Portfolio providers: What are some uses for ePortfolios that you believe aren’t as common at colleges as they should be?
“We’d like to see more colleges using ePortfolios with guided learning pathways through a program or institution to assess learning at key points. The full potential for ePortfolios to encourage more integrative, deeper learning won’t be realized without a deliberate plan, ongoing assessment and higher stakes (such as program completion or graduation).”
—Webster Thompson, president, Taskstream
“At the core of learning is being able to engage and empower learners to be active participants in their academic journeys. EPortfolios can do that when coupled with assessment. All the artifacts, reflections, work, self-assessments, instructor and mentor assessments [reflect the student’s] experiences and becomes a self-directed image of the learner.”
—Christopher E. Kalmus, president, LiveText
“EPortfolios are power-conduits for robust, proactive, expert feedback that learners crave about their work. This is the teacher’s segue from instructor to mentor. EPortfolios should improve the student experience, including chronicling student life activities, developing career portfolios, enhancing internship/experiential learning and engaging alumni relations.”
—Geoff Irvine, CEO, Chalk & Wire
“EPortfolios are often used for competency-based assessment, which is important, of course. However, many programs fail to realize the power of using ePortfolios to help students with employability. By creating a professional identity and sharing authentic artifacts, students can greatly increase their probability of finding employment.
—Todd Narrol, assessment consultant, Foliotek
“Less common but equally powerful, ePortfolios can be used to support academic counseling. EPortfolios provide space for users to aggregate digital evidence of all they have created, achieved and mastered. Advisors no longer have to extrapolate information from a series of test scores or grade point averages.”
—Heather Hiles, founder, Pathbrite
“We see tremendous opportunities in social pedagogy, where peers, faculty, and advisors have substantive conversations on a weekly or daily basis. From community colleges to research-I universities, many are taking advantage of the incredibly rich and organic ePortfolio data to enrich student experiences, well beyond simply fulfilling accreditation requirements.”
—Jeffrey Yan, CEO, Digication
“In addition to using portfolios as a way to demonstrate academic learning outcomes, we see portfolios as a tool to help students map how their class projects, leadership experiences and other activities are real-world demonstrations of the core soft skills that employers want.”
—Moses Lee, group president, Keypath Education and cofounder of Seelio
