolios has a lot to gain from advances in digital technologies. The advent of the web has made e-portfolios portable and eliminated the need for replication or transportation of documents and artifacts. The more recent changes under the web 2.0 umbrella has reduced the development effort of such web-based e-portfolios significantly, allowing users to publish content on the web without any special skills in web-publishing software or webpage design. Institutions also have the possibility to provide students with in-house systems, which facilitate the collection, reflection, feedback and view of their academic work. E-portfolios are inherently personal and focus on an individualized management of one's collection of documents and artifacts. However, when they are implemented in an academic setting in order with goals associated to assessment, institutions will need to carefully consider implementation aspects. Issues such as permanence, storage space, security, and stakeholders' involvement will be part of planning of an e-portfolio initiative for students. The paper will analyze the current state of e-portfolio development in the MDE and the requirements for changes. It promises to connect the dots between recent trends and the outlook for the MDE program in terms of its e-portfolio activity. It will use development criteria and methods proposed in the literature to determine the possibilities and options for each of the main aspects that sustain e-portfolios. The goal is to find an exemplary framework for the MDE student e-portfolio, and provide clear guidelines of how such framework should be used in practice. 2. Institutional Context and the MDE e-Portfolio Case The Master of Distance Education Program The creation of the Master of Distance Education program was “the result of a pressing need within the academic and training communities through the collaboration of two partners” (EFMD report, 2006, p.15), Eugene Rubin from UMUC and Ulrich Bernath from Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg. “These two distance educators recognized the significant necessity for professional training in the field, but felt that some crucial issues/areas might be neglected. There were, and still are, very few formal opportunities for faculty and professionals in higher educational institutions, government and industry to develop comprehensive knowledge of and skills in distance education. Several institutions that offer distance education also provide faculty development, but these activities do not have formal recognition and often relate only to specific technologies and skills. Most distance educators learned to develop and deliver courses through a „trial-anderror‟ method, while getting occasional advice from their more experienced colleagues or some support from their IT departments. They do this with almost no background in distance education theory, pedagogical models, or exposure to examples of good practice. Two critical needs emerged from this analysis and are still valid: The need for an educational program in which new distance educators can develop a broader perspective of the general foundations of distance education and learn critical knowledge and skills in the field. The need for a global perspective among distance educators so that they can benefit from the knowledge of how other institutions approach distance education and solve problems, particularly in cross-border and cross-cultural contexts.” (p.15) University of Maryland University College (UMUC) is “one of the eleven degree granting institutions constituting the University System of Maryland, UMUC was founded in 1947 with the special mission of providing access to higher education opportunities for adult learners.” (EFMD Report, p.16). UMUC is considered a leader in the S.C.S. Porto 5 E-portfolios from concept to implementation… OMDE 670 9040 – spring’08 delivery of online education in the United States. This leadership is based on its current large number of online enrollment (i.e. surpassing 110,000 worldwide in FY 2005) and also the fact pioneering history in this arena. “The Graduate School currently offers 19 master‟s degrees (all of which are available fully or at least partially online), a doctoral degree program, and more than 35 graduate certificates. Fields of study are concentrated in the areas of business and management, technology, and education. In many respects, the discipline of distance education represents the synthesis of these three fields and draws upon existing areas of institutional strength. As one of the benchmark academic institutions in online education, UMUC is well positioned to offer a program with this particular focus and to share its expertise and experiences with the larger academic community.” (p.16) “The Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, founded in 1974, is one of the youngest German universities and evolved from the city‟s 200-year-old teacher training college. The university has grown to include academic departments such as Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities, Education, Economics, Languages, Mathematics, Natural Sciences, and Computer Science. Approximately 10,500 students are currently enrolled in more than 30 programs of study. Oldenburg‟s Center for Distance Education, founded in 1978, is a central unit of the university and is a leading center in German distance education and particularly active in the development of asynchronous learning networks with an emphasis on online tutorials and seminars.” (p.16) “In addition, the Arbeitsstelle Fernstudienforschung (ASF), or Center for Research in Distance Education, a joint unit of the Center for Distance Education and the School of Education of Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg in Germany, supports inquiry in light of relevant international research in distance education and facilitates the development of distance learning programs and courses within the university as well as in a national and international context. This research unit edits, publishes and distributes the ASF Series on distance education.” (p.16) The operation of this successful international partnership has been based on a simple model, characterized by cooperation and collaboration, while keeping distinct responsibilities in the management of the program. This capitalizes on the strengths of each institution, while at the same time provisind the necessary freedom in terms of decision-making within each partnering organization. “The financial agreement between the University of Oldenburg and UMUC is based on revenue sharing according to enrollments in the program per term and the activities each institution undertakes on behalf of the program. Under this agreement, each institution is responsible for staffing, reviewing and developing a specific set of courses. Student support and technology infrastructure are under the control of UMUC, which is considered as the administrative gateway for all students. UMUC partially takes on parts of faculty support when it comes to the use of the classroom interface (WebTycho) and training. The Oldenburg partner has been particularly responsible for research initiatives (the ASF series), which focus on the elaboration of materials that are extensively used in the program‟s courses and are sold to the distance education community.” (p.15) The program has been offered for more than 8 years now in a fully online asynchronous mode using WebTycho web-based virtual classroom (WebTycho, 2008) interface developed and maintained by UMUC. Until Fall 2007, the curriculum was based on 36 credit-hours divided into 12 courses. Eight of them required courses and then a list of around 10 elective courses, from which the student would choose any 4. OMDE 670 (numbered OMDE 690 until Fall 2007) has been since the inception of the program the so-called „capstone‟, which students are required to take as the last step in the program. “The MDE curriculum is intentionally structured to provide students with both breadth and depth in the field of study. When UMUC and Oldenburg faculty first joined together to design the program curriculum, they decided that an appropriate balance should be sought between the pedagogical, technological, and economic aspects of distance education, and the broader theoretical, historical, and social views of this field. In this respect, the program curriculum S.C.S. Porto 6 E-portfolios from concept to implementation… OMDE 670 9040 – spring’08 seeks to position the evolving role of distance education within a larger societal framework. Whereas many related graduate-level programs may focus more narrowly on instructional design and development, educational technology, or administrative and management issues, the MDE takes a more multidisciplinary approach by seeking to integrate each of these subject areas. Indeed, as the program has matured, it has moved closer to a focus on leadership, which requires such a multidisciplinary approach” (EFMD Report, PE1 – p.1) The MDE program also offers several graduate certificate programs, composed of subset of the courses that compose the masters degree curriculum. “These certificate programs are ideal for students who want to gain expertise in a particular content area related to distance education but may not want to commit to the entire degree program. Students may also choose to earn certificates enroute to the degree program and can apply the appropriate credits in their entirety” (EFMD Report, PE1 – p.1) In the fall of 2007, the program was fully re-designed, and three different specialization areas were created, namely: Distance Education Teaching and Training (DETT), Distance Education Technology (DETC) and Distance Education Policy and Management. In this new curriculum, students are to take 5 core courses, 6 specialization courses and a final capstone (OMDE 670). The re-design was focused on re-using several of the previous existing courses, re-designing and creating a few of them in order to promote an aligned focus on the different specialization areas. The capstone has always been under the management of UMUC in formal terms, but was in fact a result of collaboration of both partner institutions in its inception, design and delivery – with faculty from both institutions involved in students‟ guidance throughout the elaboration of both project and eportfolio. Implementing the e-portfolio within the MDE Given the context described above, it is clear that the MDE is at a prime position in adopting the use of student eportfolios. In Stefani et al (2007), the „e-learning maturity level‟ of institutions is discussed as a main factor in the success of e-portfolio initiatives. “[There] is a challenge in both e-learning and „traditional‟ classroom teaching and learning environments. Do our students understand the concept of collaborative learning? Are they attuned to the ideas of information exchange and knowledge construction? Would they be able to participate in online conferencing and Internet searching with fellow students?” The answer to these questions are a sound „yes‟ in all counts, given the nature and subject matter of the program, as demonstrated by the following excerpts from the EFMD3 Self-Assessment report (MDE, 2006), which ultimately awarded the MDE with the EFMD-CEL Accreditation4. “Several courses in the MDE require the students to work collaboratively in groups. This is a pedagogical technique that is used throughout the Graduate School of Management and Technology as the Graduate School is committed to preparing its graduates to work in the collaborative environments of higher education, corporations and government. Often the students are required to submit a group project and faculty (where appropriate) direct students to work on specific projects in small groups (a special “study group” area of the online classroom is set aside for this purpose).” (p.26) “By far, however, the most significant collaborative environment is WebTycho (WebTycho the proprietary Learning Management System used in all UMUC online courses) discussion conference area and this is a highly interactive environment with interaction happening both between the students themselves as well as between faculty and students. WebTycho allows faculty to review the interaction data in terms of statistical data of students and faculty 3 4 European Foundation for Management Development - http://www.efmd.org/html/home.asp Program accreditation for tEchnology Enhanced Learning - http://www.efmd.org/html/Accreditations/cont_detail.asp?id=040929dygl&aid=041027wszf&tid =1&ref=ind S.C.S. Porto 7 E-portfolios from concept to implementation… OMDE 670 9040 – spring’08 postings.” (p.26) “The MDE is committed to trying to make the online e-learning environment as much like the work environment as possible. Part of the rationale for this is that students continually demand more and more “hands-on” and “how-to” skills and knowledge. They want the educational environment to be more like a training environment. The more the MDE simulates the work environment the better we will be preparing the students to function as graduates of the program. Therefore, most of the assessments do not request that the students engage in theoretical discussions, but instead engage in activities that could be directly relevant to what they might be asked to do as e-learning and distance education managers in their respective organizations.” (p.27) “The asynchronous e-learning model brings a reflective thinking process and thoughtful interchange to the learning environment. More recently, there has been an interest in including other forms of media as well as modes of interaction, when the appropriate pedagogical use is evident. This is the case, for example, of the inclusion of audio through "podcasts" and the use of synchronous communication via telephone bridges, chat rooms or more complex tools such as “Macromedia Breeze”, where several media are used during synchronous sessions, which can be recorded. These are considered “add-ons” to the courses, because the MDE learning environment is primarily a text-based asynchronous environment, given critical factors such as cost, scalability, support and reliability.” (p.27) “Other technologies used by students and faculty in MDE courses are also worth mentioning, namely: electronic portfolios, created as individual websites; the use of PowerPoint for presentations and Excel for graphics; and the use of student managed online classrooms shells (where students play the role of instructors creating content and delivering instruction). It is part of our strategic plan to emphasize the use of multimedia and advanced technology in our courses, particularly where they logically and pedagogically fit.” (p.27) Despite the maturity with e-learning at an institutional level, and an ingrained construvist approach in the teaching and learning process, the MDE e-portfolio activity is still below the expected institutional support level, mentioned as an important success factor in the literature. The institutional involvement, however, can be controversial when it comes to student ownership and the use of the e-portfolio as a life-long learning tool. “At the moment, the development of e-portfolios is caught in a dilemma: the imaginary scenario or even mundane scenario of students having a portfolio throughout their college or university caeer, needs the user to feel ownership of the portfolio in order to have any chance of success. […] However, for a portfolio to be useful it needs to integrate with many other systems and institutions so that vital information can be transferred […] and the software can be interoperable and „future-proof‟. Current practices […] pays lip-service to student ownership, but remains largely teacher and institution led. The technology is still immature; the uses are still fluctuating and even the definitions, the concept of what an e-portfolio is, are hugely varied.” (Stefani at al, 2004, p.8) The conundrum mentioned above is at the core of the elaboration of the new framework for the MDE e-portfolio project, as it will be further discussed in this document. Analysis of the existing e-portfolios A compilation of observations from a total of 33 e-portfolios from MDE graduate is presented. Some initial observations about the limitations of this analysis are appropriate at this time. This is a small subset (around 20%) of all the e-portfolios submitted by MDE graduates to this day, thus observations here should not be generalized, and serve just the purpose of framing the needs for the MDE e-portfolio initiative. The requirements for the e-portfolios have changed through time and thus, components such as the “summative statement” are not present in early e-portfolios. In many cases, students in the MDE do not have professional experience that correlates to the study they S.C.S. Porto 8 E-portfolios from concept to implementation… OMDE 670 9040 – spring’08 perform in the program. Thus, it becomes more difficult to associate the learning with professional growth. All the observations noted below are personal to the author of this report and do not reflect the thinking of faculty or managers of the program. The framework for this analysis is based on the requirements for this assignment, as follows (underlining not part of the original text): “The purpose of the Portfolio is to gather and organize and present evidence of your qualifications for practice in the field, and to demonstrate your competencies knowledge and skills in a variety of distance education contexts. It is the expectation of faculty that the Portfolio will result in your entry into or advancement in the field of distance education. The Portfolio contains both required and elective documents. The more formal required elements are substantive assignments selected from each of the previous MDE courses you have completed. The elective items you include might be documents that display other activities and accomplishments while you have been enrolled in the MDE program, whether you are already an active distance education professional or an aspiring one. In addition, the Portfolio will contain your Resume or Curriculum Vita, and perhaps a photo or other appropriate graphics. The Portfolio is a requirement for completion of the entire MDE program, and should exhibit your best work. Please note that the Portfolio is more than simply a compendium of past work. It should effectively reveal a progression of increasing professionalism in the field. In this regard, the final portion of the Portfolio is a reflective summative statement requiring careful thought and expression. In this important concluding piece, you should attempt to convey how you have developed personally and professionally while an MDE student, how the MDE curriculum has affected your evolution as a scholar and practitioner in the field, and what are your further goals and how you intend to pursue these objectives.” (E-portfolio guidelines, 2008) Based on these guidelines, the following components of each e-portfolio were under scrutiny while observing each of the e-portfolios: Required components: Sample of work done during the program; Summative statement, which should convey personal and professional development, impact of the MDE curriculum on learning, evolution as a scholar and practitioner and future goals. Resume Photo or graphics Optional components Other artifacts done professional or academically related to distance education outside of the realm of the MDE List of activities and accomplishments outside of the MDE. Although reflections of one‟s own artifacts (sampling of work) are unfortunately not part of the e-portfolio guidelines, this is at the core of the learning value of e-Portfolios as discussed in this paper. Thus, this aspect was added to analysis of the existing e-portfolios. A rubric will be used to organize these components in such a way that for each e-portfolio component (for each student) is categorized in one of the following performance categories: Absent (A), Incomplete (I), and Present (P). The quality of the components was not assessed in any further detail, given the lack of performance criteria as part of the course syllabus, but the addition of a column for comments, allows for some highlighted observations for each e-portfolio. For the components of „Sample of Work‟ (Sampling), „Summative Statement‟, and „Reflections on one‟s own artifacts‟ (Reflections), further explanation for each of the categories is needed, given the subjectivity of the component. S.C.S. Porto 9 E-portfolios from concept to implementation… OMDE 670 9040 – spring’08 Sampling: o Absent: no sampling of course work presented (except for the final project) o Incomplete: some sampling of work presented, however, not significant. o Present: sampling of work is significant. Summative statement: o Absent: no summative statement found. o Incomplete: short summative statement that conveys poorly personal and professional development, and/or learning gains from MDE courses, and/or future goals. o Present: a comprehensive reflection of the MDE experience and personal and professional growth in the area of distance education. Reflections o Absent: no reflections about course work found. o Incomplete: Some reference to the courses in given, either within or outside the summative statement, but they cannot be considered of reflections based on the artifacts that are showcased in the e-portfolio. o Present: Comprehensive reflection about courses, and reference to artifacts that are sampled in the e-portfolio. In what follows, a table with the described rubric is used to individually assess the 34 visited e-portfolios. Eport. ID 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Sampling Resume P A P P P P P A P P P P P P P A P P P I A P P P Summative Statement I A A P P I I I P P A A I A A P A P A P P P P P 25 P 26 27 28 29 P P P P S.C.S. Porto Reflections P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P Photo or Graphics P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P I P A P P P P P P P P P P P A A A A A A A I A A A I A A A A A A A A A A A A I A P Comments Final project showcased A few external links unavailable First one to have reflections on artifacts produced during the program Had some feedback from instructors posted (commendation) Interesting classification to roles and competencies associated to each course Has comments on student‟s own work More of comments about courses (no reference to faculty) – no personal 10 E-portfolios from concept to implementation… OMDE 670 9040 – spring’08 30 A P P P A 31 32 33 P P P A P I P P P P P P I A A experience Many pages with alerts of “under construction” Some further observations: It was only three cases where students actually reflected on their own work showcased in the portfolio. Summative statements were sometimes absent from e-portfolios. In this case it is possible that students were from cohorts when the „summative statement‟ was not yet a requirement. In a few cases, summative statements mentioned content of courses, but no reflection of the impact of such content in the professional growth. In such cases, observations about courses were nowhere to be found throughout the entire e-portfolio. The analysis did consider that reflections could be spread across the e-portfolio and not necessarily in one place. In many cases, summative statements were very generic and did not have any specific information about the learning experience during the program. (This is the author‟s personal observation.) Faculty members‟ names were mentioned in some of the e-portfolios, associated to the courses taken by the students. Rarely (less than 5 cases) there was actually any reflection associated to instructors as part of the e-portfolio. A few cases did mention bad experiences in the program. Status summary The e-portfolio initiative as a whole has been a successful one within the MDE given initial expectations. Anecdotaly, students are satisfied with the activity itself, although based on the 30 e-portfolios visited there is no evidence that students have used it as a life-long learning tool after leaving the program. The general observation of the e-portfolios in terms of its content is also useful in assessing how courses have impacted students professional lives, and has enabled them to grow in their careers. The main limitation is still a result of the fact that most students only start their e-portfolio activity when they reach the capstone course.5 In 2004, an e-portfolio tutorial (Walti, 2006) was created to help students get started in their e-portfolio activities early on in the program and has been readily available through the web. The technological platform then was a temporary storage space in an institutional server, which was cleared out after the students graduated from the program. Students were strongly recommended to the use of Dreamweaver (web page editor) and the elaboration of webpages, which would display major assignments collected throughout their program as other submissions that students found to be worth showcasing as part of their achievements. All these artifacts were then submitted via ftp (File Transfer Protocol) to the server. No special interfaces existed to access these accounts, other the command line within a Unix server. These students, for the most part, had no technical background or understanding of this level of the technology. The faculty involved in this process, for the most part, did not have the skills to provide assistance. In many cases, students reached out for help through UMUC‟s helpdesk. In many situations, such requests were answered, but generated complaints from the IT division to the manager of the program. The help desk was designed to provide technical support to students, but not to teach students technical skills. In summary, the status of the e-portfolio activity within the MDE today displays the following inadequacies, which will need to be addressed in the implementation of a new framework: Permanence: Currently the environment supported by the institution does not provide permanence to the students' e-portfolios. This issue will have to be re-visited and new guidelines given to students. Lack of the necessary skill set: Some students do not have the necessary technical and pedagogical skill set to develop the portfolio, this includes technology fluency and practice of reflection of one's learning. This will need to be addressed in order to succeed in this new initiative. 5 One might say that an exit analysis of previous work has its place as a summative reflection. However, many student have voiced their concern of not having started the activities of collection, organization and reflection during the program. S.C.S. Porto 11 E-portfolios from concept to implementation… OMDE 670 9040 – spring’08 Late start: Although the e-portfolio tutorial is introduced to students in their first course, there are not formal requirements of development of the e-portfolio throughout the program before the capstone course. It will be necessary to build some sort of milestones throughout of the program in order to guarantee that students will be working on their e-portfolios during most of the other courses: collecting materials and reflecting on the learning process and academic achievements. Lack of support: Currently, students receive practically no support in the development of the eportfolio. Instructors teaching the course need to dedicate more time to the development of the capstone research project and are not prepared to provide technical feedback when students need it. The technical aspects, give the lack of preparation of all stakeholders, ends up taking good part of the effort of students, when in fact they shold be spending more time in the summative assessment of their learning journey throughout the program. Lack of institutional support: the institution does not provide any technical, pedagogical or implementation support to students and faculty. Lack of correlation with the curriculum: the e-portfolio is not formally connected to the rest of the curriculum, although it requires students to post their artifacts from others courses they have taken. There is a need to establish a more clear and direct link between this activity and the rest of the program. Lack of involvement of other stakeholders: since the e-portfolio is worked on at the end of the program, students rarely include in the e-portfolios the feedback from peers and other faculty members. The addition of this feedback would be of major importance in terms of the validation of the achievements showcased in the e-portfolio. Grading: The course has been assessed in a Pass or Fail form since its inception. Although this might be important given the nature of the program (the two major deliverables have little standardized assessment criteria), this possibly creates frustration for students who might wish to receive a grade that assesses their performance and not only the completion of the assignments; as well as a demotivator for greater effort in elaborating a more rich piece of work. The need to change the grading scheme is discussed here for the sake of completion. However, the author will not make recommendations, given that this will require further discussion within the MDE faculty group. Lack of structure and criteria of assessment of eportfolios: the guidelines that are shared with students is clearly incomplete and is not being used appropriately in the assessment (possibly because of the lack of performance-base grading scheme). In any case, the analysis has shown, that these guidelines need to be reviewed. This revision needs to be in sync with the implementation of the new process of e-portfolio creation, which require students to take charge of their e-portfolios earlier in the program. Thus, the guidelines will need to be shared with students throughout their program. 3. Understanding e-Portfolios and Implications for the MDE In this section, we take a closer look at some foundational pillars within the e-portfolio field discussed in the literature, including definitions, pedagogy, technology and implementation issues. Understanding these pillars will allow us to make decisions concerning the e-portfolio initiative within the MDE, including types of portfolios, best technology, process of implementation, and management. Purpose and definitions E-portfolios have multiple purposes – “as a showcase, development tool, assessment approach, or resource for reflection” (Stefani et al., 2007, p.1). These purposes may be combined, depending on the context and the scope of the implementation. Lorenzo and Ittelson (2005) define e-portfolios as “… a digitized collection of artifacts, including demonstrations resources, and accomplishments that represent an individual, group, community, organization, or institution. This collection can be comprised of text-based, graphic, or multimedia elements archived on a Web site or on other electronic media such as CD-ROM or DVD.” (p.1) Acker (2005) states simply that an e-portfolio is “a digital representation of self on characteristics of interest to a S.C.S. Porto 12 E-portfolios from concept to implementation… OMDE 670 9040 – spring’08 community” (p.1). Treuer and Jenson (2003) define electronic portfolios “as an organized collection of digital and/or analog artifacts and reflective statements that demonstrate growth over time” (p.34). They shed light on the potential of e-portfolios going beyond the paper-based portfolio counterparts. Siemens (2004) highlights that “e-portfolios can best be viewed as a reactionary response to fundamental shifts in learning, teaching, technology, and learner needs in a climate where learning is no longer perceived as confined to formal education” (p.1). The term „webfolios‟ has also been used in order to be clear about the webbased implementation of such portfolios. In those cases, the term e-portfolio was used to refer to portfolios residing on CD-ROMs or other physical media. With the spread adoption of web-based tools and storage, this distinction has been lost, and the more common term in use is „e-portfolio‟ “as an umbrella concept that includes webfolios” (p.1). The growth in interest in e-portfolios is “fuelled by three broad factors: the dynamics of functioning in a knowledge economy, the changing nature of learning, and the changing needs of the learner” (Siemens, 2004, p.1). In the knowledge economy, knowledge is of primary value and represents “opportunities for employment and access to education” (p.2). The e-portfolio allows the learner to display and evidence such knowledge through multiple media. The change in learning approaches is also a current trend. Learner-centered approaches are the focus of those promoting higher quality of the learning experience. Learning is not restricted to formal education, but is seen as process that endures throughout life. E-portfolios are tools that support the concept of lifelong learning and learner-centered approaches of learning. Since learners have become more technically proficient with time, information technology has played a social role affecting learning and the workplace. Thus, the use of e-portfolios is supported by the widespread use of internet-based tools in everyday life. Considering the myriad of definitions found in the literature, electronic portfolios – “whether produced by a student, a faculty member, or an institution – is for collection, reflection, and assessment” (Greenberg, 2004, p.34). As mentioned by Helen Barret (1999): "A portfolio without standards, goals and/or reflection is just a fancy résumé, not an electronic portfolio" (p.56). Ravet (2007) adds an important twist to some of the given definitions by questioning if e-portfolios should be considered a „product‟ or a „process‟. He has, thus, used the definition from NLII 2003 as a base and re-written it to say: an e-portfolio is “a collection of authentic and diverse evidence, drawn from larger archive, representing capital6 developed by a reflective learning individual or organization designed to exploit/valorize their assets in a particular context.”(p.3). Thus, the conclusion of his questioning is that “an ePortfolio is not a product and a process, but is a product created as the result of a process, this process being managed by digital means” (p.3). Gibson and Barrett (2002) shed light on an earlier conception of e-portfolio by Mary Diez, which evokes almost poetic metaphors, namely the portfolio as mirror, map and sonnet: “The mirror concerns the portfolio‟s reflective nature that allows us to see our own growth over time. The map includes concerns of the portfolio‟s ability to aid us in planning, setting goals, and navigating the artifacts we create and collect. And the sonnet points to the portfolio‟s role as framework for creative expression, encouraging diversity within the template or structure for thinking about work and presenting it to others” (Gibson & Barrett, 2002, p.1) This perspective is inherently present in the e-portfolio approach used within the MDE. Collection, Reflection, Assessment and Showcasing are in fact the main goals of the MDE e-portfolio. While revisiting this initiative, these goals are kept intact. Implementation procedures and processes are re-worked in order to achieve such goals. Three mains stakeholders are involved in the e-portfolio development process, namely: learners, instructors and institutions. “The end-users of e-portfolios are: prospective employers, instructors (for assessment), parents, and award granting agencies” (Siemens, 2004, p.1). The benefits of e-portfolios are distinct to each of the stakeholders. As learners “seek to create and reflect on life experiences” (p.2), e-portfolios serve students as “personal knowledge management” (p.2), recorded “history of development and growth” (p.2), and a planning/goal setting tool” (p.2). Faculty are able to “share content with other faculty” (p.2), employ “more authentic assessment” (p. 2) practices in their teaching and promote life-long learning among students. 6 Ravet (2007) defines „capital‟ in this context to be “competencies, knowledge, social networks, etc.” (p.3) S.C.S. Porto 13 E-portfolios from concept to implementation… OMDE 670 9040 – spring’08 Institutions are able to provide “value to learners by allowing personal control” (p.2) of the learning process and have the potential of playing “a more permanent role in the lives of learners” (p.2). The process of e-Portfolio creation can be seen as composed as four major tasks, as discussed in the e-Portfolio portal (2004): Collection of artifacts for the e-portfolio; Selection of the artifacts that will demonstrate the aimed competencies; Reflection on the artifacts that were selected as well as on the learning/self-development process; and finally Connection to others, who will see, assess, and possibly provide feedback to the posted materials. In the case of the MDE, the first three tasks are of major focus, since they are the ones, which should be ongoing throughout the program. In some cases, and for some components of the e-portfolio, the students might have the opportunity to practice their “Connection”. Within the MDE, the final moment of “Connection” is in fact during the capstone course. However, given that we foresee such e-portfolio as a lifelong learning tool, students are encouraged to continue this process after they have graduated. Types of e-portfolios The literature is rich in taxonomies to classify e-portfolios. The different types are labeled according to distinct set of criteria. E-portfolios can be used by individuals, by groups or by institutions. Thus, this criterion is based on who manages the e-portfolio and the e-portfolio's main use. Lorenzo and Ittelson (2005) classify e-portfolios is three main categories, namely: student e-portfolios, teaching e-portfolios and institutional e-portfolios. Student e-portfolios are the evolution of print-based portfolios commonly used during the 80s, especially in the art-related programs. These portfolios gained acceptance and spread use during the 90s. The focus has been on showcasing students‟ work as well as reflecting on the learning process. With the diffusion of electronic media, the natural enhancement for the print-version was to move into electronic storage, which thus allowed for better dissemination and maintenance. The success of student e-portfolios arises from their potential of “helping students become critical thinkers” (p.3) “aiding in the development of their writing and multimedia communication skills” (p.3) “help students learn information and technology literacy skills and how to use digital media” (p.3) “create a digitized showcase of their work and skills that can be presented to prospective employees” (p.3); and connect “students to their alma mater after graduation” (p.3) Teaching e-portfolios are those developed by faculty members and are used frequently to “introduce themselves and showcase their accomplishments to students, as well as to share ideas inside a class or other community” (p.4). On the other hand, institutional e-portfolios “incorporate student and teaching e-portfolios as well as eportfolios from a wide range of programs and departments” (p.5). It is mainly used for institution accountability, and serve as a “vehicle for institution-wide reflection, learning, and improvement” (p.5). The focus in this paper is on student e-portfolios used throughout a specific graduate level program. Greenberg (2004) lists three main types, based “on when the work was organized relative to when the work is created” (p.31): For showcase e-portfolios, the “organization occurs after the work has been created” (p.31) In structured e-portfolios, there is a predefined organization for the work that will be created later on; Learning e-portfolios have their organization evolving as the work is created. Stefani et al (2007) provide different classifications. One such classification, refers to the scope of application of e-portfolios: Course e-portfolio refers e-portfolios “assembled by students for one course” (p.11) and are usually used for assessment; Program e-portfolio are those “that students develop to document the work they have completed, the skills hey have learned, and the outcomes they have met in academic department or program” (p.11); and Institutional e-portfolio – differently than the equally named category by Lorenzo and Ittelson (2005), refers to e-portfolios that function as a “personal development tool, in which employees records achievements, future plans and extra curricular activities.” (Stefani et al., 2007, p.11) S.C.S. Porto 14 E-portfolios from concept to implementation… OMDE 670 9040 – spring’08 According to Stefani et al (2007), another distinction can be made based on the European Initiatives Coordination Committee concerning the purpose of the e-portfolio in different learning contexts: Assessment e-portfolios “would generally be used in situations where students are not tested or examined in conventional ways, but rather are expected to provide evidence of their competence in particular subject areas” (p.41) Showcase e-portfolios is here seen as the closest to the conventional view of portfolios used by artists, and students will display their best pieces of work, and might also contain revisions and feedback. Development e-portfolios where work in progress is shown in order to promote discussion between students and tutors; Reflective e-portfolio is merely a personal portfolio, where students are able to reflect on their achievements and self-assess their growth over time. In the e-Portfolio portal (2004), one more type is cited as combination of the others discussed above, the socalled „Hybrids‟. “Rarely will you find an e-portfolio that is strictly used for assessment, development, or showcase purposes.” (Eportfolio portal, nd, p.1). Within the MDE, according to the stated goals, we can assert that students will be developing program, reflective, showcase e-portfolios. Although there is an underlying premise of assessment, assessment is not the main focus of this initiative. It is our vision, that students will be developing a program tool, which will serve a longer-term purpose of portraying the students as a competent distance educator. Whether students will keep this tool after they leave the program is not under the program control, but it is certainly a clear intent to provide this potential use to MDE graduates. It should be considered that the MDE e-portfolio could certainly be used as formative and summative assessment. Stefani et al (2007) shed light on the pedagogical potential of e-portfolios in this matter, through the more recent trends and approaches to assessment, mainly through constructivism, authentic assessment and peer assessment. Constructivism deals with knowledge that students are able to create based on their learning experiences. “In the constructivist theory the emphasis is placed on the learner or the student rather than on the teacher or the instructor” (p.11). Authentic assessment is closely related to constructivist principles because it deals with assessment through activities that resemble „real-world‟ situations, scenarios, problem solving, that request students‟ active involvement and critical thinking. E-portfolios promote the depiction of such learning processes, which are student-centric and related to students‟ personal development as more autonomous learners (Moore & Kearsley, 2004). It is also commonly accepted that most web-based courses are designed based on principles that promote student autonomy. In this sense, the MDE is in a privileged position to adopt such a tool, given its historic adoption of constructivism throughout its curriculum. However, in order to use e-portfolios in formal assessment – associated to grades and students‟ records, it would be necessary to “create matrices with grading rubrics that measure the degree to which students have met specific learning outcomes or competencies” (Lorenzo & Ittelson, 2005b, p.2). As discussed by Acker (2005), faculty workload is one of the obstacles and critical issues when implementing e-portfolios within a program or institution. In the case of the MDE, the option of not using the e-portfolio as an assessment tool throughout the program is based on this reasoning, as well as the limitations of the institutional support discussed in the following section. Technologies supporting e-Portfolio The evolution of e-portfolios has happened strongly in the area of e-portfolio editing tools (Ravet, 2007). However, “The most obvious gap today is the inability of e-portfolio systems to extract automatically meaningful information collected in an e-portfolio repository.” (p.1) As discussed in this and the next sections, the diversity of systems and technologies at both infrastructure and functionality levels characterizes the field of e-portfolio development today. With the growth of web applications that support users in content creation, the landscape of technologies is changing quickly. Moreover, not-for-profit organizations, educational institutions and corporate companies have stepped into this market with different goals, but also shared interest. In many cases, such projects have crossed the borders of the initial categories: off-the-shelf tools have been incorporated into fullyfledged systems; generic software applications have been backed-up by consortiums creating customizable features; and diverse groups have joined forces towards definition of standards and common functionalities. S.C.S. Porto 15 E-portfolios from concept to implementation… OMDE 670 9040 – spring’08 Nonetheless, in what follows we attempt to describe the software supporting e-portfolios as part of large categories according to the nature of its developers and its consequent reach to stakeholders, with close resemblance to the taxonomy adopted by Stefani et al (2007). Commercial software for e-portfolios is currently provided by a myriad of companies with and without hosting capabilities. In many cases, such systems are focused to deliver services exclusively to organizations, and individuals cannot create and maintain personal e-portfolios within such systems if they are not associated to an institution that has purchased the particular system. The dependency on outside parties and their financial health and commercial interest is the major drawback of such approach. However, the reduction of complexity in dealing with technical support and updates could be the reason to adopt such solutions. eFolioMN (Campus Technology, 2006) is an example of a system that has adopted a commercial solution, in this case from the company Avenet. More recently, commercial endeavors supported by consortiums and groups of institutions have increasingly stood out as feasible e-portfolio system solutions for individuals and organizations. Epsilen is one good example of such product. “Epsilen is a comprehensive software package that provides wide-ranging tools and services that students and professionals need for their day-to-day learning, teaching, networking, and collaboration. The Epsilen suite includes ePortfolios, Learning Matrix, a Global Learning System (GLS), Group Collaboration, Object Sharing and Repository, Blogs, WIKI, Messaging, Resume, Social and Professional Networking, and much more. Epsilen‟s members‟ collections (files, courses, etc.) and data are securely stored in a remote central database accessible from school, home, work, or anywhere via the Internet. An Epsilen member has total control for sharing his personal portfolio and collections with schoolmates, teachers, or potential employers, as well as social and professional groups. Additionally, each Epsilen member has a personal Web site (ePortfolio) with lifelong Web address (URL).” (Epsilen, nd, p.1). The history of Epsilen is summarized as one of more than “six years of research and development activities at he CyberLab Purdue School of Engineering and Technology at IUPUI” (p.2) It was initially proposed as the „Jafari model‟ – discussed in more detail in the following section of this document. Proprietary systems are those often designed by individual institutions, or groups of institutions. For the most part, such initiatives originate due to the existence of legacy systems, such as a proprietary Learning Management System like WebTycho at UMUC. The fact that such LMS‟s are being maintained at high costs by such institutions is offset by the gains perceived from institutional control, independence from commercial development cycles and possible competitive advantage. The clear disadvantage is the need to provide the entire chain of development and support for such systems, which can translate into prohibitive costs or dated technology. This is the case of the Penn State e-portfolio system – “a collaborative effort of Penn State's Information Technology Services, the Division of Student Affairs, and the EMS e-Education Institute” (PennState, nd, p.1). The open-source “approach is steadily gaining adherents” (Stefani et al., 2007, p.119). The underlying conceptual platforms vary, some focusing on providing frameworks and tools that can be adopted by different institutions, and others simply defining the standards for such environments to be built with a focus on interoperability and transportability. One such group is the Open Source Portfolio Initiative (OSPI). “Open Source Portfolio (OSP) is a robust, non-proprietary, open-source electronic portfolio application, developed by a community of individuals and organizations from around the world” (OSPortfolio, nd, p.1), associated to the Sakai7 project, which is a robust Collaboration and Learning Environment. OSP is a suite of Sakai tools, whose main components are the Matrix and the Portfolio, the first representing the institutional perspective, while the latter representing the students‟ perspective. Elgg is another initiative that can be categorized under this same umbrella. “Elgg is an open-source social networking platform. It offers blogging, networking, community, collecting of news using feeds aggregation and file sharing features. Everything can be shared 7 “Sakai is a free and open source product that is built and maintained by the Sakai community.” (Sakai, nd p.1) S.C.S. Porto 16 E-portfolios from concept to implementation… OMDE 670 9040 – spring’08 among users with access controls and everything can be cataloged by tags as well.” (Elgg Home page, 2008, p.1) Although the definition refers to social networking, by nature such applications include most features desirable for maintaining a personal e-portfolio through its profile features and the functionalities of attaching and hyperlinking to anything stored on the web. “Elgg works with the two most popular Virtual Learning Environments, Blackboard and WebCT” (Elgg Home page, 2008, p.2), which lends it to the activities of collecting students work in a transparent way. One important European initiative in this field, is the Europortfolio consortium, led by EIfEL (European Institute for E-learning), “[…] an independent, not-for-profit European professional association whose mission is to support organizations, communities and individuals in building a knowledge economy and learning society through innovative and reflective practice, continuing professional development and the use of knowledge, information and learning technologies.” (EIfEL, nd, p.1) The Europortfolio is an “orchestrated effort involving both educational and corporate institutions to define, design, and develop digital portfolio systems that meet the needs of all stakeholders.” (Europortfolio, nd, p.1) The mission of the Europortfolio includes diffusion of the use of e-portfolios as a foundation “of a learning economy and society” (p.1); definition of standards that ensure interoperability among e-portfolio systems; promotion of the development of standards of competence “in the fields of education, training, human resource and development” (p.2); support and coordination of European initiatives in the field of e-portfolios. Helen Barrett is a common name in the literature on e-portfolios, as you will notice throughout this document. Many of her contributions relate to the availability and use of technologies for the development of e-portfolios by individuals, with special focus on teachers. Gibson and Barrett (2002), given the status of technologies available at the time, compare two major categories of technological approaches in the development of e-portfolios, namely Generic Tools (GT) and Customized Systems (CS). The separation between these two groups have become blurred with the rapid change in web-based tools, but the general conclusion is still valid: “Either approach can stand alone, but they may be weaker for doing so. A CS approach by itself soon loses touch with the individuality of inquiry and expression of learners. A GT approach by itself limits its contribution to a program‟s validity as well as accountability.” (p.10) Early on in the study of e-portfolio technologies, it is clear that the choice of tools and/or systems depends directly “upon the purpose and audience for the information within and connected to learner‟s portfolios” (p.10). Although the benefits of bringing together both GT and CS approaches are numerous, contextual constraints need to be taken under consideration. As discussed previously, the MDE initiative is at the moment just that: a program initiative within an institution, which does not provide adequate support for the adoption of a more complex and comprehensive e-portfolio system solution. Thus, the understanding of the overarching possibilities is essential to plan for a long-term future, while near-term decisions will need to be based on low hanging fruits through the use of generic tools. Until recently, generic tools (proprietary, commercial or open-source) relied on development of web pages, which required technical skills, more or less complex depending on the learner‟s creativity. These included, “word processing, HTML editors, multimedia authoring tools, portable documents format (PDF), and other commonly used productivity tool software” (p.1) This landscape has had a significant breakthrough with the advent of web 2.0 technologies. The term „Web 2.0‟ was coined by O‟Reilly when referring to practices and technologies emerging on the web after the fall 2001 dot.com shake up (O‟Reilly, 2005). Although some would say the term is still debated and there seems little rigor in its usage, the last few years has demonstrated that there is an essential new way of capitalizing on the use of web-technologies. The diffusion of the term has relied on a community-based „intuitive recognition‟, since the term serves as a label for a trend and a set of new paradigms of web usage, which is increasingly recognized by its users. Users, who at growing numbers, have found in such services a resonance with their personal expectations. S.C.S. Porto 17 E-portfolios from concept to implementation… OMDE 670 9040 – spring’08 The principle of “the web as a platform” sheds light on the fact that the value-added moved from webapplications (such as browsers, which became mere commodities) to „services‟ over the web platform. As stated by Roush (2005), the Internet has moved from “collection of static pages into a vehicle for software services”. The database is where the power of the tools resides, but the tools allow the data to be managed and produce usable information: “the value of the software is proportional to the scale and dynamism of the data it helps to manage” (O‟Reilly, 2005, p.3) The inherent nature of the web based on hyperlinking generates a continuous organic growth of the “collective activity of all web users” (O‟Reilly, 2005, p.4). Most of the organizations, including many start-up companies (e.g. eBay and Amazon) have capitalized on this principle, reaching out to all sorts of groups, including those smaller niches, reaching out to the entire web, not just the majorities at the center (i.e. „The Long Tail‟). The collective intelligence has been embraced also through innovative approaches, such as Wikipedia, del.ici.ous, Flickr, Technorati, etc. Although, there might be a resistance based on the fact that these initiatives are rooted primarily in new business models, they are definitely becoming part of everyday practice of all those with access to computers and mobile devices. Barrett (2006, 2007) explores “the potential for allowing students to incorporate a variety of Web 2.0 services in their portfolios” (Barrett, 2006, p.1). Such tools have changed the way we interact with the web, and thus it is natural to see a change in the use and perspectives on e-portfolios as well. According to Barrett, „ePortfolio 2.0‟ (as opposed to ePortfolio 1.0)8 is networked, emergent, learner-driven, focuses on individuality, is composed of small pieces loosely joined, uses blogs and/wikis as its architectural base, tends to follow open standards and is stored in a distributed fashion across the network. As stated by Jong and Koper (2007), blogs recently have become a popular way of collecting personal information and learning experiences related to formal education” (p.1) With the functionalities of comments and thus interaction, “blogs offer learners a great degree of autonomy to structure information while also embed reflection in a peer community” (p.1) It is interesting to notice that although unaware of the conceptual notions of e-portfolios, “A healthy culture of sharing and documenting learning is already occurring in the field of „bloggers‟”(Siemens, 2004, p.5). The critique in the use of such tools could flourish from those with a strict focus on full-blown systems and universally accepted standards. However, “To assume that a standardized portfolio is required for interoperability ignores the successful growth of simple social technologies like blogs, wikis, Rich Site Summary (RSS) and social networking tools” (p.5) Considering the MDE current scenario, Siemens‟ (2004) suggestion plays out as a wise advice: “In situations, where full-scale implementation of e-portfolios is not possible, instructors can begin to foster a culture of digital documentation by encouraging learners to practice blogging, developing simple websites, or storing their content online” (p.6). Moreover, we also need to consider the aspect of „beta‟ development of all web 2.0 technologies, and aspire for more capabilities than those we have had the chance to experience thus far. Ravet (2007) translates well such vision when he states: “… what about more sophisticated processes such as reflection and connection? Such processes could greatly benefit from technologies issued from semantic networks such as semantic annotation, topic maps and mind mapping. One has to recognize that current ePortfolio editing systems have not really moved much beyond the very first paperless portfolios in their ability to support reflective activities effectively.” (p.2) E-portfolio systems and standards In (Siemens, 2004), the requirements of an ideal e-portfolio system are thoroughly discussed. Basically, it should allow flexible input, organization, retrieval, and display. The content displayed through e-portfolios is varied, including personal information, educational history, reflective comments, feedback from instructors and peers, awards and certificates, presentations, papers, pieces of written work, professional history, etc. The approach considered within the University of Minnesota system (Treuer and Jenson, 2003), is one where students, faculty and staff members at the institution should have “lifelong ownership and control of his or her 8 Barret employs here to the same framework used by O‟Reilly in explaining web 2.0 through the comparison with web 1.0. S.C.S. Porto 18 E-portfolios from concept to implementation… OMDE 670 9040 – spring’08 individual electronic portfolio, [... to] selectively share information in that portfolio with anyone, anywhere, at any time.” (p.34) However, what happens when the student leaves the institution to move onto further studies in other institutions, or simply to their professional life? Would the institution of origin be able to maintain such eportfolio, and who should have control over it? Treuer and Jenson provide a long and detailed set of standards that should serve all organizations wanting to define and implement an e-portfolio system. Such set of standards would allow for full interoperability. Minnesota‟s initiative has involved immensely since Treuer and Jenson‟s publication. The currently known – Efolio Minnesota (Campus Technology, 2006) is a result of the effort of Minnesota State College and Universities system (MnSCU). It was created to serve faculty, students, alumni, and staff. The idea of supporting alumni is critical in this initiative, because it provides the continuity of e-portfolios beyond the lifetime of the student within the institution. Efolio Minnesota has grown “beyond the higher ed community, expanding to provide services for all students (K-20) and residents statewide” (p.2). The system is based on a solution provided by Avenet, and was selected after a request for proposals (RFP) process. The goals of the project included: “supporting Minnesota students and residents at no cost to the individual user”; “deployment of web-based multimedia tools to support the needs of the individual learner”; and “adoption of eFolioMN by other colleges and universities – even those that compete with MnSCU” (p.2) Although the achievements of eFolioMN are extraordinary in terms of expansion of the system and becoming a available to be adopted by any other institution, the issues of standards and its adoption „worldwide‟ remains as an open question, far from being resolved. Cohn and Hibbitts (2004) go beyond the concept of a lifelong learning tool and present the concept of the „lifetime personal web space‟ (LPWS) – a “bee-hive configured web space that possesses sufficient organizational plasticity to accommodate the user‟s developmental capacities and needs across a lifetime” (p.8). Such space would start at birth and accompany individuals in all their learning throughout life. “The LPWS construct will enable users to preserve more knowledge over time and to forge richer connection between their academic and work endeavors” (p.9). Although such concept might sound somewhat futuristic, it brings to light the nature of the digital identify. An idea cultivated by many others in the literature. “In this electronic age, wouldn‟t it make more sense for a student‟s multiple records of academic performance to reside not in a separate registrar‟s offices, but in a professional academic reservoir? Such a universal academic electronic-identify (e-identity) clearinghouse might look much like a credit bureau, though clearly it would have to be easier to use by individuals and institutions needing information from it.” (Ittelson, 2001, p. 44) In the literature (Aalderink & Veugelers, 2006; Gathercoal, 2002; Greenberg, 2004; Jafari, 2004; Jafari et al, 2006; Johnson & DiBiase, 2004; Love, 2004; and Suter, 2003) there is clear and sharp push for the evolution of e-portfolios through the doors of „standardization‟: the holy grail of achieving an electronic portfolio that can be managed as a lifelong work in progress is found through “standardization, interoperability, a universally agreedupon set of definitions, and adoption of policies that will help guide both behavior and expectations when it comes to copyright law and easy access to digital information” (Suter, 2003, p.1). Other ongoing projects also translate the same ambition as eFolioMN – to define standards and become a default system to be adopted by a growing number of institutions. Under this umbrella we can cite ePortfolio.org platform, which is a “student-centered platform […] augmented by Project Builder and an Assessment module” (ePortfolio.org, n.d., p.1). This platform is being used by more than 20 institutions, and is under the leadership and development efforts of the Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium. Representatives of all these institutions sit on the advisory board and help shape the final product. Portfolios can be created and maintained by students, while sharing and receiving feedback from faculty, advisors and other institutional staff members. Assessment reports can be generated based on specified rubrics. “ePortfolio is a centrally hosted application” (p.1), which reduces the costs and complexity for campuses involved in this initiative. The platform is also integrated to both Blackboard and WebCT Vista, “allowing for single Sign-On” (p.1) Thus, transferring work from the respective LMS to the e-portfolio is made easy. Since the platform serves many institutions, “new users select the institution in which they are enrolled as part of their profile. The ePortfolio is then branded with the institution‟s logo and name.” (p.1) In the area of consortiums, a different initiative – ePortConsortium9 has grown to prominence, where the focus 9 The Electronic Portfolio Consortium S.C.S. Porto 19 E-portfolios from concept to implementation… OMDE 670 9040 – spring’08 resides on collaborating “to define, design, and develop electronic portfolio software environment and management systems” (ePortconsortium, n.d., p.1). Participants of this endeavor include higher education institutions and IT organizations. The focus is “to define and adopt interoperability and transportability measures and standards when building prototypes to test potential scenarios and conceptual environments” (p.1). The goal is that e-portfolios developed by educational institutions and commercial enterprises will all be compatible. The main mediator towards the research efforts in the design of such a system is Dr. Ali Jafari, whose discussion is thoroughly addressed in the end of this section, given its currency and timeliness. Meanwhile, many other institutions have promoted their systems, limited to their constituent body, such as Penn State (Johnson & DiBiase, 2004) and University of Denver (Gilbert, 2005). “The University of Denver Portfolio Community (DUPC) is a fully developed web-based application that supports the academic community with searchable database of electronic portfolios for students, faculty, staff and alumni, community discussion, academic program assessment based on student work, and an assessment rubric library.” (p.1) Although in several cases, alumni are considered as part of the stakeholders, issues of interoperability and lifelong use of e-portfolios are not directly addressed. The broader perspective of lifelong e-portfolio connects to the concept of virtual identity, which should managed by each individual and used in customized way, depending on context and the individual's goal at a certain moment in time. Longer-term views of e-portfolio bring an enormous set of challenge to its implementation, namely institutional support, technological change, interoperability and ownership. eFolioMN‟s approach lies on the premise that it is possible to define a set of standards to be discussed and agreed upon by all organizations adopting e-portfolios. Based on other technological advances, much more diffused and great reach than eportfolios, such attempt seems destined to failure. Siemens (2004) notes: “Standardization of e-portfolios is a potential challenge. Heavily regulated efforts may stifle creativity and innovation. […] The field of learning objects, as an example, seems to be hindered in development due to the proliferation of complex standards. The flaw in learning objects standardization appears to be the attempt to create the system on the assumptions that interoperability is what end users need. […] E-portfolios will be successful if the urge to excessively standardize is resisted. Simple technologies like RSS and SOAP10 reveal that content can be shared when interoperability is built into the sharing structure, not the content itself.” (p.4) This debate between highly structured and regulated institutional approaches and other more open trends is an important one within the MDE e-portfolio project. It impacts the decisions related to requesting and pushing for institutional involvement and support. Siemens (2004) highlights well the basis for making e-portfolios a „personal life –learning tool‟: “One of the most critical aspects of successful e-portfolio use is the creation of neutral e-portfolio providers. The institution should not be in control of the portfolio. As a personal life-learning tool, there is no place for organizational control” (p.4) Such beliefs lead to projects involving open-source (discussed elsewhere in this paper) or e-portfolio providers approved by the institution, which allow the user to remain in control of their own e-portfolios. Serge Ravet from the Eifel project provides a deeper understanding of this debate (Ravet, 2007). “The common misconception about the relation between ePortfolios (eP) and ePortfolio Management Systems (ePMS) is that the function of an ePMS is to host ePortfolios. The main function of an ePMS is not to host ePortfolios but to manage a process during which an ePortfolio can be consumed or produced” (p.2) 10 Simple Object Access Protocol S.C.S. Porto 20 E-portfolios from concept to implementation… OMDE 670 9040 – spring’08 From this differentiation, Ravet arrives to a more formal definition of an e-portfolio Management System: “A system used to manage (produce, consume and exploit elements, of individual ePortfolios for a specific purpose – scaffolding learning, assessment, employment, competency management, organizational learning, knowledge management, etc.” (p.4) Looking at some of the systems discussed thus far, it is clear that most systems have been built to “fit the needs of an organization” (Ravet, 2007, p.4). At this point, the individual learner is not at the center of the decisions about tools to create and manage artifacts or archived materials. Thus, the learner is not in control of his/her own digital identity. Individual ePortfolio management systems would be the answer to this issue. Ravet calls such tool the ePortfolio organizer, which “belongs to individuals and provides them with the ability to create and control their digital identity” (p.5) and suggests that Eifel was built to fill this void in the arena of e-portfolio systems. “While an ePortfolio provides a snapshot of the learning state, an ePortfolio organizer should be able to provide a deeper view and understanding of the learning process” (p.5). However, it is exactly in the area of tools that support such „deeper understanding‟ that one finds a gap in the technologies used within e-portfolio organizers: “[…] there is no tool providing the kind of instant feedback a mirror would. In order to play a role of a mirror, it is important to develop technologies that provide dynamic analysis of eportfolios through data mining and spatial representation.” (p.5) Against most of the trends in e-portfolio systems discussed, Ravet concludes that it is not realistic to plan to have one single provider for the hosting of an e-portfolio – “it goes against the nature of the World Wide Web” (p.5). On the hand, it seems feasible and desirable to provide one single point of control, from which multiple services of managing one‟s identity through the e-portfolio are available. Ravet‟s discussion is extremely timely, given the spread of our identity imprint through blogs, social networks, wikis, etc. Ravet‟s point is that these are all components of the e-portfolio organizer “as they hold some of the assets of an individual” (p.6). This is true for “all services contributing to the construction and expression of one‟s digital identity” (p.6) Using IT standards developed by several groups, one current important trend in the field of e-portfolio systems is to move “from organization-centered IS [information system], where individuals were offered a space, to people-centered IS, where organization‟s IS behaves as an aggregator of individual or departmental IS.” (p.9) Thus, e-portfolio systems for organizations and individuals will take on distinct lives. There are currently many providers of Organization e-Portfolio systems, such as Nuventive – with its iWebfolio solution that encompasses “documentation, management and display of competencies and professional accomplishments from the individual through the institution” (Nuventive, nd, p.1). As part of the e-portfolio organizer (e-portfolio individual management system) set of requirements, one needs to consider elements such as “single sign on to control of who has access to what and when” (p.9), as well as “data mining, aggregation and spatial representation” (p.9) of individual‟s personal assets distributed across multiple systems. In Jafari et al. (2006) the discussion of new e-learning environments encompasses similar goals. “The nextgeneration e-learning environment includes Google, IM, SMS, Web 2.0 social knowledge and software, intelligent systems with memory and personalization of the learner‟s needs, mobile learning, wireless learning” (p.62). The so-called „Jafari model‟ integrates five design requirements, namely: lifelong, outsourced, global, comprehensive and smart. The lifelong aspect allows each learner to automatically have a permanent URL forming “a lifelong repository, lifelong contact information, and a cyber-identity” (p.66). An outsourced model is represented by “a strategic outside hosting solution that offers full-scale services to students” (p.66) independent from the location where the learner is studying and/or working. The „global‟ reach is characterized by a system that offers “networking and collaboration among the global communities” (p.66) beyond specific campuses or workplace. Being „comprehensive‟ entails providing an extensive toolbox containing “all the necessary tools for day-to-day learning and teaching tasks” (p.67). This toolbox includes tools specifically for managing one‟s eportfolio, as well as social and professional networking and various communication and collaboration tools. Finally, being smart means to include “personal intelligent agent software” (p.70), which can support the learner performing many of the activities and functionalities available in this system. Despite the fact that current contextual factors are definite obstacles for pursuing solutions of this caliber for the MDE e-portfolio, it is nonetheless essential to have a vision for an ideal implementation. Ravet and Jafari offer such a vision, while providing proposals where the organizational support and the individual ownership and S.C.S. Porto 21 E-portfolios from concept to implementation… OMDE 670 9040 – spring’08 control are kept in balance. 4. The Proposal of an enhanced ePortfolio Initiative Initiating an e-portfolio project can be extremely challenging (Stefani et al, 2007). The case of the MDE is not different, but represents fertile ground for such endeavor. First, because the program has an ongoing use of student e-portfolios, and thus the concept and the value of such tool is commonly understood. Secondly, elearning is the basis for this and all other programs within the institution. Thus, e-learning practices for teaching and learning, assessment, and learner support are in place, are accepted and considered a reliable and authentic education modality by all stakeholders. In the specific case of the MDE, e-learning is also at the core of the subject matter under consideration. Thus, MDE students not only should be able to develop their own e-portfolios, but they need to be knowledgeable of this topic given its importance in the overall e-learning arena. As discussed before, the e-portfolio requirement has been accomplished for the most part as an exiting task. Although students are alerted about its requirement in the first course of the program (OMDE 601) and are then introduced to the e-Portfolio Tutorial (Walti, 2004), most students only work actively in reflection and organization practices for this task when they reach the final course in the program (OMDE 670). In summary, students face the following difficulties given this practice: Lack of technical skills to create e-portfolios; Lack of understanding of the meaning and goals of the program e-portfolio; Loss of artifacts given the non-existence of institutional support in keeping students' works for longer periods of time; Lack of experience in the reflection process of completed work; Lack of opportunity for revision of work based on feedback received from instructors; Lack of opportunities for peer and outside feedback on previous work; Lack of time throughout the program to select and organize meaningful artifacts; and Lack of performance criteria in the assessment of e-portfolios The implementation of e-portfolios can be challenging and there a myriad of issues that need to be considered. Lorenzo and Ittelson (2005) provide a comprehensive list of such issues, in the form of questions to be answered by those in charge of promoting and overseeing the project. Answering such questions serves as the needed selfassessment in terms of readiness, as well as a way to identify major critical aspects during implementation. In what follows, we discuss each of the proposed questions, based on the MDE context and findings in the literature discussed previously. 1. Students‟ motivation. How to we ensure that students understand the purpose of implementing eportfolios within the program? Currently students work on this task at the end of the program, during the capstone class. Motivation is thus associated to completing the degree, given that the e-portfolio is a requirement for degree completion. This will continue to be in the same way, with the addition of a few assignments throughout the course that will be tied to the e-portfolio. The determination of such assignments should be a result of an analysis of the current MDE outcomes assessment plan, a review of all assignments and discussion with faculty members. 2. Will the content of the e-portfolio serve as an official record? The term official can take different meanings depending on the scope. It will be considered as an official assignment used for assessment within the program. For now, given the fact that e-portfolios are not adopted at an institutional level, or supported by the institution for that matter, the e-portfolio cannot be considered as a repository of official records. Another aspect is that there is no technical support that allows students to extract the data existent in the UMUC PeopleSoft databases. If in the future, the institution decides to adopt the use of e-portfolios for all students, this will certainly be part of the requirements of such system. S.C.S. Porto 22 E-portfolios from concept to implementation… OMDE 670 9040 – spring’08 3. E-Portfolio activities will be optional or mandatory? E-portfolio activities will be mandatory as part of the capstone course. There will be a few assignments connected to the e-portfolio in some of the courses in the program, and these will also be mandatory. Students will be called to collect, organize and reflect after every term, through the use of e-portfolio workshops. These will not be mandatory, but should fulfill the need to keeping students motivated, initiating and maintaining their e-portfolios throughout their journey within the program. 4. What are the life expectancies of these e-portfolios? The life expectancy will depend mostly on the technology that will be used. Currently, if students wish to use institutional web space, they have access to specific servers (Nova or Polaris), and will need to develop web pages using tools such as Dreamweaver (Adobe) for the editing, and ftp tools for the transfer of the pages onto the servers. The lifetime of such artifacts is usually around one year after the student completes the capstone. In this case, the e-portfolio will need to be transferred to another site in order to avoid being permanently deleted. Students will have permanent websites if they decide to pay for their own domain, or have Internet providers, which offer web space under their domain. Another possibility is to consider the use of free or paid space through Web 2.0 tools. As discussed before, these tools have given common users the possibility of being creators of content on the web, and using them for the creation of e-portfolios is not uncommon. 5. How is ownership defined for students‟ e-portfolios? It is understood in same lines as Siemens (2004)’ arguments: students should maintain full ownership of their e-portfolios, even if this means less default settings and automatic institutional support. Students should be the ones creating, collecting, organizing and reflecting on their work portrayed within the e-portfolio. Although there is a program requirement for such e-portfolio as an assignment, there is a declared intent that it will be a tool to accompany students throughout their personal/professional life, taking on the flavor chosen by the owner. If this intention will be fulfilled will depend on the graduate’s motivation and the usefulness of such tool for further learning and professional development. 6. Are other people allowed to make changes to the e-portfolios? In many examples seen earlier, e-portfolio systems provided the possibility of having other people edit or make changes in the students’ e-portfolio. Again, this will depend strictly on the e-portfolio tool/system selected by the student. (Considering the context where the institution is not yet ready to provide an institutional e-portfolio system). In many of the Web 2.0 tools, the user is allowed to give access to other users. In fact, the e-portfolio could be a combination of such tools, some with access and change rights given to others, and other components with strict access (e.g. Google docs with blogs or wikis). An important aspect related to this issue, is the responsibility of actually collecting artifacts, selecting and organizing them. Given the current institutional limitation (i.e. the lack of an e-portfolio system, which automatically collects students’ works of all sorts), students will be the primary actors in performing these basic e-portfolio functions. One activity, which needs serious consideration, is that of “collecting”. Currently, students’ artifacts submitted through their course interface – WebTycho – is assured to be kept intact for a maximum of a semester after the course is over. There are several layers of storage, starting with a “live” class, going through “archived” class and finally classes that are in “tape”. The latter can be recovered, but students are strongly discouraged of doing so, given the work needed to recover those pieces of information. Thus, as part of the strategies discussed further in this section, focus will be given in reiterating to students the fact that they need to take over responsibility of collecting pieces of work, be it from any nature (e.g. conference postings, assignments, feedback from instructors). 7. How will the e-portfolio culture be promoted within the institution or the program? The concept of e-portfolio is not foreign to UMUC. In fact, it has been used within the MBA for some time. The word “portfolio” is indeed used within the WebTycho system to refer to the area where S.C.S. Porto 23 E-portfolios from concept to implementation… OMDE 670 9040 – spring’08 students can see all their contributions within a certain course: postings, assignments, group collaboration, grades, feedback, etc. The concept is the same, but the scope is strict to the lifetime of an ongoing class. The institution does safeguard full classes in deeper levels of storage, after they become inaccessible to students and faculty. However, this concept is the one behind the MDE e-portfolio, which depends on the selection, organization and reflection of students. Given the long tradition of UMUC as a provider of distance education through the means of e-learning, the concept of an eportfolio is one simple to grasp by staff and management. The main obstacle relies on implementation issues related to institutional support, scalability and the final resources that it will need. This will represent the major barrier to divulge the e-portfolio concept throughout the organization. Not an impossible task, but one that will require strategic planning and educational time. As discussed in the strategies (further in this section), the idea will be one to start with the current MDE faculty, and getting a buy-in from this first group. This will represent an asset when it comes to raise students’ awareness about the creation and maintenance of the e-portfolio throughout the program. Sharing the project with the rest of the Graduate School will be certainly a second step. This will probably be done through information sessions, and grassroots movements with other programs interested in adopting such tool. With the collaboration and interest of other programs, it becomes easier to consider the proposal of an institutional initiative. 8. Who will have the responsibility to train staff and students in terms of needed skills to develop and maintain e-portfolios? For this implementation, the staff continuously involved in the porject will be the program directors, some of the faculty (mostly those involved in the capstone course, or whose courses contain assignments that are part of the MDE outcomes assessment plan), possibly one TA and graduate volunteers11. Students are expected to work autonomously in learning the necessary skills. But, as discussed in the proposed framework – in this section, a few other initiatives will help to provide the necessary learning for this task, including one week workshops exclusively on e-portfolios, on-going discussions within the MDE student lounge and reminders sent from the program director to students every semester. 9. If e-portfolios will be used as part of assessment, who is responsible for assessing it? The MDE student e-portfolio will be assessed holistically by the instructor of the capstone course (OMDE 670), under which the student is enrolled. Those assignments that will be required to be posted to the e-portfolio as a result of the curriculum analysis, will be assessed and solo components, and graded according to existing rubrics. The feedback might be then used to revise such submissions and be a part of the student e-portfolio permanently. 10. How prescribed or creative/innovative should be students e-portfolios? The e-portfolio “documents credentials and accomplishments to date and also serves as an ongoing resource and record of continuing professional development.” (OMDE 670, 2008). Thus, it is our goal to have the e-portfolio accompany students in their professional development after they graduate. Thus, in terms of layout and form, MDE e-portfolios have no requirements, other than being webbased and easily accessible. Given the experience in other institutions, such as McDaniel’s College – Department of Education (Kerby, 2008), where students had an exit e-portfolio as a program requirement, it is understood that defining major requirements is beneficial in serving as guidance and minimum standards for assessment. Thus, as discussed below, the MDE e-portfolio will also define a set of requirements, which will then be used for assessment of completion of the work during the capstone course. These requirements need to be tightly connected to an overall vision of the program, as well as general expected outcomes of graduate education. Moreover, providing some clear way of assessing the e-portfolio, shared among faculty and students, will also guide the elaboration of this final assignment. 11 It is common for MDE graduates to look for ways to stay involved in the program, and this is one way that can be of great value to the program and to the graduate student. S.C.S. Porto 24 E-portfolios from concept to implementation… OMDE 670 9040 – spring’08 Thus, based on the literature discussed previously and the answer to the self-assessment questions above, it is clear that the following changes are needed in the re-implementation of the MDE e-portfolio as a program-wide initiative: Definition of a minimum set of requirements and criteria in terms of structure to help students in the eportfolio development task, which includes selection, organization and reflection of their work; Anchoring the e-portfolio creation to the curriculum through all the courses in the program, in such a way that students will not be confronted with the entire workload when they enter the capstone course; Provisioning of continuous feedback, support and motivation to keep the work on the e-portfolio as an ongoing and evolving activity throughout the program (including works from outside of the program, associated to professional development); The use of a simple rubric to guide the assessment of the e-portfolio as a final artifact during the capstone course (OMDE 670) of the MDE program; Clarification of the existing institutional support and better use of the current available technologies that do not depend on the institutional support and therefore enhance the perception and feelings of ownership and Definition of Strategies for diffusion of the project and feedback from stakeholders. The proposed framework for enhancing the e-portfolio initiative is therefore based on the following components, which will be further discussed: 1. Proposal of a minimum set of standardized requirements for e-portfolio structure based on information from the literature and the outcomes assessment plan developed for the MDE; 2. Proposal of an MDE curriculum revision in order to anchor the use of e-portfolio throughout all or some of the MDE courses; 3. Proposal of a rubric for assessment of students‟ e-portfolio during the capstone course. 4. Strategies towards an action plan that will support: I. Student continuous involvement with the development of the e-portfolio throughout the program; II. Student familiarity with technologies for e-portfolio development and maintenance; III. Faculty involvement as providers of feedback for students e-portfolios; IV. Students‟ reflection of past work; V. Students‟ plan for their own learning process and professional goals. VI. Diffusion of the e-portfolio value within the program and the institution. Proposal of a minimum set of standardized requirements for e-portfolio structure – Framework component # 1 The standard requirements stated here need to be sufficient to provide students with the necessary guidelines, while at the same time keep a certain level of freedom to allow for creativity and authenticity. The final result should reflect the student‟s journey within the program, and reinforce the feelings of ownership in order to promote the use of the e-portfolio as a life-long learning tool. As a basis for possible standards for structure, we will consider two sets of information closely related to the MDE program: Core Learning Areas – set by the Graduate School of Management and Technology as assessment standards for all programs at the graduate level at UMUC; and Program objectives, described within the MDE outcomes assessment plan (MDE Outcomes Assessment plan, 2007) The core learning areas for the Graduate School of Management and Technology at UMUC are defined as follows (Office of Outcomes Assessment, 2005): 1. Written Communication (COMM): Demonstrate competence in effective written communication. 2. Oral Communication (COMM) : Demonstrate competence in effective oral communication. 3. Technology Fluency (TECH): Demonstrate an understanding of information technology broadly enough to apply technology productively to academic studies, work, and everyday life. 4. Information Literacy (INFO): Demonstrate the ability to use libraries and other information resources to effectively locate, select, and evaluate needed information. S.C.S. Porto 25 E-portfolios from concept to implementation… OMDE 670 9040 – spring’08 5. Globalization/Diversity (GLOB): Demonstrate knowledge of other cultures and the ability to respond appropriately to a variety of cross-cultural situations. 6. Quantitative Literacy (QUAN): Demonstrate the application of mathematical and numerical reasoning skills. 7. Critical Thinking (THIN): Demonstrate the use of analytical skills and reflective processing of information 8. Specialized Knowledge: Demonstrate the ability to apply the disciplinary knowledge and skills appropriate for the chosen field of study. The first general CLAs listed are clearly addressed through the MDE Outcomes Assessment Plan (Appendix 1). In such plan, each CLA is associated to a specific program outcome. As the tool to implement the outcomes assessment collection of data, each CLA is associated to at least one specific course objective and finally a specific method/tool (i.e. assignment from a specific course). The outcomes associated to each of the CLAs are as follows: COMM: Present summaries, essays, analyses, and recommendations in written and/or oral forms in an effective and professional manner in the area of distance education and training TECH: Select distance education technologies and media on the basis of the educational and operational characteristics appropriate to organizational and student needs. INFO: Utilize published literature for basic and applied research in the area of distance education and training and apply techniques accepted in the field. QUAN: Develop budgets for distance education development and delivery systems. THIN: Evaluate the history and theory of the field of distance education based on review of the relevant literature of the field. The area of specialized knowledge is not directly included in the institutional outcomes assessment process, but is obviously at the core of the competencies that students need to develop during the program. A possible effective way to include those is to consider the overall program goals, defined as follows (excerpt from the MDE Outcomes Assessment plan): Upon completion of the Master of Distance Education Program, graduates will be able to: Develop a mission and vision for the implementation of distance education within an organization; Function effectively as leader, manager, and team member within a distance education or training organization; Devise best practices in online distance education and training according to the organization's context and needs; Develop strategic goals and business plans for distance education within an organization; Analyze an organizational distance education technology plan; Manage the implementation of technology in distance delivery and design; and Assess the necessary support services for a distance education program. Students are never formally introduced to such a plan for the program. However, it is clear that familiarizing with such goals is of great importance to the activity of planning your own learning and reflecting on the achievement milestones. Students are introduced in each course to the objectives of that particular course, given the information presented in the syllabus. The program outcomes, however, provide holistic information, which ties to the goals of the e-portfolio (Easterling at al. 2003). Exposure and reflection about this information is thus part of the proposed framework. Curriculum revision and anchoring of e-Portfolio activities – Framework component # 2 The basis for including such a component in the framework is to help guide students through the program to collect, organize and reflect on past artifacts. If we are to propose criteria for selecting such samples, anchoring this activity within specific courses, will help students avoid postponing the activity. The challenges here are the S.C.S. Porto 26 E-portfolios from concept to implementation… OMDE 670 9040 – spring’08 involvement of faculty and assessing the volume of change required in the curriculum. In order to make this into a more feasible task, the initial suggestion is to avoid changing current assignments. Instead, the anchoring could be done by simply selecting specific assignments, and requiring students to post those within their e-portfolio during the specific class they are taking. The assignment will be graded on its own merit (by the instructor of that course), but the posting of the assignment within the e-portfolio (or any other accessible place over the web) will be counted with a percentage of the grade. Given the timeframe of this project, the proposal will not include definitive choices. It will entail an initial suggestion for criteria to be used in selecting the assignments, to be further discussed with faculty and implemented accordingly. Initial suggestion of criteria for target assignments/courses: Utilize core courses so we have common guidelines for all students, and not differentiated guidelines for students in different specializations; Select one assignment at the most per course, such that the faculty members are not overwhelmed with activities that involve the e-portfolio and are not forced to change significantly the grading schemes used thus far; Select the assignments that best reflect the outcomes of the program and revise such outcomes if they‟re not the correct matches for the existing core courses. Rubric for assessment of students’ e-portfolio within OMDE 670 (Capstone) – Framework component # 3 Although the underlying belief is that the MDE e-portfolio should be owned by students, managed by students, and reflect their personal learning journey, the e-portfolio is part of the required assignments within OMDE 670 – the capstone course. Thus, providing a rubric (based on the expectations discussed in this document) to be shared with students and used by the OMDE 670 instructor for the purpose of assessment is definitely an urgent need. It serves the purpose of being a guideline of performance to students, and supports the assessment process for the faculty member. The rubric displayed here, should be taken as an initial proposal. This proposal will be discussed and enhanced based on the feedback from instructors involved in the capstone course, as well as MDE managers. The proposal is based on the goals and the changes proposed in this document. It is evident that instructors will need to use some discretion when applying such rubric, because many students entering OMDE 670 will not have been exposed to the new e-portfolio initiative long enough in order to have their e-portfolios as an ongoing activity. Moreover, OMDE 670 course remains a course to be assessed with Pass or Fail, instead of a letter grade. Thus, the rubric should in fact provide the means for formative assessment, helping students enhance heir e-portfolios, and consider it strongly as a lifelong learning tool. The proposed analytical rubric (Barrett, 2003), will be based on the following major aspects: Content o Artifacts o Reflections Design Technical The levels of performance will be 3 (in order to keep it simple to use and understand), namely Poor, Good and Excellent. „Poor‟ reflects below expectations, „Good‟ stands for achieving minimal expectations and „Excellent‟ refers to those e-portfolios that go beyond the basic requirements. The table below describes this rubric initial proposal (Klein, 2003). Criteria Content: Artifacts S.C.S. Porto Poor The student showcases no or a minimal number of artifacts, which do not sufficiently demonstrate the expected competencies (CLAs of GSMT & programmatic goals). Good The student showcases several artifacts and these demonstrate most of the expected competencies (CLAs of GSMT & programmatic goals). Excellent The student showcases a variety of artifacts, which demonstrate the expected competencies (CLAs of GSMT & programmatic goals). 27 E-portfolios from concept to implementation… OMDE 670 9040 – spring’08 The collection of artifacts is based on the required components, but does not include all the required elements or any other produced during the program. The student does not include artifacts that go beyond those produced within the program, and the CV is not included. Content: Reflections Design S.C.S. Porto The student does not include artifacts that go beyond those produced within the program, although the CV is included. The collection of artifacts is based on the required components, as well as others that the student has selected him/herself for specific purposes. The student includes artifacts that go beyond those produced within the program, including the professional CV. The student either does not provide a general summative reflective statement about the MDE experience, or the one provided is poor and does not convey any details about his/her learning experience. The student provides a general summative reflective statement about the MDE experience, but this could be broader and provide more details about his/her learning experience. Reflections are not related to artifacts; many reflections are missing and/or need substantial improvement and revision; reflections overall are of poor quality. Reflections are related to artifacts; some reflections are missing/and or need of improvement and revision; reflections overall are of good quality. The design of the e-portfolio does not reflect student‟s choices and interests. The design of the e-portfolio reflects student‟ choices and interests for the most part. Reflections demonstrate growth over time; reflections are well written and reveal depth and breadth of experiences, keeping a personal perspective; reflections overall are of excellent quality. The design of the e-portfolio reflects student‟ choices and interests. The e-portfolio lacks organization and has very little evidence of personalization. The e-portfolio is organized and has some evidence of personalization. The e-portfolio is well organized and demonstrates uniqueness and creativity. The e-portfolio barely includes visual aspects and does not demonstrate use of graphics, audio and text elements. The e-portfolio has some good visual aspects and demonstrates good use of graphics, audio, and text elements. The e-portfolio is highly visual and demonstrates excellent use of graphical, audio, and text elements. The e-portfolio is limited and has a strict design that will not allow for any expansion or continuous use beyond this course. Technical The collection of artifacts is based on the required components, but does not go beyond the basic requirements, with other works produced during the program. The navigation of the site is confusing and counter intuitive. Many links do not work, and access to external components The e-portfolio has a design that will possibly allow for continuous use, but might be a bit too strict for expansion in the future. The navigation is clear for the most part, but not always intuitive. Most of the links work and accessing external The student provides a general summative reflective statement about the MDE experience. The student provides reflective statements related to the course work and connected to the artifacts that are displayed in the eportfolio. The e-portfolio has a design that allows for continuous use and thus has high potential of becoming a lifelong learning tool. The navigation of the site is very clear and intuitive. All the links work and accessing external components is error28 E-portfolios from concept to implementation… OMDE 670 9040 – spring’08 generates many errors. The web environment will not allow any future use. components is error-free for almost all of them. The Web environment might allow future use, but management will not be uncomplicated. free. Web environment allows for future use and easy management. As in all rubrics, this is a work in-progress. Faculty members will be able to propose changes and enhancements as they use this rubric to provide feedback to students. It is suggested that such feedback be used in a formative fashion: students will be able to work on their e-portfolios based on this feedback, and possibly bring it to higher levels of performance in all criteria. Action plan strategies – Framework component # 4 The action plan described below involves one core endeavor: the creation of a short voluntary workshop – here named MDE e-portfolio workshop – available to ALL students, to be held through an online environment12 during the first two weeks of each term. This MDE e-portfolio workshop should serve as an active mechanism of supporting the e-portfolio activities, reminding students of the importance of maintaining their e-portfolios throughout their program, and clarifying questions related to technology and structure. Being in the early weeks of each term, such workshops should work as triggers for students‟ awareness and readiness for activities to be performed during that particular semester, as well as making sure that artifacts from the previous semester are appropriately stored and reflections of previous course work is also completed and validated. These workshops will also provide the needed channel of feedback about the e-portfolio initiative, which will help its revision and enhancement according to students‟ needs. At this time, these workshops are planned to be offered by the program director, with possible support from MDE graduate volunteers and one TA. Faculty will be informed about such workshops, and those interested in participating will be welcome to do so. I. Strategy for increased and ongoing student involvement The increase of student involvement throughout the program in building their own e-portfolio will result from greater communication of this topic within ongoing courses every semester. This should be done by the program director through the faculty teaching these classes, through standard messages happening early in each course and at the end of each term. The invitation to the workshops, which ultimately will contribute to student involvement as well, will be done through such messages (sent to each class), through the MDE blog (http://mdeblog.blogspot.com) and the MDE student lounge (http://groups.google.com/group/MDE-lounge). II. Strategy for increased familiarity with technologies Given the lack of an existing institutional tool, the guidelines for technological tools will be revised to include existing possibilities of open source systems and web 2.0 based tools. Students will be given free range of choice. During the workshops the topic of technologies will certainly be at the forefront. Students are not required to choose the technology right away, and will be able to work on collection, organization and reflection without necessarily having chosen the technology that they will use to implement the e-portfolio. The awareness and the continuous discussion about the tools available is an important one, not only because of the e-portfolio activity, but also for students‟ general information on topics related to e-learning in general. III. Strategy for faculty involvement; Faculty involvement and support of this initiative is of crucial importance. The strategies for involving faculty start with information sessions that will happen during regular MDE faculty meetings. Faculty involved in the capstone will have a prominent role in this process, as ambassadors of such activity and as actors of the decisions related to the new initiative. These 12 The online environment for the MDE e-portfolio workshop could be the existing MDE Student Lounge, or a separate environment. A separate environment has the advantage of not cluttering the lounger with this discussion, but will require students to sign-up for the workshop. The MDE Student Lounge will certainly be used to advertise the event to students, as well as through the ongoing classes each term. S.C.S. Porto 29 E-portfolios from concept to implementation… OMDE 670 9040 – spring’08 faculty will be the first to discuss the new proposal, before it is in brought to the entire faculty group. The definition of the assignments that will be the anchors of the e-portfolio activities within courses will be determined through discussions with faculty currently involved with a particular course and MDE directors. Any faculty member wishing to be closely involved with the e-portfolio development will be welcome to take part in the MDE e-portfolio workshops. IV. Strategy for student’s reflection activity; Through the analysis of the existing e-portfolios, it is clear that the activity of reflection on the learning from each course throughout the program is limited and that there is no practice of reflection on one‟s own past work. During the MDE e-portfolio workshops, one of the core activities will be to consider the previous semester, assess major learning achievements, and select, organize and reflect on past artifacts. For those students with an existing e-portfolio environment, this will support the regular updating and maintenance of the e-portfolio. For those students, who do not yet have an e-portfolio, this is a good opportunity to start planning on its creation, while at the same time making sure that artifacts are carefully collected and that the reflections of such pieces of work is done in timely manner. V. Strategy for students’ planning for their own learning process and professional goals. A final activity during the MDE e-portfolio workshop will be to have students reflect and possibly journal on their current goals for the learning of that particular semester and professionally for the near future. Longer-term goals are sometimes difficult to be clearly described without the practice of reflection over previous achievements. Setting shorter-term goals and reflection of past courses and one‟s own work, should help student set such longer-term goals. VI. Strategy for diffusion of the e-portfolio value within the program and the institution. The diffusion of the value of e-portfolio value within the program will happen through faculty meetings and workshops with students. At the institutional level, the plan constitutes of information sessions to be developed possibly after one year of the implementation of the activities described above. At the same time, given the fact that several key UMUC staff people are members of the MDE faculty group, the diffusion will certainly happen at a different level in an earlier stage. It is important that such institutional conversation/negotiation be done when it is definitely clear for the MDE what kind of support the program needs from the organization. The risk is that in bringing in greater institutional involvement, standardization will become the main focus of the process. This may blur the programmatic goal that such project has taken so far, which is one of a student-centered life-long learning task. 1-year schedule for implementation of action plan Below is an initial time frame for the action plan involving the activities discussed previously. June-July‟2008: initial discussions with capstone faculty and cleaning of the current proposal, followed by discussions within faculty meetings and with specific faculty members concerning the definition of anchoring assignments. July-August‟2008: planning of first workshop August-early September‟2008: promotion of the workshop among students Early September‟2008: offering of first workshop and assessment of value of such activity and suggestions for change for next offering. September-November‟2008: discussion and implementation of anchoring assignments (this might be done in phased way, with a few assignments during the fall and then others in the next two terms, depending on course offerings and on feasibility) January‟2009: discussion of the results from the use of anchoring assignments Late January‟2009: 2nd iteration of the workshop and assessment of participation and results. 5. Conclusions and further thoughts In finalizing this paper, it is clear that beyond its original and objective intent of re-visiting the MDE current eportfolio implementation, and using the literature to shed light on a new enhanced MDE e-portfolio proposal, we S.C.S. Porto 30 E-portfolios from concept to implementation… OMDE 670 9040 – spring’08 achieve such goal accompanied by an important secondary result: a renewed understanding of the e-portfolio development scenario and a the encounter with current questioning about e-portfolio implementation, which were not under consideration when the MDE e-portfolio initiative was first launched. One such questioning is well depicted in the tradeoff between flexibility and standardization discussed by Siemens (2004). The trend towards standardized tools and services in one hand might be responsible for a larger e-portfolio market. However, the price paid for such a massive adoption is less freedom and flexibility. Another related and recent issue, that of using e-portfolios as an assessment tool for purposes of re-accreditation has had a significant impact on the meaning of e-portfolios and its perspective for learning. Trend Baston (2007) states – “The idea of the electronic portfolio in higher education in the US has transmuted from a focus on learning to a focus on accountability.” (p.1) This results in a confusion of learning e-portfolios – “emphasizing student ownership of their own work over their time in college” (p.2) – with assessment management systems. Ayala (2006) confirms such trend when he questions if electronic portfolios are in fact student-centered. He points out that the research is slim when it comes to students‟ perception and opinions on the use of e-portfolios. So far, most of the research has focused on the views of administrators and faculty. Ittelson, on the other hand, reflects on the importance of e-portfolios as an assessment instrument, and the multitude of issues that need attention. How should e-portfolios be assessed? Do standardized and accepted rubrics exist? The emphasis on accountability has placed e-portfolio at center stage. However, the use of e-portfolios as an assessment tool might be hiding a positivist attitude, focused on the needs of educational organizations. Ayala (2006) states that for the most part the current development in the eportfolio field has been an attempt to solve curricular problems. In the proposal for an enhanced e-portfolio experience within the MDE, we aspire to maintain the „learning nature‟ of students‟ e-portfolios. Another aspiration is that MDE e-portfolios will have an enduring life in promoting students potential of reflecting on their accomplishments, planning the future learning and controlling their showcase of artifacts as evidence of acquired professional competencies. Siemens (2004) alerts us of the challenges of achieving lifelong learning e-portfolios, re-affirming the need for having the learner in control of the process and the product. Institutions should help clarify the concepts , but it is the learner who will drive the effective use of this tool. Once more, the learner‟s control over his/her own identity is at stake. In the path to achieve such authenticity and the balance between organizational support, individual ownership, lifelong learning span, we need to work on providing students with the necessary tools, while maintaining the breathing space for reflection and creativity. We are faced with an inherent obstacle of dealing with adult learners and their everyday balancing act to accomplish professional, personal and academic goals. Learners might not see the value of e-portfolios in the beginning of the learning process and/or have difficulties on contributing to the e-portfolios before it actually becomes a requirement. The proposal discussed in this project takes these limitations under consideration, aspires for higher goals under the contextual institutional boundaries. This plan, just like an individual e-portfolio is a work in progress, which takes shape based on accomplishments, feedback from stakeholders and on the institutional scenario. Nonetheless, the unique spirit of e-portfolios needs to be kept throughout this journey: “A portfolio tells a story. It is the story of knowing about things… Knowing oneself… Knowing an audience… Portfolios are students‟ own stories of what they know, why they believe they know it, and why others should be of the same opinion. A portfolio is opinion backed by fact… Students prove what they know with samples of their work” (Paulson & Paulson in Barrett & Garrett, p.1) 6. References Aalderink, W. and Veugelers, M. (2005). E-portfolios in the Netherlands: Stimulus for educational change and life long learning. EDEN Conference. Helsinki, June 2005. Retrieved on February 8th, 2008 from http://e-learning.surf.nl/docs/portfolio/helsinki_eden__wijnand_aalderinkmarij_veugelers.pdf S.C.S. 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