Our Evolution to the Digital Portfolio

by Stephen S. Rubin

Overview

In the Spring of 2004, the School of Education (SOE) faculty adopted a mandate to require that all incoming graduate students (known in the SOE as candidates) in the Fall of 2004 and beyond create an academic portfolio as a graduation requirement. This requirement is one outcome of an assessment plan that the SOE Committee on Assessment, Standards, and Practices has been working on for over two years. For most programs in the SOE, the portfolio is a novel assessment of candidates.

The portfolio requirement gives the student the choice of developing a portfolio in either a hardcopy (notebook) or electronic format. The portfolio was chosen as a key assessment unit-wide because it has the ability to capture the strengths and weaknesses of a candidate that could not otherwise be detected with a GPA score. It also creates a candidate profile that has intrinsic value for our candidates.
The required portfolio is envisioned as a tool for academic growth and not as a scrapbook of coursework.

The spirit of the portfolio is to engage candidates in reflective practice vis à vis their Adelphi experience. This is accomplished by requesting that students reflect on the items that they put in their portfolio. The items which comprise the portfolio are known as artifacts. The artifacts a candidate puts in his or her portfolio are program specific. Some programs may decide to detail the artifacts which a candidate must include, others may have the candidates choose their artifacts. There is a constant across programs however, and that is candidates must include the benchmark assignments determined by their program.

Over the past year, each program within the three departments in the SOE (Health Studies, Physical Education and Health Performance Science; Curriculum and Instruction; and Communication Sciences and Disorders) have developed key assignments tied to competencies within their program. These key assignments or benchmark assignments are embedded within various courses in each program. During this past year faculty have been designing rubrics to assess these benchmark assignments.

During the 2004-2005 school year candidates have been starting to accrue artifacts for their portfolio, but for those who elect to maintain a portfolio in a three ring binder the process has been cumbersome. The notebook portfolio can get rather unwieldy when filled with artifacts and reflections. It can also be daunting for an instructor to review and store, especially if he or she has to transfer the portfolios off-campus. Piles of portfolios can be heavy, take up much needed office space, and look rather menacing as unread stacks. If a candidate wished to create an employer portfolio in addition to the required academic portfolio, this process is more labor intensive for the candidate. The faculty of the SOE have recently seen trends at other colleges and universities to do away with these clunky and inefficient portfolios and replace them with digital portfolios, also known as electronic portfolios or e-portfolios.

So what is an electronic or digital portfolio?

An electronic or digital portfolio is simply a portfolio where artifacts are stored on electronic media versus paper or in a physical binder. Some programs within the SOE were already implementing electronic portfolios in the form of PowerPoint or on webpages housed on our own Panther server. The main concerns from faculty in using these electronic storage methods were limitations in the technology, candidates lack of competencies or understanding of the technologies, and general dissatisfaction among candidates in the desire to use these technologies. The quality of candidate work tended to suffer as its own artifact of the technology.

In the Spring of 2004, at the same time the SOE faculty moved forward on requiring portfolio assessments, the SOE Committee on Technology was thinking of ways to make the portfolio process expeditious, forward thinking, practical, and technologically capable. The Committee's desire was also to implement a consistent portfolio application across programs in the SOE by the Fall of 2005. After thoughtful consideration, the SOE decided to pilot its first third party web based portfolio application.

In Spring of 2004 there were, as is today, only a handful of nascent third party electronic portfolio applications. These applications are third party web-based, meaning that the software to create portfolios is hosted on private servers outside of Adelphi. In order to access these portfolios, the candidate uses a web browser, types in a specific URL then logs in with a username and password, not unlike BlackBoard. After a thorough review of the extant web-based e-portfolios, the SOE field- tested the Chalk and Wire web-based application. 100 accounts were distributed by seven professors in the SOE across six graduate level courses.

Some faculty were trained by a Chalk and Wire developer who visited the campus. The candidates in turn were given instruction on the use of Chalk of Wire by the trained faculty, in some cases more than once. The process was monitored throughout the semester and students were surveyed at the end of the semester as to the satisfaction with the application, process, and use of the technology. Qualitatively, while Chalk and Wire had an attractive GUI (graphical user interface), and customer support was superb, faculty felt the Chalk and Wire application fell short in real test situations in the classroom. The Chalk and Wire application is a satisfactory product in the development of electronic portfolios, attested by some users who truly enjoyed working with the program, but that it did not meet our overall needs. Nonetheless, our candidates liked the idea of an electronic portfolio.

What next?

Toward the end of the Spring semester and by early Summer 2004, the SOE Committee on Technology looked into several other portfolio applications. Because of the Chalk and Wire pilot, SOE faculty were more experienced as to what type of application could best serve our candidates. We looked at electronic portfolios from a more critical vantage. After attending demonstrations from several electronic portfolio vendors, the SOE Committee on Technology concluded the electronic portfolio application College LiveText could best meet our needs.

In the Summer of 2004, 20 accounts were distributed to two classes as part of a field test using the same requirements as Chalk and Wire. One class was at the graduate level, the other undergraduate. In addition, the faculty who were trained in Chalk and Wire were also trained in LiveText. Faculty found LiveText easy to navigate, intuitive, and powerful enough to meet the demands of individual programs. In real test situations in the classroom, only a small percentage found difficulties with the technology. As with Chalk and Wire, the major issues were with the conceptual construct of a portfolio (what artifacts do I add and how do I align them to individual standards?).

So what is College LiveText and what can a digital portfolio do?

College LiveText as noted in conversations with LiveText staff is at the very least a living (i.e., "alive" in the sense that it changes or evolves) repository of documents, hence its name. According to the College LiveText website:
College LiveText edu solutions is a suite of web-based tools that allow colleges and universities to develop, manage, and assess program and student achievements. From portfolios and coursework to assessments and accreditation data-reporting our services assist hundreds of universities in meeting these demands. As national and state accreditation agencies intensify the complexity of accreditation LiveText offers simple solutions to complex problems. (http://college.livetext.com/college/services.html)

While College LiveText offers many services identical to Blackboard, the SOE has adopted its use primarily as a repository for the electronic storage of information, an interactive assessment tool, and a vehicle for the collection of programmatic and unit-wide aggregate data. Other features which will no doubt be useful in the near future are the ability to create lesson plans using the numerous available templates, the ability for faculty to store course information and content for student and visitor access, the ability for each user to share information and resources with the LiveText community, the ability to select and view educational videos from a massive video library and a host of other features when fully explored.

Advantages of the digital environment

Scope and frequency. It's quite obvious that the vastness of an internet based electronic landscape can offer much more in terms of artifact storage, services, and interaction than a notebook or binder. A side benefit may also be the frequency at which a candidate checks his or her portfolio. Many college age students are familiar with the internet and may access their portfolio more than if their portfolio were housed in a binder, but this remains to be seen. By utilizing a web-based electronic portfolio, candidates will have the opportunity to create as many specific portfolios within the e-portfolio application. Candidates looking for employment may wish to create an employer portfolio, perhaps one for each position desired. Candidates may also create a personal portfolio (i.e., personal webpage) and share it with whomever they want. Candidates will also be able to save their portfolio to portable formats such as a CD or DVD and print out a hardcopy if desired. A major advantage of the digital environment is the ability to manipulate the environment to continually make changes.

Disadvantages of the digital environment

Cost and training. While I believe the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages, there are some clear economic differences between an electronic subscription to a website and a three ring binder, but I suppose you get what you pay for. The real issue is, is it worth it? Do I want what an electronic portfolio has to offer? As an educator in a teacher education program, I would say without hesitation, "yes," but will the students also see the benefit. This will be the key to its success.

Will faculty and candidates have the technological competence required to create a portfolio on-line, assess a candidate's portfolio, and how stable is the software and the host environment (i.e., does the application freeze? Generate error messages? etc.)? As the years pass, the SOE is most likely to see an increase in the number of new candidates who possess a high level of computer knowledge. As revealed from our field tests, we are already seeing a good number of candidates with the necessary skills to perform the operations required by an electronic portfolio (e.g., uploading attachments, scanning). Similar to the requirement of a hardcopy portfolio, the main concerns remain conceptual.

Our digital portfolio framework

The use of digital portfolios in the SOE is currently an option, however, some programs such as Special Education and Literacy have made it a requirement since Fall 2004. Faculty within these programs are currently piloting LiveText from its introduction to the assessment of candidates. Because of the potential scope of an electronic portfolio, the SOE has developed an extensive assessment system that allows for a consistent measure of evaluation across programs.

The digital portfolio allows for an authentic type of assessment, wherein the candidate submits his or her best representative artifacts and posits a reflection to show faculty that he or she has met the required competencies. The digital portfolio then allows faculty to adequately assess candidates on some constant metric.

The SOE developed and adopted a rubric with a four-point scale (Distinguished, Proficient, Basic, Unsatisfactory) that assesses candidates on the knowledge, skills, and dispositions of each of the six core values in our School of Education's conceptual framework. The six core values (our institutional standards) are, (a) scholarship, (b) reflective practice, (c) social justice, (d) inclusive community, (e) wellness, and (f) creativity and the arts. Our candidates through their portfolios will demonstrate that they have met or exceeded the required performance outcomes.

For a more in-depth discussion of our conceptual framework and candidate proficiencies, please visit the following page http://education.adelphi.edu/about/philosophy.php.

Our graduate candidates will be assessed at three points or phases in their program, (a) exploration, (b) synthesis, and (c) reflective practice. These phases in time are known as transition points, and will be assessed with a unit-wide rubric. Each program will assess their candidates at different times, but overall, the exploration phase includes the foundation courses. The synthesis phase includes the methods and capstone courses, and the reflective phase includes the clinical component (practicum or student teaching). The transition rubric is consistent across programs so the SOE can aggregate and analyze candidates' proficiencies at key steps along the way toward teacher certification.

To facilitate the review of candidate's documentation of having met program requirements, each program as mentioned earlier has developed a rubric for key assignments (benchmarks) that are tied to each program's specialized professional association (SPA) standards (e.g., Council for Exceptional Children [CEC] standards for Special Education}and our institutional standards (conceptual framework). These benchmark rubrics can be aggregated and analyzed so programs will be able to determine the strengths and weaknesses of their candidates, courses and overall program.

Qualitatively, these assessments housed in the digital portfolio will allow faculty to interact with their students as program mentors versus course-specific mentors. What faculty would be able to address is how well candidates are progressing through their program. The digital portfolio shines at enabling candidates to document their program requirements and competencies, tie courses together (i.e., applying theory to practice) while aligning their knowledge, skills, and dispositions to the NYS learning standards, SPA standards, and School of Education standards.

Where do we go from here?

The SOE Committee on Assessment, Standards, and Policies has recommended that electronic portfolios be required for all incoming candidates unit-wide starting in the Fall of 2006. Presently, programs within the SOE have the option to require electronic portfolios for the Fall of 2005. The electronic portfolio would not only be implemented for SOE graduate students, but for our undergraduates in the Health Studies, Physical Education and Health Performance Science Department and in the Scholars Teacher Education Program (STEP) Program. STEP candidates complete a 4-year Bachelor's Program in the Arts and Sciences and a one-year Master's in the School of Education leading to teacher certification. STEP candidates will be introduced to College LiveText in an orientation course as undergraduates. Health Studies, Physical Education and Health Performance Science majors will be introduced to College
LiveText early in their coursework and our graduate candidates will be introduced to College LiveText through their Foundations courses.

By the Fall of 2006, the School of Education will have the necessary mechanisms in place to start to benefit from a full evolutionary cycle of the electronic portfolio. This can best be characterized as the (a) introduction of LiveText to candidates, (b) communication with full-time and adjunct faculty coordinating benchmark assignments, (c) deciding program points in which the portfolio is assessed, (d) assessing the portfolios using standardized rubrics at the designated benchmarks and transition phases in individual programs, and (e) making programmatic changes based on the results of the benchmark and transition assessments.