Spotlight on: April Chatham-Carpenter
ePortfolios Support Outcomes Assessment
April is an associate professor and graduate program director in the Department of Communication Studies. April teaches courses in interpersonal communication, conflict management, and research methods, as well as the liberal arts core Oral Communication course and a senior seminar course for majors in her area.
In the fall of 2006, April began on a journey to investigate how electronic portfolios (eportfolios) might be used to enhance outcomes assessment as well as a tool to benefit her students professionally. The department had been discussing their methods for assessment and was concerned with the degree to which Liberal Arts Core assessments often relied on standardized tests. They didn’t feel these tests adequately measured critical thinking, speaking and listening skills. So they began to consider additional means of assessment. Martie Reineke, then chair of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts Student Outcomes Assessment committee, had shared with her some research on portfolio assessment to support outcomes assessment. April felt this method sounded promising. So when she was invited to participate in a pilot project to experiment with the use of Blackboard Portfolio, the electronic portfolio system at UNI, the opportunity really captured her interest.
Getting Started
April first incorporated eportfolios into her senior seminar course. Previously, students in this course had been building a paper-based portfolio for professional purposes. So it seemed a natural place to begin. April thought that electronic portfolios would also provide an effective means for accessing student artifacts for assessment purposes. This first group didn’t respond well to the use of eportfolios. Even though students received training on how to use UNI’s eportfolio system, they were reluctant to use the system. When given the option to produce an electronic portfolio versus a paper-based portfolio for their professional portfolio assignment, students still chose the paper-based option. A second group of students responded similarly.
Moving Forward
Despite the somewhat disappointing first efforts, April continued to believe that electronic portfolios would be a great benefit to her students professionally and would aid in collecting student work for program assessment. So April and Lori Seawel, an Educational Technology Specialist from ITS-Educational Technology (ITS-ET), met to try to determine what might be done to achieve better results in the future. The team from ITS-ET had come to realize that students would need guidance in learning how to organize their eportfolio in addition to the training on how to use UNI’s eportfolio tool. This would require more class time dedicated to training. April and Lori thus revised their approach to the student training and April created a handout for the students, outlining a required organizational structure for her students’ portfolios. Students were instructed to set up three folders (sections): 1) Introduction to Me, 2) Major Goals and 3) Professional Skills. The Major Goals folder was used to demonstrate achievement of the department’s five goals along with their corresponding outcomes. The Professional Skills folder included artifacts and reflections to demonstrate students’ skills in areas of the student’s choice (e.g. Leadership, Writing/Analysis, Teamwork, Sales, and Public Speaking). In addition to providing guidance on how to organize their portfolio, April’s handout detailed expectations for required artifacts and reflections to be included. April’s third group responded well to the changes. April estimates that eighty percent of these students opted to develop their professional portfolios using the eportfolio tool rather than the paper-based option.
As the department continued their discussions concerning the role of eportfolios in their program, and more specifically in the seminar course, they decided to move the course earlier in the program. Beginning this semester, students will now begin collecting their artifacts for the program within their eportfolio as early as their sophomore year. April notes that seniors have a tendency to lose track of many of their digital files from prior assignments and feels that with an earlier start, the eportfolio system can also serve as an efficient means for archiving their work. With this shift, April now requires students to include a folder in the eportfolios for demonstrating achievement of UNI’s Liberal Arts Core proficiencies.
When asked to share successes concerning the use of eportfolios, April explained that the students now share so much about their experiences that she never would have learned about before. She enjoys reading the students’ reflections required with each artifact as well as the “Introduction to Me” section. Furthermore, April indicated that the process of organizing their eportfolio, along with greater emphasis on reflective writing, has assisted the students in making connections between the goals and outcomes of their major and their work. April’s excitement over the students’ work was very evident when she exclaimed, “Looking at their portfolios, who wouldn’t want to hire them?!”
While April is pleased with the role eportfolios are beginning to play within their department, she cautions newcomers to their use to be aware that, as with many technologies, perseverance is required to overcome technological glitches. Making students aware of support options is essential. She mentioned that many students complain early on about the amount of time and effort required to produce the eportfolio. But once they begin to get used to the eportfolio system and come to realize the professional benefits of an eportfolio, the complaints transform into positive feedback. April stressed the importance of structuring requirements so that the process of creating the eportfolio as well as the eportfolio itself is meaningful to the students. Students must be able to see the portfolio as a professional asset or they are not likely to put a great deal of effort into its development.
Next Steps
April’s enthusiasm for eportfolio and outcomes assessment has begun to spread to others in her department. Other faculty, teaching the same seminar course as April, have begun to incorporate eportfolio assessment. To encourage additional faculty to give it a try, last January the department took advantage of assessment mini-grants offered by the Office of Academic Assessment. This included a stipend to ten faculty for attending eportfolio training provided by ITS-Educational Technology. The department continues to have in-depth discussions about what students need to know and be able to do and the values students should develop through their experiences within the department’s programs. In addition to defining specific outcomes that differ between programs, April explained that the department as a whole needs to determine common outcomes desired for all students in the department across all programs. April also hopes to see the various programs within the department work together to develop a common approach to outcomes assessment. She feels it would be beneficial for all the department’s programs to have a common core set of goals. Then they could consider what their courses might look like to enable achievement of both the common and program specific goals. The next step would involve determining types of artifacts that might be produced within each course to document evidence that goals have been achieved. Additionally, tools would need to be developed to assess the artifacts both at the course assignment level and to serve the needs of program assessment. April also believes it would be beneficial to obtain student feedback concerning their approach to outcomes assessment. April states, “Outcomes assessment shouldn’t be feared because it’s mandated from outside. That’s not the purpose of assessment in my mind. The purpose is to improve students' learning, our teaching, courses, curriculum and to create discussions about learning across the department. Eportfolios are one way to go beyond standardized tests to measure learning.”
April mentioned that discussions concerning eportfolio assessment are beginning to take place on a greater scale across campus as well. As the University addresses the Liberal Arts Core, the topic of eportfolio assessment and the role it can play in outcomes assessment occasionally arises. April sees eportfolio assessment as a good fit with their department’s Oral Communications LAC course. She also foresees eportfolio assessment being addressed within the framework of the Foundations of Excellence project.
Advice and Resources
Although standard web pages on a web server can be used as the format for creating electronic portfolios, April has chosen to use UNI’s eportfolio system, Blackboard Portfolio. She feels it is important to provide a secure environment for students to store and showcase their work. Another advantage she sees in this eportfolio system is the ability to selectively choose which items within the portfolio each invited guest will be able to see. April also believes it would be more complicated to prepare students to organize and create a portfolio using standard web pages rather than the tools available within the eportfolio system. She also likes the integration capabilities between the online course management system (Blackboard/WebCT) and the Blackboard Portfolio system. Tools within the course management system which may be set to allow students to save an artifact to their portfolio include Assignments, Discussion, Assessments and My Grades.
April offers some words of advice for those interested in taking a closer look at eportfolio assessment. She encourages faculty who use eportfolio in their courses to engage their students, as well as their colleagues, in discussions concerning what they think students should know, do and value as it relates to their program. As a result, eportfolios will likely become more meaningful to students. With a sound understanding of the program’s intended outcomes, departments can then begin to consider what artifacts might be collected to provide evidence of student achievement.
ITS-Educational Technology offers services to support faculty and student efforts with eportfolio assessment. In addition to providing training for faculty, ITS-ET can get you started with preparing your students for working with UNI’s eportfolio system and can provide ongoing consultation and instructional design services. ITS-ET has also worked with departments who have identified outcomes to develop a sample portfolio. Email its-tnt@uni.edu with questions.
Any UNI faculty, staff or student may request a portfolio account by going to http://elearning.uni.edu/eportfolio/index.htm. If faculty wish to require students to have eportfolios for their course, they may also request portfolio accounts for their students. This can be done while requesting an online course at http://elearning.uni.edu/faculty_resources.htm (click “Request a New Course”) and select yes to “Create personal ePortfolio accounts for students…?” A request to have eportfolios created for students in a course may also be made by emailing webcthelp@uni.edu.
Email April at april.chatham-carpenter@uni.edu with questions about eportfolios and outcomes assessment. Donna Vinton (donna.vinton@uni.edu), Director of Academic Assessment, serves as a valuable resource to assist departments as they develop plans for outcomes assessment. For questions related directly to this article, email the author at lori.seawel@uni.edu.
April is an associate professor and graduate program director in the Department of Communication Studies. April teaches courses in interpersonal communication, conflict management, and research methods, as well as the liberal arts core Oral Communication course and a senior seminar course for majors in her area. 
