Implementing EPortfolio Tools within Curricula: A Guide for Faculty. IDEA Paper #78

EPortfolios can showcase students' learning progression, achievements, and abilities through the purposeful collection of their work. The implementation of ePortfolios within curricula can also demonstrate institutional accountability and serve as primary evidence for accreditation. The authors explore the current available ePortfolio platforms that are utilized in academic settings. They developed a set of evaluation matrices to review current ePortfolio platforms, consisting of (a) learning activities/goals, (b) competency tracking, (c) collaboration ability, (d) access, (e) user-friendliness, (f) customization, and (g) retrospection/concept mapping. Although no ePortfolio platform satisfies all these criteria completely, each possesses individual advantages that make it uniquely useful in particular academic situations. The authors provide a rubric to guide faculty or administrators when choosing an ePortfolio platform, which considers the platform's purpose and how it will be integrated into existing curricula. [This work is supported by the Academic Innovation Funds sponsored by the Office of Academic Innovation at the University of Michigan.]