Introduction

There are many kinds of portfolios, many kinds of learning portfolios, even many kinds of electronic learning portfolios.To avoid miscommunication, IUPUI uses this working definition for the term "portfolio."

A selection of purposefully organized objects that support learning, reflective practice, and self-presentation, as well as documentation and assessment of student learning over time and across varied learning experiences.

Students in fields from art to journalism to education have used such portfolios for decades–we've watched sympathetically as they maneuvered these unwieldy collections across campus or to job interviews. An electronic portfolio offers a highly flexible alternative with greater portability and the capacity to include many media formats in the same online "container." Faculty and other evaluators can more easily manipulate electronic than paper portfolios to assess the work of an individual student, a class, or larger groups of students across a department, school, or campus. Part of what makes the large-scale assessment feasible is use of a common platform.

The common platform IUPUI uses was developed by a national consortium that launched the Open Source Portfolio (OSP) Initiative. OSP in turn is part of the global open-source Sakai Project, of which IU is a leading member and on which IU's Oncourse is based. The full integration of ePortfolio with Oncourse means that IUPUI faculty, staff, and students can, using familiar tools:

  •    select, upload, and reflect on assignments and other "artifacts";
  •    review and provide formative feedback;
  •    perform summative evaluation with ready reference to the assignment instructions;
  •    aggregate data for program review and assessment; and
  •    create and share presentations that showcase specific skills and accomplishments.

Documentation and Help for ePortfolio functions and tools are included in Indiana University's extensive Knowledge Base (KB) for IT support. Staff in the Center for Teaching and Learning are available to consult with faculty on ePortfolio design and implementation.


IUPUI Academic Initiatives and ePort

The IUPUI Principles of Undergraduate Learning (PULs) describe the core elements of the undergraduate educational experience at IUPUI. They articulate expected general learning outcomes, recognizing that such skills and attributes permeate students' learning in their major fields of study. Because of ePortfolio's ability to organize authentic representations of and reflection about student learning across curricula, one of its primary purposes from the outset has been to help faculty members assess student mastery of the PULs.

Shortly after his arrival at IUPUI, Executive Vice Chancellor and Dean of the Faculties Uday Sukhatme issued a creative target for the IUPUI community: the RISE to the IUPUI Challenge. Based on the premise that a distinctive element of the IUPUI undergraduate educational experience is the intentional use of experiential learning to prepare students for graduate school, career, and citizenship, the RISE Initiative includes experiential learning in four categories: undergraduate research, international study, service learning, and workplace and community experiential learning. Undergraduate students are expressly challenged to include at least two of the four RISE experiences into their degree programs, and their transcripts will include notations that they have accomplished such milestones.

The RISE to the IUPUI Challenge Initiative engages students deeply in their learning and contributes to their intellectual and professional development in exceptional ways, sustained across the curriculum and co-curriculum. Each type of RISE pursuit incorporates qualified experiences, integration of knowledge, reflection, and assessment. Electronic portfolios are well suited for authentic assessment of such complex learning, and several new IUPUI projects are exploring use of the ePortfolio for the new RISE courses and related experiences.