This morning's post got me thinking about case studies and I realized that there's another great case study on Kapiolani Community College's use of the Open Source Portfolio and Sakai. I don't think it's been widely available so hopefully one of the three people that read this blog will find the attached PDF and share it. :-) Here's a couple of teasers:

As implementation of the rSmart Sakai CLE portfolio began two years ago, the hope was to improve student performance. But, something remarkable happened on the way to ePortfolios: In addition to student engagement in ePortfolios, faculty using portfolios were “transformed as teachers,” says Vice Chancellor Pagotto. “Very significant is what happens to the teacher in the classroom.”

“We’ve been subscribers to WebCT from the initial launch, but we’re winding up our contract and we’ll be going with Sakai”

Correction: I corrected the link to Joe's response. Thanks for pointing that out Trent.

Last month I commented on The ePortfolio Hijacked by Trent Batson. This month there's a great response written by Joe Shedd at Syracuse University. Joe is one of the leader's responsible for implementing the concepts he describes in Sakai's ePortfolio and assessment management capabilities.

I just read Trent Batson's "The ePortfolio Hijacked" in Campus Technology C-Level View. I've been collaborating with Trent on the OSP and Sakai projects since 2003 when I met him at the very first OSP community meeting I organized in Monterey Bay. His article deals with one of the most common issues we run into with ePortfolios. They mean something different to just about everyone who uses the term. Whenever I get into a conversation with someone interested in ePortfolios, the first thing I try to do is discover whether their interest falls into one of three buckets:

1. Type I - Self representation. This is like the artists portfolio. It's a composition where an individual uses online tools to construct a presentation of their work they can share with some audience.
2. Type II - Learning focused. The use of online tools that align learning activities with specific outcomes, integrate reflective activities in the process, and often extend well beyond the boundaries of a particular classroom experience.
3. Type III - Assessment focused. The focus in this category is often driven by accreditation or some other form of multi-level organizational assessment. It involves the alignment of outcomes or standards with curriculum and evidence/examples of student learning.

What I found most interesting in Trent's article is that he focuses on an important consequence of the conflation of these different meanings that often get lumped into the umbrella ePortfolio definition. The demand for accountability is driving a focus on the assessment, analysis, and reporting at the expense of the learning focused, and self-representation/ownership focused ePortfolios.

One of the things that is most interesting and exciting about the open source portfolio, part of the Sakai Collaboration and Learning Environment (CLE), is that it is focused on tying these three different ePortfolio types together. An individual can build a self-owned, self-expressive ePortfolio from the work they are already constructing in classes (Type I), projects, and extra-curricular activities. Some of these artifacts might have been constructed in response to established learning outcomes, and might include reflection (Type II). The results of these things might be aligned with multiple sets of specific outcomes defined by accreditation bodies, the institution, and individuals. This alignment connects the individual's work, with the institution's need to analyze and report on performance (Type III).

While I think the approach that ties these different activities together is important, I do agree with Trent that conflating them all into one umbrella term isn't serving us very well.

The TLTGroup is running a series that they call Fundamental Questions where they prompt leaders with thought provoking questions about IT in education and then post their recorded answers on YouTube. Our own Janice Smith is featured in a recording about ePortfolios (3 min), which have been a passion of hers as long as I've known her. Jan is in good company in this series with other recordings by leaders like Phillip Long from MIT.