Our Campus ePortfolio Project
We are a Doctoral/Research University
Our institution serves 20,000+ students (headcount).
Our campus has been working with ePortfolios for: 8 or more years
We currently use eFolio (and other solutions in past years) as our ePortfolio platform(s)
Each year 1,600-2,000 students use ePortfolio, that’s about 15% of our total enrollment.
We currently have institution_wide program(s) and/or majors actively using ePortfolio.
We currently have approximately 26-50 faculty using ePortfolios in their courses.
We currently have 1-2 full-time staff devoted to eP.
Our campus ePortfolio leadership team has 1-2 members.
Our campus leadership team is comprised of Faculty, Staff, Administration
Students do not play a significant role in support our implementation by serving as ePortfolio peer mentors and lab assistants.
We ask students to help build an ePortfolio culture on our campus by: Participating in department-focused showcase events, Sharing their ePortfolios on our ePortfolio website, Contributing to ePortfolio videos and publications
ePortfolio is used for Assessment on our campus at the:
The current scope of ePortfolio-related professional development is:
Our professional development is provided via: Short focused training workshops or webinars, Summer institutes, Sustained Seminars, Individual consultation/Dept. Level work
The focus of our ePortfolio-related professional development is:
Our campus ePortfolio initiative gathers these types of evaluation data:
Thinking broadly, the following list represents our ePortfolio program goals ranked in order of importance:
The current scope of ePortfolio use for pedagogical purposes to enhance student success at our campus is:
The maturity of ePortfolio use for pedagogical purposes to enhance student success at our campus is:
The scope of our campus’ usage of ePortfolio for assessment is:
The maturity of our campus’ usage of ePortfolio for assessment is:
Overall (thinking holistically and considering not only pedagogy and outcomes assessment but also ePortfolio culture and the scaling up process), we would place our campus is in the following quadrant:
Going deeper but limited in scale
Our Scaling Up Story
Our Scaling Up Story: SF State University
I. Current Status: (Relative scope and depth) Academic Technology supports the implementation of ePortfolios at both the undergraduate and graduate levels at SF State by partnering closely with departments to establish sustainable portfolio programs.
Student portfolios are being used for multiple purposes: 1) to document and enhance student learning; 2) provide comprehensive formative and summative assessments within programs; 3) program assessment and accreditation; 3) professional development.
In AY 09-12, the demand for ePortfolios continued to grow with approximately 1,600-2,000 accounts being issued annually and actively used for an average of two years prior to graduation by students across a range of 22 department/programs (3,000-4,000 active portfolios during students time at SF State). All accounts (supported with Academic Technology) are created through a hosted solution, MyeFolio, and have continued to be maintained for potential program accreditation purposes when requested.
Blocks of portfolio sites were licensed by Academic Technology (using CA state lottery funds) under a 3-year contract, with no cost to students. To support students and faculty, Academic Technology conducts 40-50 hands-on 90 minute computer trainings (initial and follow-up) per semester.
To what extent and in what ways does ePortfolio actually serve as a connector and a catalyst for change on your campus?
As a large decentralized campus (28,000 students, 79 programs/departments), finding connectors and catalyst for change can be challenging.
A few possibilities:
- The Metro Academies Program has been a visible success story, with a growing body of evidence around the effectiveness of high-impact practices, including ePortfolios. This is why we’ve focused our C2L research efforts around the Metro Academies Program implementation of ePortfolios.
- The ePortfolio project has begun plans to host a series of centralized events for all ePortfolio departments in the coming year.
- A revision of the General Education structure has been underway and portfolios are being explored as a way to track Gen Education.
- Academic Technology has just moved into a new centralized library office, with a faculty drop-in lab where we hope to feature some of the portfolio work.
Developmental History:
Since 2005, San Francisco State University has been building resident expertise and organizational capacity to advance efforts on the development, use, and sustainability of electronic portfolios (ePortfolios) and related support services.
Pivotal Stories/Key Stages: The project began within one graduate program and has continued to grow from “the ground up” through departmental/program implementation to 22 programs.
Below is a chart with the current distribution of active eFolio departments 2011/12.
General Education: With ePortfolios potentially being considered for General Education Assessment, SF State has provided leadership in ePortfolio assessment protocols. At a recent CSU-wide meeting (June, 2012), SF State shared two case studies of departmental ePortfolio implementation (Liberal Studies and Metro Academies) profiling ePortfolios as a high-impact practice. Liberal Studies at SF State is the largest subscriber of ePortfolios, accounting for 30% of usage from AY 2009-12. Other top subscribing programs include Child and Adolescent Development, Health Education (Metro Academies and MPH), and TESOL.
Key stages included (**=most important tipping points):
- 2005: Conducting a campus-wide needs assessment (via email to Deans/Chairs) to see how many departments were already using portfolios (of any kind).
- 2006: Small seed funding from Academic Affairs helped to build on the needs assessment and attempt to consolidate and coordinate ePortfolio growth (many departments were already using a range of portfolio solutions).
- 2006-07 Executive decision from Academic Affairs (Academic Tech) to consolidate, fund, and offer a common solution.
- 2006 **Central clearinghouse website built with reference information about ePortfolios including:
○ Information for students
○ Departments/Faculty, step-by-step processes to get started
○ One solution focus
○ Standard 90 minute training and script with resources developed
○ Capacity Building: Cross-training a group of 5 instructional designers to give eFolio workshops
- 2007 **Project coordinator time assigned and time/duties re-assigned for project assistant within Academic Technology, 2 student assistants assigned to the project
- 2008 **Primary solution chosen/training materials created (eFolio).
- 2009-2012: Academic Technology responded by semester to requests from departments, launching approximately 6 departments each year.
Deliberate Decisions for progress:
- Stopped accommodating requests for portfolios at the course/semester level, shifting exclusively to departmental/program implementation.
- Within departments, portfolios are always launched in Gateway courses and are required for completion in Capstone courses within a discipline.
- Some programs using ePortfolios in their WASC accreditation processes. Playing a leadership role in WASC's Essential Assessment Education workshops.
- Taking an active leadership role within AAC & U’s VALUE rubric development, annual conferences, and receiving 2 mini-grants related to ePortfolio work including this 3-year Connect to Learning: ePortfolio, Engagement and Student Success.
Focused on the Metro Academies Project at SF State to more closely document effective ePortfolio usage as a high impact practice.
- In the fall of 2011, due to budgetary constraints, growth was capped to serve existing projects. We are still accommodating smaller pilot requests.
Connections to Core Strategies:
Connecting to Programs: At SF State our ePortfolio initiative is built through relationships within programs and departments. We have found that it is essential to have portfolios be established within gateway courses and and required for completion.
Program Spotlight: Why ePortfolios in Metro Academies?
Overview: Metro Academies (http://metrohealth.sfsu.edu/index.html) focus on increasing college completion through a redesign of the first two years. Each Metro Academy (Metro) is a 'school within a school' giving students a personalized educational home over four semesters. Each Metro cohort of some 140 students takes two linked courses together each semester, building a strong learning community for academic and social support. Instead of taking a scatter pattern of disconnected courses, Metro students are part of a coherent program with a relevant and rigorous curriculum. Metro's student recruitment is focused on students who are first-generation, low-income, and/or under-represented. Student services are tied in to classes.
Metro students:
- Receive one-on-one support from faculty
- Develop individual education plans with an academic counselor who follows each student over time
- Receive academic advising, tutoring, access to financial aid advising and early intervention if they start falling behind.
ePortfolios in Metro
We piloted ePortfolios in Metro in 2009 and have continued to integrate for the past three years. Every student in the Metro Health and Metro STEM program (at SF State have an ePortfolio) and upload assignments and reflect upon them in both their Metro core class and their linked general education classes (additional classes are optional). Last year, we piloted using adapted VALUE rubrics to assess ePortfolios and will continue to build on the pilot this coming year. We host an ePortfolio showcase at the end of the year to give students an opportunity to present their ePortfolios to their peers and instructors.
ePortfolios in Metro are seen as an additional high impact practice in a model program with national attention and the potential to grow. The faculty learning community model provided a rich opportunity within the C2L project to introduce and integrate portfolios & leverage assessment/rubric development with specific application to GE disciplines
Our Next Steps:
Next steps for our C2L ePortfolio initiative: Deepening the C2L Project within Metro Academies at SF State and City College of SF
We have the possibility of expanding the Metro Academies project to additional undergraduate programs. The vision is to expand to 4 new departments in the next 5 years with 24% of the incoming freshman (1,000 students) being tracked into a Metro program (STEM, CAD, Health, etc.).
- Polished practice videos about teaching
- Resource center for Metro instructors
- Plans to link 1st two years of college to majors and keep portfolios going throughout all 4 years.
Campus-wide growth:
Funding! Academic Technology is at a bare bones stage & renewal of support may be jeapordized next spring.
Leadership--the top Administration (President, Provost, Deans Council) are still not fully aware of the project or it's potential.
Capacity building and stability for teams--People!
Space--a steady studio lab space to run workshops and allowing us to establish a student/peer mentoring program
Below is a graph showing growth of the project over time:
9. Ruth Cox
Thanks everyone for your helpful reflections and questions--very helpful as we edit our narrative.
I'll try to respond to the central points you've raised:
1) Course-based ePortfolios vs. Program centered: A portfolio account issued and used for 1 semester in one course is not sustainable for a campus of our size (30,000 students, thousands of courses). If a faculty member comes to us and hopes to start a pilot on behalf of a program, we have certainly accommodated the request.
We have 2 "touchpoints" for Acad. Tech sponsored training--1) Gateway course where we issue the accts. and train students/faculty, 2) Capstone where we do a "refresher" session. In most programs, students are required to upload signature assignment/artifacts over 2 years from many courses into their accounts & complete the portfolio in the Capstone.
In a perfect world, we'd envision each student at SF State being issued a "toolkit" with an email, LMS & ePortfolio account (that will live on beyond SF State). But that's not the reality yet.
2) More information about Metro Academies Program: sfsueportfolio.myefolio.com/...
This is the program we have highlighted and focused on within this C2L work.
3) Getting more executive administration attention and support: We have a new president (Leslie Wong) and a new VP for Academic Affairs who may be more receptive to learning about the project. We hope to invite the executive council to our open house this year with ePortfolio departments sharing their work.
10/02/12, 07:10 pm
8. Mikhail Valentin
Thank you so much everyone for making this such a productive discussion! As we move forward I would just like to draw emphasis on two areas in which we'd like to see some more thinking around as we move into the revision phase of the jam.
When referring to ePortfolio as a catalyst and/or connector on your campus you mention possibilities. All of these possibilities make great examples, but it would be great if we could get some more detail as to the type of connections each of these items elicit.
In your connections to core strategies, I'd really like to learn more about how your team went about building relationships within programs and departments to help establish ePortfolio in gateway courses and making it a requirement for completion.
I look forward to learning more about the great project you have underway over at SFSU as we move towards the next phase of the jam.
Best,
Mikhail
10/02/12, 03:23 pm
7. Jen Wittke
Your story is similar to ours in that you began in capstone and gateway courses and are now moving to general education. It’s impressive that you are able to lead the initiative in your system. I was struck by how you have done quite a bit with few resources. You shared models and ideas that could benefit so many of us.
I know this keeps coming up, but I’m not sure I’m (and team members) clear on what you mean about no more requests at the course level. Does that mean students only use ePortfolio in gateway courses, then in their capstone, and by choice or not at all in between? Some suggestions for revision: there are pieces in here that aren’t clear. I’m not familiar with metro academies. (I think I came across it in a previous jam, but it is difficult to remember all of the different projects on each campus.) Details about some of your programs/initiatives will make this clearer for those who aren’t familiar with all of your practices.
Jen & the Tunxis team
10/02/12, 12:50 am
6. Natalie McKnight
Hi, Thanks for such a rich scaling up story! I was fascinated by how your project in many ways is the inverse of ours at the College of General Studies, BU. You started by focusing on gateway and capstone courses and are now moving toward involving eportfolios in general education and assessment. We began using eportfolios to establish an assessment of general education courses, and we are continuing to do that, but we are broadening our emphasis to use them to enrich our capstone project and to enrich student learning in general. Clearly, for both of our campuses, our initial eportfolio projects have been a catalyst for other projects, and for possible curriculum change as well. You seem to have done a particularly fine job of using eporfolios in connecting to programs and connecting to high impact practices.
Like the others who have commented, I share your concerns about hot being able to accomodate individual faculty/course requests for eportfolios. I'm wondering if the national visibility your campus is getting through C2L will give you some leverage in getting more funding for the projects? I also was interested in learning more the Metro Academies Project and how eportfolios were being used in it to document high impact practices? And let me end by saying that, like you, we would like to see eportfolios used to document every students' college experience for all 4 years!
Thanks for your clear and detailed story!
10/01/12, 01:16 pm
5. James Stenerson
Sorry for being tardy with my comments/feedback but had some unexpected family issues this weekend.
Like Lois, David and Suzanne I wanted to comment on stopping the course level requests for e-portfolio. I enjoyed reading your comments and the feedback about this issue. I tend to side with those who feel you will be selling yourself short by not supporting individual faculty who want to use e-Portfolios. If I was a faculty member at San Francisco and my department was not an official e-portfolio department I would hope there is a way for me to get support and to launch e-portfolios with my students. Is it the budgetary constraints that caused your decision?
Like Pace having a strong commitment by administrative leadership is important and something we need to figure out. You mentioned doing a campus-wide needs assessment to the Deans/Chairs back in 2005. What was the feedback then? Reaching out may be a great way to sense the level of commitment by creating a short survey to go to Deans and Academic administrators (Provost, VP). This may also be a way to firm up the continued financial support.
Your comments on having a “centralized” e-Portfolio event for those Departments using ePortfolios is a great idea and something I will take back to the Pace team. Who will be invited? Is it intended for those Departments that are not incorporating ePortfolios?
You mentioned doing a needs assessment and I wonder if you have done any assessment of ePortfolios on student success. Again, if you can show success it will strengthen the argument for administrative commitment and financial support.
Thanks for sharing and as I wrote my comments I was highlighting what I had to take back to the Pace team since we are facing some of these issues as well. All the best and I enjoyed reading your plan.
10/01/12, 11:42 am
4. Lois Aime
You are doing a lot with little resources (as are most of us). One question I have is if you have stopped working with course requests does that not leave some faculty members who would like to be a part of the project with no place to go? I understand your reasoning but as we are still looking for as much buy-in as possible we cannot yet take that step here at Norwalk CC.
Also, have you thought about ways to gain access to your administration to make them more aware of what you are doing and how it is impacting teaching and learning?
Nice job!
09/30/12, 06:58 pm
3. David Hubert
I actually like that you've stopped accepting ePortfolio requests at the course level and are only doing so at the department or program level. That's a smart way to transition from the "pilot phase" of ePortfolio to more of an integrated implementation. And then you've followed that on with "Within departments, portfolios are always launched in Gateway courses and are required for completion in Capstone courses within a discipline." I would say that those three steps--Course-level pilots; only depts and programs; Intro and capstone requirement--constitute a model for other institutions to follow.
Just one suggestion for you narrative: You are considering using ePortfolios for Gen Ed assessment. Could you provide a little more detail about how you think you'll move forward on this?
Thanks. Yours was a great narrative!
09/29/12, 04:52 pm
2. Suzanne Topp
SFState
I thought it was quite interesting that the ePortfolios are still being used by students two years past their graduation. That is an amazing fact… and one that caught my eye.
I like the fact that ePortfolios are being considered for General Education assessment. You mention success with capstone programs. Will the general education assessment be a capstone modality or do you plan a more holistic assessment of the General Education program and student outcomes? I ask this because at SLCC, we have a holistic assessment but have been trying to get a capstone integrated into the program for the past few years.
Your deliberate decisions include “Stopped accommodating requests for portfolios at the course level”. Besides time and money, is there another reason for this? It seems that having courses be the entry point for ePortfolios for both student and teacher, it seems an interesting choice…or am I missing something?
I think, in general, I love the idea of the ePortfiolio being a “digital-physical” connector. The digital medium has been the physical bridge for many things recently (social/work communication) that is seems a logical process to use it as a physical bridge for your campuses.
I look forward to hearing more about these initiatives.
SLCC
09/28/12, 11:14 pm
1. Janey Skinner
It's great to see the progress made at SFSU and it serves as a strong example for us in the partnering community college. I see more obstacles to developing this at City College of San Francisco now, compared to two years ago when I first experimented with eFolios in a course, due to substantial reorganization underway at the college and shrinking resources, especially for things like release time. Through the partnership with State, I look forward to trying again to implement eFolios in the Metro Academy projects, but I expect that for this to spread to other courses even in the same department, much less to the college as a whole, we would need to be able to show a clear impact on student learning and achievement, and use a free app such as creating Google Sites instead of eFolios.
09/28/12, 06:59 pm