e-Portfolios @ UBC – Archive of Projects

• “My e-portfolio will help me manage change. Changes are happening quickly. I will be able to reflect on the transitions.” Learning Technology Professional Staff

• “Reflection was not embraced until we re-branded it as information processing. We learned this from the 1st year of the pilot; Science students don’t understand the concept of reflection. Information processing exercises helped lessen the amount of study-time; students realized that this process helped them learn the course content.” e-Portfolio Project lead

• “The main thing that has worked is that people are using it. A technology is successful if people don’t have to be coerced into using it, if once they are introduced to it, they are motivated to explore it on their own and even take it into new, emergent forms. And indeed, I have seen people using e-portfolios in any number of ways to solve any number of problems. In the projects I’ve been involved with, many people have been excited to go off and start their own e-portfolio. Not everyone is sold, but for those who are, the e-portfolio is an important and stimulating component of their learning.” Graduate student who supported pilot projects

• “My e-portfolio allowed me to put that extra information that you can’t share with your potential employer during the very first impression. They’re still going to look at your resume, but if they have further questions, they can always look at your e-portfolio. My e-portfolio serves as a vehicle to demonstrate my skills and knowledge.” Learning Technology Professional Staff

• “Instructors need to model e-portfolios to students, they need to be encouraged to create their own teaching portfolios. Teaching e-portfolios and student e-portfolios are connected.” e-Portfolio Project lead

• “The benefits of e-portfolios are transferable to life!” Departmental Administrator

• “Students required a lot of support to get beyond technology problems. We always underestimate the level of human support required to support something like this.” Instructional support staff

• “The most rewarding experience I’ve ever had as an instructor.” Land & Food Systems instructor

• “e-Portfolio is another learning tool that promotes a learner-centred approach through reflection. This is the leading technique in learning research right now. We need to embrace these activities, especially if UBC wants to be the ‘leading university’ of North America and the world. It fits into UBC’s Trek strategic goals.” Pathology instructor

• “The e-portfolios in the course helped broaden the scope of understanding around group learning. The students began to work together and approach learning in a team way.” Science instructor

• “We’ve used portfolios in Education for a long time. e-Portfolios are more robust. They give us a chance to do so many more things that we couldn’t do on paper. And, the level of professionalism is elevated.” Education instructor

• “Our students had too many other things to do already and saw the e-portfolio as just another assignment. They didn’t buy into it even though we changed the process in 2nd year. When students question meaning we, as instructors, will too.” Pharmacy instructor

• “We didn’t force students into an e-portfolio box or template. We really focused on folio thinking and let the process shape the e-portfolio, not the tool.” Science instructor

• “Any success in this pilot was tied directly to the work of the instructional support staff.” Land & Food Systems instructor

• “The teaching environment improved 1000% with the addition of the e-portfolio. Previously, I felt like a marker…There was no discussion and no interaction in the course. I felt disconnected.” English instructor

• “You can’t disentangle the e-portfolio from the technology at this point and the problems with the technology crushed the benefits to students.” Land & Food Systems instructor

• “A value of e-portfolios is that you can take them beyond the course. Our portfolios were bound by the technology within the course structure. The technology is a challenge as there is no campus-wide technology implementation at this time.” English instructor

• “We need to go farther to improve ways of encouraging students to be accountable for their own learning and how to integrate this with using the e-portfolio when workloads are already very heavy and neither students nor faculty have a lot of time.” Pathology student

• “The thing about reflecting I have realized recently, I have been writing a journal about my internship for the past couple of months, you just realize the growth you’ve made – it’s like, when you’re in the process of going through some sort of growth you don’t recognize it at the time because it is slow but then when you look back on things that is when you actually realize what’s changed and how different you are.” 4th year student

• “Confidentiality is a concern – is there a way to publish it and control access.” 2nd year student

• “If this is my personal reflection – how can you give me 3 out of 5?” 3rd year student

• By completing the e-portfolio, I was able to identify my strengths and weaknesses in a very tangible way. I’ve already been able to make improvements this year.” 3rd year student

• “The ability to reflect upon the past and the ability to learn from past mistakes leads to exceptional growth.” 4th year student

• “In terms of the e-portfolio project, I would say it has been a great opportunity to learn the importance of reflection. I am better able to learn from my mistakes through reflection, and I feel confident in the area of goal setting. The writing exercises were somewhat tedious, however all in all, this experience has been a positive one.” 3rd year student

• “My e-portfolio gave me a new depth of understanding of what the program is and what its goals were.” 2nd year student

• “I would rather reflect verbally than within a structured technology. The e-portfolios were too structured. Too much structure works against personal reflection. Some stuff you can’t provide evidence for.” 1st year student

• “I found it intimidating at first for everyone to see my work. But it really made me think about what I was putting out there and because so many people were going to see it I made sure that it was the best that I could do.” 3rd year student

Thanks to Karen Belfer (Coordinator of the UBC Campus Wide e-portfolio pilot projects 2003-2004) for providing us her testimonial:

The decision to submit a Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund (TLEF) grant proposal to pilot the use of e-portfolios in UBC, is the perfect example of the vision and leadership that the Office of Learning Technologies (OLT) brings to this university, but even more significant was the fact that the project received the grant; which demonstrates the university’s strong commitment to improving educational practices by exploring ways in which to enhance the teaching and learning process using technology.

I was very lucky to be asked to coordinate the project on its first year of exploration. I brought with me some experience from the design of a four year portfolio for TECHBC students, but nothing would have prepared me enough for the task I had in front of me.

A lot of work had to be done in that first year to set a framework that would support the growth of the project over the next couple of years (e.g. explore other institution’s e-portfolio practices, evaluate different system applications, develop group processes, and a community of practice).

It seems so long ago, but it was such a memorable time for me that I clearly remember how it all started…

Barbara Cambridge came to UBC to give us a two-day workshop, it was very enlightening and motivating, so much so that even people that were not directly in the project began to inquire about it and wanted to get involved.

There were a few other things that I was directly involved in doing that gave shape and became the pillars of the project:

The slogan- five words (verbs), all distinct but when they are put together “collect-reflect-evaluate-select-present” became a powerful tool that helped disseminate the purpose, and process of developing a portfolio.

The guidelines – have been used and reused by many in UBC and across the world. Simple “word” documents that were developed in my interactions with the project leads. Some described the differences between a “all selective” and an “all inclusive” e-portfolio, and others suggest scoring criteria, questions for reflection, and steps to take in the development of an e-portfolio.

The implementation of sound instructional design – when learning technologies are introduced to the classroom sometimes the focus can become the technology instead of the teaching and learning processes. In putting the attention back on the learner and the teaching, I was able to facilitate learner-centered approaches, key to successful e-portfolio implementations.

The “buy-in” from project leads, faculty, and students – many would say that the key to the successful completion of a project like this relays on the enthusiasm, energy, knowledge, and project management skills of the leader, and though I don’t disagree, I would like to add that the commitment from the people I worked with was fundamental. I feel about it so strongly that in documents I’ve written and workshops I’ve given since I put it in as a “most have” value needed for a triumphant implementation.

I learned a lot from just being a part of it all, as you can see from the above mentioned items there were many things that worked very well on the first year, but truth be told I learned much more from the things that did not work that well:

The technology and the systems – Two years ago when the pilot project started the development of e-portfolio applications was just getting some attention, the market was new and the products were young and not very flexible. At that point in time we did a very comprehensive evaluation of products available and decided to use one single application for the five pilot projects, in retrospect that was not a good idea. Even though it was based on a learner-centered decision (give learners a tool that is easy to use and offers good support), it was not the learner need and characteristic that we should have based our decision on. Most students do not mind taking on difficult tasks that allow them to be creative and express themselves, two elements missing from our chosen tool.
Over all the coordination of the pilot project was a great challenge, one that I really enjoyed and learned from. I had to opportunity to work closely with many people, I got to chair some meetings, and guide some discussions, but most of the time I followed….yes I followed the lead of an amazing group of faculty, staff, and students. I couldn’t have done it with out them.

Karen Belfer
Coordinator of the UBC campus wide e-portfolio pilot projects 2003-2004

Thanks to Bjorn Thomson for providing his testimonial and thoughts on the e-Portfolio pilot project.

What worked:

The main thing that has worked is that people are using it. A technology is successful if people don’t have to be coerced into using it, if once they are introduced to it, they are motivated to explore it on their own and even take it into new, emergent forms. And indeed, I have seen people using e-Portfolios in any number of ways to solve any number of problems. The main thing that has worked is that people are finding it achieves something useful, whether it is encouraging them to reflect, helping them get students to think about their own career arc, or helping people gather evidence to present to a promotion committee or to find a job. In the projects I’ve been involved with, many people have been excited to go off and start their own e-Portfolio. Not everyone is sold, but for those who are, the e-Portfolio is an important and stimulating component of their learning.

The challenges:

The challenge of the e-Portfolio projects has partly to do with its newness. We are often learning how to do things (and how not to) along with the participants, which is useful for us, but sometimes leaves them with important questions unanswered. For example, we still lack a compelling, systematic method of training people to do reflection well, or a rich history of e-Portfolio development to draw upon. So sometimes, we find that students are ‘reflecting’ without achieving anything more than description. Scaffolding this process for students is a necessary step and a key challenge; it needs to be easier for students to know what we expect of them, and for teachers to know how to achieve the desired objectives. We still aren’t sure whether it is e-Portfolios that are affecting student learning, or in what ways. What are the implications of using e-Portfolios in the classroom? I think we’re still learning the answer to that.

Lessons learned:

What I learned from my involvement in e-Portfolio projects was:

• The participants know best what they need; any planning should start with their needs, and needs assessments are essential.
• The simpler the e-Portfolio is and the less ‘technology’ people need to contend with, the better. People have widely disparate levels of experience with technology, and the technology shouldn’t get in the way of people’s ideas or creativity; it should enhance them.
• Clear objectives and expected outcomes are essential. Participants need to know what is expected of them and why. The outcomes also need to be perceived as useful to participants’ learning.
• Summative and formative evaluation is critical.
• Examples help people to get the ideas; show people what e-Portfolios look like, and they will usually get the idea (and do something new with it).
• Sharing can be healthy – as long as students are comfortable with sharing, having them see each other’s e-Portfolios can be advantageous, they often get ideas for their own, and are competitively spurred to ‘one-up’ each other. This competition can be healthy!

Thanks to Lynne Potter-Lord, AGSC Instructor for the e-Portfolio project (Year 1), for providing us her testimonial for the project:

“The most rewarding experience I’ve ever had as an instructor.”

Thanks to Olivia Hui, a student participated in the Agricultural Sciences project, for providing us a testimonial:

“The ability to reflect upon the past and the ability to learn from past mistakes leads to exceptional growth. I learned how to reflect better through repeated writings of journal entries and feedback from my instructors.”

“One of the things I liked about e-portfolios best is that we can actually go back and look over everything. I did notice a lot of growth in myself from my first to last journal.”

Big thanks to Martha Kinnear, a student from both the first and second year of the Pharmaceutical Sciences e-Portfolio Project, for providing us testimonial and feedback:

In terms of the eportfolio project, I would say it has been a great opportunity to learn the importance of reflection. I am better able to learn from my
mistakes through reflection, and I feel confident in the area of goal setting. The writing exercices were somewhat tedious, however all in all, this experience has been a positive one.