Cummings, Robert, Karen Forgette, Wendy Goldberg, Guy Krueger, and Alice Myatt. “Eportfolio Practice and Transfer of Learning Within a First‐Year Writing Program.”
Desmet, Christy, Deborah Church Miller, June Griffin, Ron Balthazor, and Robert E. Cummings. “Reflection, Revision, and Assessment in First-Year Composition ePortfolios.” The Journal of General Education 57:1 (2008) 15-30.
Dunn, J.S., Jr., Carrie Luke, and David Nassar. “Valuing the Resources of Infrastructure: Beyond From-Scratch and Off-the-Shelf Technology Options for Electronic Portfolio Assessment in First-Year Writing.” Computers and Composition 30 (2013) 61–73.
Fournier, Janice, Cara Lane, and Steven Corbett. “The Journey to Best Practices: Results of a Two-Year Study of e-Portfolio Implementation in Beginning Composition Courses.”
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Kimball, Miles. “Database E-portfolio Systems: A Critical Appraisal.” Computers and Composition 22 (2005) 434–458.
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eportfolios and composition 
Lindsay: The UGA study is interesting and offers a useful glimpse at how a Peer Institution (UGA) has implemented ePortfolios on a large scale in FYC. Their use of “emma” as a database for student work, teacher comments, and as a medium of exchange of documents is interesting but not something I think, at least at the moment, would be a valuable change for us to implement. Its main benefits seem to be that of an archive and a mechanism for collecting data on a large scale. I don’t see any real benefit to the students. Their findings (which were achieved through the portfolio but do not seem to arise from any aspect of that assignment beyond the call to revise an essay for a final grade–i.e. something that is not a portfolio specific assignment (the distinction being that you can revise a paper outside of the context of a portfolio)) that revision improved the score of about half (46%) of students, didn’t affect a quarter (25%-ish) and lowered the score of the other quarter (25%-ish) is a useful piece of evidence to consider when thinking about the benefits of portfolio assessment (but also important to note is that the improvement in student writing seems not to be dependent on the “e”–but rather the portfolio). The benefits of the “e” seem to be for the purposes of assessment and large scale data collection and analysis. In other words, the portfolio benefits the students, the “e” benefits the Composition program.
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I didn’t read the article (so take this with a grain of salt, perhaps), but I think the “e” can benefit students as well–as long as the platform they’re using is flexible. Composing/crafting the navigation of their ePortfolio requires a kind of critical thinking and synthesis that paper portfolios do not (at least not to the same degree).
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I agree, Lesley, and should have clarified that I was referring specifically to the way UGA has implemented the mandatory eportfolio requriement for all thei FYC students using their EMMA system. To me it seems like the whole program is designed to serve stakeholders other than the students (i.e. assessment people). I was reading up about University of Mississippi recently and I really like the way their program discusses eportfolio and makes use of it (they even have their teachers create one to serve as their annual review portfolio)!
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Lindsay: The second link – The Benefits of ePortfolios for Students and Faculty in Their Own Words- is an ideal document to share with faculty to promote “buy-in” to the value of ePortfolios. Reading the student reflections I had the feeling of “That’s it! That kind of self-awareness and reflection is what we should shoot for as well as a model of what “success” will look/sound like when we assess a student’s portfolio!” The Faculty reflections are even more enlightening in terms of what we can hope for / expect from students who begin to practice metacognitive reflection as it relates to their educational journeys. I love the way the Portland State U. professor refers to an ePortfolio as a STRATEGY rather than as a product. Later she calls it a SCAFFOLD which I also like and, as it relates to FYC in particular, I think this terminology is very useful as it emphasizes both the process (strategy) as opposed to the product AND the metaphor of the scaffold made me think that what we should be doing in FYC is taking more/bigger/broader responsibility for student learning by teaching them how to connect and reflect on what they are doing in all of their classes. In other words, rather than focus on the portfolio as a collection of their written work over the course of a single class, maybe we should use it as a strategy of preparing these students to learn by showing them that learning is not a passive thing that “happens” to them. I love the final section where it describes this phenomenon:
As students enter college, most do not imagine being responsible for their own learning. They believe that, somehow, teachers make them learn or, in some cases, prevent them from learning. Many even see assignments, required courses, and exams as obstacles to get around on the way to their ticket to the future–the degree. While there has been talk for many years about professors moving from “sage on the stage” to “guide on the side,” e-portfolios are developing as a teaching/learning context where this is likely to happen. The practices associated with e-portfolio–e.g., designing “authentic” assignments, using engaging and active pedagogy, periodic self-, peer- and teacher-formative assessments, and requiring students to reflect on their learning–help to move both professors and students into a teacher/learner relationship where “guiding” really works. Emphasis shifts from delivering content toward coaching and motivating students as they try to solve problems that are of genuine interest to disciplines, professions, or communities. While additional research will be completed on ePortfolios per se, there is already promise in the fact that good eportfolio programs use combination of practices already shown individually to be effective in helping students learn. (Miller & Morgaine, 2009, p. 12)
So, can we use comp and the assignments in that class to prepare students to make the most out of college no matter what their major or courses by helping them to build a scaffold (archive, etc.) that will allow them to construct the real structure (who they will be when they complete their degree)?
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Yes, indeed, Lindsay, particularly to your closing points. Part of the reflection/contextualization that we make a part of the design should clarify for the students why the skills in this core class are vital to their ongoing success as students and after graduation.
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You’re right, Lindsay. This article is short, but would help us make the case for eportfolio with other faculty. It also talks about the idea of student identity, as you mentioned in our conversation yesterday. In particular, this might be a great way for us to get to students to think about their identity as responsible adults, as scholars, as creators. Reflecting on my own early undergraduate years, I have no doubt that a lack of my sense of self in these respects was a great obstacle. And I’m very likely to use their idea of “generative interviews” as periodic collaborative exercises in the EASL room this fall.
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Note on “The Learning Portfolio: Reflective Practice for Improving Student Learning”: this article offers useful suggestions, advice, and lesson plans / instructional tools for teaching aspects of eportfolio in a class. It includes a bibliography of links for rubric creation as well as a bib of further readings on eportfolio. The source is a bit dated and the content is most useful to an instructor who is struggling to create lesson plans / activites to meet the various goals of the eportfolio: collection, self regulation, critical reflection, integration, and collaboration (as defined by Treuer and Jenson) in “Defining eportfolio”.
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