Hello,
During the academic year 2006/7 Blackboard's e-portfolio tool was introduced
on 13 study skills-based modules at the University of Westminster. The
modules spanned all undergraduate levels and a range of subject areas. 25
academic staff and over 2000 students were involved, with most experiencing
the use of e-portfolios for the first time. All portfolios were assessed,
and contributed to between 15 and 100% of the overall module mark. A report
is available here http://newsletter.alt.ac.uk/e_article000925026.cfm
Key challenges for us:
* Many staff identified the sharing function as potentially useful for
providing formative feedback during the construction of a student's
e-portfolio. In practice however, very few students shared the portfolio
with their tutors early enough for this to be beneficial. There may also be
a need to introduce some mid point assessment to further scaffold the
process as some students did not build their portfolios gradually instead
waiting until the last minute to compile their portfolio.
* Difficulties were expressed with regard to on-screen marking. Aside
from the obvious problem of getting used to working on-screen, several staff
experienced difficulty opening the portfolios (which were zipped files) from
CD and those using sharing as a mechanism for submission were wary of the
fact that shared portfolios could not be 'frozen' at the date of submission
(students can still make changes subsequent to the submission date).
* Several staff also stated that they would have liked to mark on-screen
by leaving text annotations at appropriate points next to the content in the
portfolio rather than compiling cumulative feedback at the end of the portfolio.
To summarise the frustations were :
* Student did not build their ePortfolio gradually and some tutors were
not able to monitor the ePortfolio as students did not share it
* Have to rely on students to share their ePortfolio with the tutor
* Comments are not flagged with alerts (so students and tutors have to
open up the ePortfolio every now and then to see if there are comments
waiting to be seen on 7.1 If you have BB 7.3 a student can see the n. of
comments next ePortfolio title, so they don’t have to open it. However the
tutors still have to open it up and go to the ePortfolio Comment area)
* Students can delete comments
* The ePortfolio cannot be “frozen” for assessment (students can
download the ePortfolio as a zipped file but this caused some technical
problems)
Advantages of using Journal LX and Team LX as ePortfolio I think could be:
1. Don’t have to rely on students sharing their ePortfolio, as the
blog/wiki is set up by the tutor and is visible/accessible from day one
2. Tutors can leave comments on individual pages/entries on the
blog/wiki so it’s easier for the students to see (still waiting for comments
alerts for the CMS ePortolio!)
3. Tutors can see when a student has modified the blog/wiki and acted
upon the tutor’s comment
4. Tutors can subscribe to the RSS feed of the blog so can monitor more
easily when a student has updated the content
5. No submission is required, the tutor choose the time and date for
which the student can/cannot edit the blog (unzipping downloaded ePortfolio
is far from ideal)
6. Tutors highlighted the fact that to see and mark a blog eportfolio
they just need to scroll the page up and down
7. Students might find editing the blog easier than putting together an
eportfolio
Kind regards
Federica
--
Federica Oradini BSc MA ODE (Open)
Senior Learning Technologist & Teaching Fellow
Technology Ehanced Learning
Westminster Exchange
Room C2.16
University of Westminster
115 New Cavendish Street
London W1W 6UW
Tel: +44 (0)20 7911 5803
Visit Connect http://connect.wmin.ac.uk
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