Virtual Portfolios in an Academic Setting
February 2, 2015 11:13 AM Subscribe
I'm asking for somebody else who's inside a university : When you were in college, were you required to keep a electronic portfolio as you completed classes? Did you keep writing samples, drawing or other artwork, or whatever artifacts were relevant to your degree, and then present them as part of the graduation process? Did the faculty judge them directly? How relevant was your portfolio to your post-graduate life, whether career or Masters/ Doctorate/ Post-Doc ?
I briefly worked at Eckerd College, which requires a writing portfolio to be submitted as a graduation requirement. It consisted of 4–5 pieces that were reviewed by a committee to ensure that everyone who graduated had some level of writing competency. Ideally, it would be submitted by the end of one's second year.
I was only at Eckerd for a year, and I didn't teach any writing-intensive courses or advise and students while I was there, so the above is pretty much the sum total of what I know about the portfolio requirement there.
posted by Johnny Assay at 11:27 AM on February 2, 2015
I was only at Eckerd for a year, and I didn't teach any writing-intensive courses or advise and students while I was there, so the above is pretty much the sum total of what I know about the portfolio requirement there.
posted by Johnny Assay at 11:27 AM on February 2, 2015
Actually, I was curious- when searching for a job, have you ever presented or been asked for an e-portfolio? What does your e-portfolio look like?
posted by swgarasu at 12:01 PM on February 2, 2015
posted by swgarasu at 12:01 PM on February 2, 2015
As a designer, yes people have portfolios, yes people use them to get jobs. Likewise when I spent about 10s being a writer and having clips. If you are a history major, I have no idea.
posted by dame at 12:06 PM on February 2, 2015
posted by dame at 12:06 PM on February 2, 2015
I was required to keep an electronic portfolio in a professional masters program. I had an assigned faculty advisor throughout the program, and it was my advisor who judged it directly. The judging was based on a rubric created by an administrator, I assume with a lot of faculty input. The rubric listed the goals of the program: that students should be able to demonstrate specific skills, reflect thoughtfully on their professional development, etc. We had to include one item in the portfolio that showed our work toward each of those goals, and write a short description of how it related to the program's goals. It was graded holistically on how well we showed the link between the work item and the goal.
The portfolio was a complete joke. For myself, and for all my classmates that I talked to about it, it took us a few hours to complete, we got perfect scores, and then it was over. It has had zero impact on anyone's professional life because the goals of the program were to make us well-rounded, but we have really specific and varying career goals, and hiring managers in our field are looking for very specific and different things. That's not to say the program itself didn't prepare us. It's just that the portfolio judging criteria were way off from anything that would be useful to us later, and there really wouldn't be a way to tailor the criteria to the goals of each student.
posted by Bentobox Humperdinck at 12:10 PM on February 2, 2015
The portfolio was a complete joke. For myself, and for all my classmates that I talked to about it, it took us a few hours to complete, we got perfect scores, and then it was over. It has had zero impact on anyone's professional life because the goals of the program were to make us well-rounded, but we have really specific and varying career goals, and hiring managers in our field are looking for very specific and different things. That's not to say the program itself didn't prepare us. It's just that the portfolio judging criteria were way off from anything that would be useful to us later, and there really wouldn't be a way to tailor the criteria to the goals of each student.
posted by Bentobox Humperdinck at 12:10 PM on February 2, 2015
In the Technical Communication and Professional Writing program for my university, there is an absolute expectation of developing a portfolio culminating in a capstone course. The portfolio is used in courses and is used by students for internship and job interviews. Those portfolios usually fall under "showcase", while the College of Individualized Studies will do a Reflective Portfolio, which is more about internal, personal development.
For my graduate program, a portfolio is a requirement for admission process to the program. The graduate committee examines the portfolio submission determining the skill sets and quality evidenced by the work.
Student portfolios have also been used in assessing programs and their outcomes as part of an internal or external review by the program/department.
In my particular field, Technical Communication, showing one's work is very important. A portfolio is considered an extension of one's resumé.
posted by jadepearl at 12:11 PM on February 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
For my graduate program, a portfolio is a requirement for admission process to the program. The graduate committee examines the portfolio submission determining the skill sets and quality evidenced by the work.
Student portfolios have also been used in assessing programs and their outcomes as part of an internal or external review by the program/department.
In my particular field, Technical Communication, showing one's work is very important. A portfolio is considered an extension of one's resumé.
posted by jadepearl at 12:11 PM on February 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: swgarasu: "Actually, I was curious- when searching for a job, have you ever presented or been asked for an e-portfolio? What does your e-portfolio look like?"
So swgarasu is the original asker -- I ponied up for her account.
posted by boo_radley at 12:12 PM on February 2, 2015
So swgarasu is the original asker -- I ponied up for her account.
posted by boo_radley at 12:12 PM on February 2, 2015
I use my LinkedIn profile to provide samples of my work. It contains slides from presentations I've done, and links to online publications where my work has been published.
If my academic program had required me to put certain things on my LinkedIn profile, however, I would have had a real problem with that from a privacy perspective. My social media presence or lack thereof should not be dictated by the university.
posted by Bentobox Humperdinck at 12:18 PM on February 2, 2015
If my academic program had required me to put certain things on my LinkedIn profile, however, I would have had a real problem with that from a privacy perspective. My social media presence or lack thereof should not be dictated by the university.
posted by Bentobox Humperdinck at 12:18 PM on February 2, 2015
Response by poster: Bentobox Humperdinck: " If my academic program had required me to put certain things on my LinkedIn profile, however, I would have had a real problem with that from a privacy perspective. My social media presence or lack thereof should not be dictated by the university."
This is pretty interesting to me. Should an e-portfolio be hosted on your own infrastructure, the schools, or a third party's? I hadn't considered that beyond expecting people to cram everything onto a flash/ cloud drive.
posted by boo_radley at 12:21 PM on February 2, 2015
This is pretty interesting to me. Should an e-portfolio be hosted on your own infrastructure, the schools, or a third party's? I hadn't considered that beyond expecting people to cram everything onto a flash/ cloud drive.
posted by boo_radley at 12:21 PM on February 2, 2015
I graduated from a Journalism and Technical Communications program nearly 20 years ago, so it was the dark ages before people usually posted these online. But the rest of my answers may help:
1. When you were in college, were you required to keep a electronic portfolio as you completed classes?
In my case, I printed out everything and pasted them up into an actual artist portfolio using, like, rubber cement.
2. Did you keep writing samples, drawing or other artwork, or whatever artifacts were relevant to your degree, and then present them as part of the graduation process?
Our portfolio score was part of our overall grade for our 400-level capstone class.
3. Did the faculty judge them directly?
I had three Journalism professors judging my work. I brought the portfolio in, we discussed each page briefly, and I answered ad hoc questions. They were most interested in the items that showed breadth (for me, both writing and graohoc design skills). They were also particularly interested in projects I'd completed outside the classroom: Ads I'd designed for the student paper, posters and press releases I'd created to promote a student performance night, an ad in a national magazine.
4. How relevant was your portfolio to your post-graduate life, whether career or Masters/ Doctorate/ Post-Doc ?
I used portfolio pieces to land my very first technical writing job. After that, I had enough professional samples to get hired at my next job without using my student portfolio. So I only used it for a few months while I was looking for my first gig, but it made me look very prepared and professional. It was very helpful.
posted by mochapickle at 12:29 PM on February 2, 2015
1. When you were in college, were you required to keep a electronic portfolio as you completed classes?
In my case, I printed out everything and pasted them up into an actual artist portfolio using, like, rubber cement.
2. Did you keep writing samples, drawing or other artwork, or whatever artifacts were relevant to your degree, and then present them as part of the graduation process?
Our portfolio score was part of our overall grade for our 400-level capstone class.
3. Did the faculty judge them directly?
I had three Journalism professors judging my work. I brought the portfolio in, we discussed each page briefly, and I answered ad hoc questions. They were most interested in the items that showed breadth (for me, both writing and graohoc design skills). They were also particularly interested in projects I'd completed outside the classroom: Ads I'd designed for the student paper, posters and press releases I'd created to promote a student performance night, an ad in a national magazine.
4. How relevant was your portfolio to your post-graduate life, whether career or Masters/ Doctorate/ Post-Doc ?
I used portfolio pieces to land my very first technical writing job. After that, I had enough professional samples to get hired at my next job without using my student portfolio. So I only used it for a few months while I was looking for my first gig, but it made me look very prepared and professional. It was very helpful.
posted by mochapickle at 12:29 PM on February 2, 2015
I'm currently a student at a community college and have used and am using ePortfolios in certain classes. The general trend is that we have to select classwork (e.g. essays, papers, discussion posts, even quizzes or tests) that exemplify our understanding of various Student Learning Outcomes. I'm not really impressed by this type of assignment; it seems more for the benefit of the faculty than for students, and is more reminiscent of an extended teacher eval than anything else. Very similar to Bentobox's answer. So far I haven't utilized any of my ePortfolios following the end of the classes for which they were created.
posted by miltthetank at 12:36 PM on February 2, 2015
posted by miltthetank at 12:36 PM on February 2, 2015
This is pretty interesting to me. Should an e-portfolio be hosted on your own infrastructure, the schools, or a third party's? I hadn't considered that beyond expecting people to cram everything onto a flash/ cloud drive.
I think the university's IT and privacy policies should address this, and might say that who owns the infrastructure doesn't matter. For me, the issue isn't whose infrastructure is it? The issue is, what right does the university have to require me to present myself a certain way in public / on the public internet? At least in my field, employers want to see things under my real, legal name on the open internet. For me, that's fine. But students who are being stalked, for example, or who are transitioning, or various other personal situations might need to not have things under their real name on the open internet.
The university is welcome to make me follow their dress code in class, format my papers to be turned in a certain way, etc. But off-campus in hiring interviews, I dress the way I think best. My actual resumes and cover letters that I submit to employers are mine to format as I will. As a student, the university could make me format the e-portfolio however they wanted as long as they treated it like a paper to be turned in to them. But if they insisted that it be presented on social media, that is a problem. I get to curate my social media presence, the same way I choose my interview wardrobe, and I control my resume formatting.
Even when a certain program (like the one I was in) sees its purpose as preparing students for jobs, and is doing its best to do that, the school always lags behind the employers in terms of understanding employer expectations. Don't require students to make publicly available today what some employers were expecting last year, and some employers don't care about, and some employers see as a slight negative. If you must do an e-portfolio, just have it be a thing students turn in to the university.
posted by Bentobox Humperdinck at 12:49 PM on February 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I think the university's IT and privacy policies should address this, and might say that who owns the infrastructure doesn't matter. For me, the issue isn't whose infrastructure is it? The issue is, what right does the university have to require me to present myself a certain way in public / on the public internet? At least in my field, employers want to see things under my real, legal name on the open internet. For me, that's fine. But students who are being stalked, for example, or who are transitioning, or various other personal situations might need to not have things under their real name on the open internet.
The university is welcome to make me follow their dress code in class, format my papers to be turned in a certain way, etc. But off-campus in hiring interviews, I dress the way I think best. My actual resumes and cover letters that I submit to employers are mine to format as I will. As a student, the university could make me format the e-portfolio however they wanted as long as they treated it like a paper to be turned in to them. But if they insisted that it be presented on social media, that is a problem. I get to curate my social media presence, the same way I choose my interview wardrobe, and I control my resume formatting.
Even when a certain program (like the one I was in) sees its purpose as preparing students for jobs, and is doing its best to do that, the school always lags behind the employers in terms of understanding employer expectations. Don't require students to make publicly available today what some employers were expecting last year, and some employers don't care about, and some employers see as a slight negative. If you must do an e-portfolio, just have it be a thing students turn in to the university.
posted by Bentobox Humperdinck at 12:49 PM on February 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Depending on portfolio type the hosting can be private or use public supported infrastructure. As an example, eFolio, has free accounts for all residents of Minnesota. It is used for internal reviews and not really available to the public. Students, in my program, work in Wordpress and we get them through setting up a site (set to their own privacy preferences) and it is up to them whether they wish to retain/maintain it. Now, as part of one course, we teach them how to use Adobe Acrobat Pro to compile a PDF portfolio to be used as part of the course and later at their discretion elsewhere.
We find that enabling students in developing methods to show their work very helpful to them. They can choose to show it in any channel they choose. You want hardcopy? PDF? Online? Social media channel management? Can be done. It is up to the student on whether they want to use it or not, but there is no excuse on not knowing how or why to use it, if they come out of our program.
posted by jadepearl at 5:18 PM on February 3, 2015
We find that enabling students in developing methods to show their work very helpful to them. They can choose to show it in any channel they choose. You want hardcopy? PDF? Online? Social media channel management? Can be done. It is up to the student on whether they want to use it or not, but there is no excuse on not knowing how or why to use it, if they come out of our program.
posted by jadepearl at 5:18 PM on February 3, 2015
This thread is closed to new comments.
Generally the school will take a random sampling of the portfolios, analyze them to determine what learning outcome(s) were achieved, and use the results as part of a report to accreditation agencies to maintain their university status.
posted by Bardolph at 11:20 AM on February 2, 2015