I have been representing the library on a group that is exploring the concept of e-Portfolios. This is a broad-based, campus group chaired by Wren Singer of the Center for the First Year Experience and Argyle Wade from the Office of the Dean of Students. We submitted a proposal for TEL (Technology Enhanced Learning Funding) but eventually came to agreement that TEL was not a good match for our project because we wanted to start a broad exploratory process rather than create a product (yet). This morning, we met with Aaron Brower and Mo Noonan Bischof to talk about next steps. We agreed that we would embark on a more entrepreneurial process, where different groups (e.g. Leadership Certificate) would pilot reflective/portfolio approaches and our group would try to facilitate some convergence to identify what we would like to do as a campus.
At the meeting, I also became aware of a system-level “co-curricular transcript” or “second transcript” project. To quote the Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription required or find the article in our databases): “The University of Wisconsin system might consider giving students two transcripts to send to potential employers [....] The first would show classes and grades, and the second would describe the student’s personal achievements during college, including leadership experience and volunteer service.” The group will meet for the first time tomorrow, and while commenters on the Chronicle article raised some serious concerns, it will be interesting to see how this fits with the e-Portfolio concept.
Why am I interested in all this? A portfolio where students collect examples of their work provides a great opportunity for direct assessment — what evidence can we look at to see if students are information literate? It also provides a nice bridge between reflective, individual learning and normative approaches like learning outcomes and standards. (Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe talked about this normative idea at LOEX, and I’m finding it really useful in approaching less structured projects with an open mind. There’s more to learning than learning outcomes).
