Table of Contents

• Indiana
• Virginia Tech
• Syracuse – Main Campus
• U Michigan
• rSmart

ePortfolio Use Cases at IU

The following ePortfolio use cases form the primary context for establishing the near-term needs at IU:

IUPUI Principles of Undergraduate Learning

The Principles of Undergraduate Learning (PULs) are the essential ingredients of the undergraduate educational experience at IUPUI. They form a conceptual framework for all students' general education, but necessarily permeate the curriculum in the major field of study as well. More specific expectations for IUPUI's graduates are determined by the faculty in a student's major field of study. Together, these expectations speak to what graduates of IUPUI will know and be able to do upon completion of their degree.

Principle 1: Core Skills

• Written Communication
• Comprehend, Interpret, and Analyze Text
• Oral Communication
• Quantitative Analysis
• Use of Information Technology

Principle 2: Critical Thinking

Principle 3: Integration and Application of Knowledge

Principle 4: Intellectual Depth, Breadth, and Adaptiveness

Principle 5: Understanding Society and Culture

Principle 6: Values and Ethics

Courses, degrees, departments and schools need to map their portfolio components with the PULs and accreditation standards.

IUPUI Psych Nursing ePortfolio Case

The ultimate goals for the psych nursing graduate program to use ePortfolio tools to map specific course objectives for the full array of program courses to a set of national standards put forth by their professional association. Students and faculty would interact with the ePortfolio by entering into a dedicated site. Students will, primarily, submit reflections that state how they've met specific course objectives via ePortfolio's matrix tool. Reflections will be collected using a standard reflection form already included as an option with the tool. CIG coordinators will then have data sets that show how students are meeting or failing to meet course objectives and therefore national standards. This data can be organized and displayed via ePortfolio reporting mechanisms.

Because of current ePortfolio limitations, the psych nursing program will focus on merely collecting reflections from students per course. The aggregation of the course objectives at the program level will be performed manually by program or CIG coordinators. Having the ability to map between SAKAI tools such as assignments and ePortfolio would be of great benefit to the psych nursing program. Additionally, having efficient methods of administering ePortfolio at the program level would be of high value. The psych nursing program intends to ramp up the depth of usage as future enhancements allow and the application matures.

IUPUI Adult Education Capstone Project

The Adult Education Master's program has a Capstone element that currently involves collecting artifacts, writing a reflection piece for each artifact, submitting to a discussion forum and receiving feedback from peers. A student will update each reflection piece based on feedback from peers and the course facilitator(s). Upon completion of all required portfolio items, the student will create a résumé and upload everything to a drop box. ePortfolio tools can not only facilitate the current process, but enhance it.
Use Case: Misty Waters has uploaded all items from her Master of Science program in Adult Education into her My Workspace Resources. During the Capstone project, Misty is presented with a matrix that has been created by the instructor. Each cell of the matrix represents the particular requirement for the Capstone. Misty selects an artifact from her Resources list and adds the association to the appropriate cell in the matrix. She then writes a "caption statement" that reflects upon why this artifact was selected and what it means to her. Misty is in a group of students who review each of the other matrices in the group and provides feedback. After receiving the feedback from the students, Misty will make the necessary changes to her caption statement (reflection). The final piece of the Capstone project is for Misty to create a résumé and a portfolio for grading purposes and for possible distribution to prospective employers.

IUPUI Herron School of Art and Design - Integrative Department Grant

The Dept of Visual Communications within the Herron School of Art and Design recently restructured their undergraduate curriculum. As part of this process, they developed a learning matrix that maps professional standards from their accrediting organization to the IUPUI Principles of Undergraduate Learning. The new curriculum includes five required and 6 elective courses that incorporate problem-based learning and/or collaborative or service learning components culminating in a major project. The department would like to use ePortfolio to fulfill the following objectives:

• Increase the student achievement of essential competencies for professional design practice. Evaluate internally based on assessment of capstone portfolios. Evaluate externally based on professional assessment of capstone portfolios.
• Increase the student achievement of Principles for Undergraduate Learning. Evaluate based on assessment of capstone portfolios. Evaluate based on survey of IUPUI impact on alumni learning and other appropriate mechanisms.
• Provide to the IUPUI education community a curriculum model for integrated learning. Evaluate based on assessment of IUPUI American Democracy Project team, Center for Service and Learning and IUPUI Program Review & Assessment Committee.
• Provide to the design education community a curriculum model for integrated learning. Evaluate based on peer review assessment by accrediting body (National Association of Schools of Art and DSIGN) and professional association (AIGA Design Education Board).
  In order to capture student progress toward both professional standards and the PULs, some method of mapping one standard onto the other within ePortfolio is desired. In addition to making extensive use of the Matrix tool, the department will probably want to develop customized reports summarizing student work for accreditating agency.

IU Kokomo Communications Degree Program

The assessment plan is designed to track student's progress in the communication skills. Together with their advisor, students will select the learning outcomes appropriate to their goals and the requirements of the program. These student learning outcomes will be entered into the ePortfolio, giving the student and his or her advisor a visual plan for what the student needs to achieve in order to complete the degree. As the student takes courses, he or she will collect artifacts or items that serve as evidence for having achieved the various learning outcomes. The student will upload items, and reflect upon the evidence of each specific outcome.

Keeping track of your progress via ePortfolio will help you make an explicit link between classroom work and learning goals-an example of active learning. In addition, as you reflect on each item as evidence of learning, you will increasingly develop responsibility for and become advocates of your own learning-an example of depth of learning. While some student learning outcomes are required by the degree, students will also be permitted to select the outcomes that most closely fit their personal and career goals. As you will be permitted to upload artifacts of your own choosing, this approach respects diverse ways of learning and representing one's learning.

Virginia Tech Use Cases

VT Engineering

The Engineering College is looking to use OSP to collect student data to be used in accreditation of the college.  The main outcomes are based upon ABET criteria.  
Collection of student work takes place throughout students' undergraduate careers.  The current pilot is focusing on the professional standards that are part of the large ABET standard and include the following:

• Multidisciplinary Teamwork – To demonstrate that the student can work with people from a broad range of technical and social backgrounds to complete projects.
• Effective Communication
• Professional and Ethical Responsibility
• Contemporary Issues – Highlight contemporary issues in or related to engineering are those issues that may impact the student's life, career, and/or discipline.
• Global, Economic, Environmental, and Societal Impact – The student must develop engineering solutions in the context of the global, economic, environmental, and social impacts they might have.
• Lifelong Learning – Demonstrate the ability to solve the kinds of problems that will confront the world in the coming decades.  The goal is to continually develop skills and keep up with innovations in the student's field.

In addition to this accreditation need, the College of Engineering also utilizing portfolio templates to showcase engineering design projects which are graded by faculty, advisors, and external reviewers.

VT Diversity Certificate Program

In what is the most unique application of ePortfolio on our campus, the Diversity Certificate Program is using OSP as a means to collect and score student experiences.  Each experience, such as attending a lecture, rally, etc..., earns points.  Collecting enough points earns students this undergraduate certificate.  The Diversity Certificate Program is currently using OSP to collect data via coursework, service learning, community events, and leadership experience across three criteria – awareness, knowledge, and skills.  They also use the portfolio tool to create a holistic presentation of journal entries, activities, and experiences from the Diversity Certificate Program for the purpose of sharing with others in the CIG.

VT Interdisciplinary Studies (IDST)

IDST is an undergraduate program which bridges two or more minors into a single plan of study.  The Department offers programs in: Appalachian Studies, American Indian Studies, Asian Studies, Humanities, Judaic Studies, Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Religious Studies, Residential Leadership, and Women's Studies.  They needed a means to provide programmatic unity for students.   Below is a list of the goals that they are using in their matrix.

Matrix Goals:

• Multi-level, Systematic Critical Thinking
• Synthesis of Disciplinary Knowledge
• Original Research
• Multifaceted Communication
• Cultural, Political, and Legal Literacy
• Metacognitive Reflection
• Values, Ethics, and Social Justice
• Issues and Debates in Interdisciplinary Studies
• Synthesis

Coursework is collected from three IDST courses which serve as capstone experiences for students at intergral points as they progress toward the degree.  Portfolios are also be used to display information about the student, expectations, and as a synthesis of the course curriculum.
 

Use Cases at Syracuse Main Campus

Graduate School Professional Portfolios

The Future Professoriate program is using OSP to create a professional portfolio that documents academic achievements, especially those around teaching. The portfolios will display evidence of good teaching, including teaching artifacts, and reflection about their significance In the development of good teaching skills. These portfolios are developed via the creation of materials using forms, organization of materials via a series of matrices and presentation of materials via a variety of presentation templates. This structure allows the user to create a unique portfolio presentation while providing just enough structure to meet the requirements of the graduate program.

Extracurricular Student Portfolios

The department of student affairs will be using OSP to allow students to create extracurricular portfolios. These portfolios will allow students to augment their academic credentials with a demonstration of their activities in associated activities. These portfolios will use the matrix to allow students to collect and organize evidence to be presented via a presentation template.

Syracuse School of Education

Use case 1: Students submit a portfolio presentation as evidence of growth and learning several times in their program as a part of the institutional assessment system.

The School of Education will use OSP as a component of a college-wide assessment system required for NCATE accreditation. The faculty has agreed on a set of five "Proficiency Standards" that will apply to all teacher preparation programs in the college. While there are many "sub proficiencies" that will be assessed in great detail throughout the semester during coursework (using Goal Aware Courseware tools, faculty have agreed to assess student portfolios broadly, using the five proficiencies as a means to guide students to reflect on their learning and growth in each area during each semester.

Student portfolios will be required to be assessed at various stages of each program. For some programs portfolios may be assessed as often as each semester while other programs may only require a capstone portfolio review during the student's last semester.

The requirements of the assessment system dictate that faculty be able to compare student portfolio evaluations within a cohort and compare the performance of one cohort to another within a program. We are using the portfolio CIG's to represent each cohort of students in a CIG. As such, the lifetime of these CIG's span several semesters. The "SOE Proficiencies" matrix, a series of portfolio templates and scaffolding forms for structuring portfolio content will be deployed in each CIG.

The dimensions of the matrix represent the SOE Proficiencies and required assessment stages of the cohort. For any given semester, students are expected to complete the forms associated with the matrix cells in one column and generate a portfolio presentation for review. For most students, the act of creating a portfolio will be largely done during the last few weeks of the semester.

Use case 2: Students design and publish portfolio(s) to be used when seeking employment.

Students will be given access to wizards, forms and templates that will allow them establish their own set of criteria by which they wish to represent themselves and to create content to describe their abilities and skills in those areas. The published portfolio may be downloaded and/or and presented to potential employers.

University of Michigan

rSmart

Using OSP, our customers have created portfolios for a variety of different purposes. Some of these include:

*General Education
*Disciplinary Programs
*Co-Curricular Assessment
*Faculty Portfolios
*Group Projects
*Career Services

Sample Use Cases

K-12 Graduation Portfolio

Actors
The state of Rhode Island has given students the option of using a graduation portfolio to supply evidence of their mastery of state standards and criteria.
The portfolio, in combination with student coursework, is used to certify students' ability to graduate.

Current Workflow
Teachers create an assignment using the Sakai assignments tool. The assignment meets a set of state standards. They link the assignment to these state standards as "goals," using the Goal Manager Helper tool. Students upload an assignment by typing in text or uploading a file. During the assignment submission process, they are able to see all the goals to which an assignment has been linked as well as a rubric for grading the assignment in relation to these goals or standards. Teachers grade the assignment using the normal assignment tool grading schema and then assess the student's assignment according to the goals it meets. Students view their "grades" and their instructors' assessment of their performance on the goals or standards to which the assignment was linked.

Future workflow
Students upload their assignments to the matrix and reflect upon them. Instructors provide an assessment of their work.
Instructors create reports that can be accessed by teachers and school administrators as well as district and state level administrators in the Department of Education.

State level administrators assess performance of students at schools throughout the 36 school districts in the state.

University Honors Program

The University of Massachusetts Honors Program is using OSP 2.0 to assess where students in the program are developing or acquiring proficiency in the 9 areas identified by the program as requisite for graduation at UMB. Using the matrix tool, the honors faculty will work with students to provide artifacts that speak to their acquisition of competencies in a variety of different areas both inside and outside the classroom.

Honors Competencies

Written Communication
Oral Communication
Inquiry
Creativity
Cultural Awareness
Technological Proficiency
Individual Achievement
Teamwork
Leadership

Areas of Potential Inquiry, Competency Acquisition

Coursework
Lab Work/Research
Tutoring/Mentoring/Coaching
Internships
Service
Public Presentations/Conferences
Travel
Arts
Athletics

The Honors program has just begun their portfolio pilot, but plans to use the matrix to work with students on identifying their
acquisition and development of competencies and articulating how these competencies relate to their future professional and/or personal goals.