Electronic portfolio

An electronic portfolio, also known as an e-portfolio or digital portfolio, is a cohesive, powerful, and well-designed collection of electronic documents that demonstrate your skills, education, professional development, and the benefits you offer to a target reader. A recent development has been the open source portfolio movement on e-portfolios (www.osportfolio.org)

Types of ePortfolio

There are three main types: developmental, reflective and representational. A developmental ePortfolio, or ePortfolios or digitala portfolios, are a record of things that the owner has done over a period of time. A reflective ePortfolio includes personal reflection on the content and what it means for the owner's development. A representational ePortfolio shows the owner's achievements in relation to particular work or developmental goals and is, therefore, selective. The three main types may be mixed to achieve different learning, personal or work-related outcomes with the ePortfolio owner usually being the person who determines access levels.

Usage of Electronic Portfolios

Today electronic portfolios are gaining popularity in:

schools (See Technology Integration)
higher education
continuing professional development
job applications/professional advertisements
therapy groups.
K-12 schools (specifically for pre-teens and teenage students).

E-portfolios have an edge over the traditional, paper-based variety because there is a considerable increase in the range and quality of services that can be provided to individuals and the community. Students are able to apply to college or to businesses showing these complete examples of their work; something much richer than test scores and grades. The development of the job market has seen a rise in the usage of e-portfolios. Organizations can considerably cut costs by recruiting online and, due to the spread of the internet, are able to potentially finding better job matches online than through conventional recruitment mediums.

Design Considerations

An e-portfolio essentially takes a résumé and allows it to expand and blossom. An e-portfolio contains all the parts of a traditional résumé:

Contact Information
Objective Statements
Education
Skills
Awards

Where it separates itself from a paper résumé is in its presentation. Websites allow their creators to place a great deal of information in a small place. E-portfolio users can actually back up their résumé claims by placing direct links to their creations in their e-portfolios.

An e-portfolio could allow the reader to better know the creator, as well, without actually meeting him/her. Possible additions to an e-portfolio may be goals and influences and answers to questions such as “What is my philosophy of work?” and “What is my philosophy of life?”

It could also be beneficial to include different types of résumés in an e-portfolio in addition to a traditional chronological, functional, or curriculum vitae résumé. Organizations can receive thousands of applications for a given position. In some instances, it may be beneficial to include a scanable (or ASCII) résumé. Other possible résumé formats to include would be a PDF résumé and a multimedia résumé.

There are also many basic web design considerations when creating an e-portfolio. It is not possible to directly transfer a paper portfolio into an electronic portfolio due to potential monitor constraints. Creators must consider the fact that not everyone has the most up-to-date computer technology to view an e-portfolio. Therefore, it may be beneficial to follow these guidelines

use browser-safe colours
use sans-serif fonts
use typical font types (Times New Roman, Verdana, Arial, etc.)
reduce picture sizes
be careful with internet technologies

The first four considerations listed are a result of monitor constraints. The last consideration has to deal with the fact that not everyone has the most up-to-date flash or java technology installed on their computers. Obviously, the appropriateness of these technologies would vary between industries. People applying for artistic jobs may be more inclined to use these technologies as it would be important to display their creativity whereas a person applying for an accountant position would just want to display his/her e-portfolio in the most efficient way possible.

Other Considerations

In order to make these services provided widely accessible, e-portfolios should comply with interoperability standards though there is wide disagreement about what these actually are. Many portfolios are already using interoperable standards is so far as they are developed in common language, such as html which does not require any special programming considerations.

Another consideration related to accessibility and interoperability is the use of code and features that address access for the disabled. Most countries have laws or at least guidelines that articulate the standards for this. The problem in digital portfolios for disabled users is that many authoring tools make wide use of Java scripts and Java applets. Neither of these work in text readers well if at all, leaving the "disabled" user with less functionality than the "able" user. Further, the use of Java consoles (often the way that formatable text options are provided) requires the download of enabling Java software that can limit the type and vintage of computer used by users. Thus, many tools assisting in the development of authoring tools for digital portfolios have been developed to avoid programming and features that would reduce access.

References

Haag, S., Cummings, M., McCubbrey, D., Pinsonneault, A., Donovan, R. (2006). Management Information Systems for the Information Age. Building and E-portfolio(XLM-J). Toronto: Mcgraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-095569-7.

External links

Institutions using ePortfolios

The Penn State University
Bowling Green State University / Epsilen Environment
PDP at Bell College
University of Leeds, School of Medicine / ELP Project
Tecnológico de Monterrey / SEADI (in Spanish)
University of Warwick (representational example)
Stanford University / Folio Thinking

ePortfolio software