The Association of American Colleges and Universities recently announced that Wichita State University has been selected as one of 29 institutions to participate in the 2022 Institute on ePortfolios.
“This institute is an opportunity for us to work across disciplines and areas to integrate ePortfolios more intentionally into our campus and curriculum,” said Dr. Kimberly Engber, institute team member and dean of the Cohen Honors College.
The professional development opportunity aligns with Wichita State’s strategic priorities to be a leader in digital transformation and student-centered education. Engber said that several departments currently use portfolios to meet course or program requirements, but “we haven’t engaged in a campus-wide conversation about ePortfolio strategy.”
The goals of the ePortfolio initiative are to foster student self-authorship, demonstration of learning and development, and program assessment.
“We’re considering electronic portfolios as a capstone requirement for honors students, for example, but we don’t want to make this decision in isolation from national conversations about best practices or from initiatives on our own campus,” she said.
Students may use ePortfolios to collect their work for a course or select evidence from an applied experience. An electronic portfolio typically requires reflection as well, asking students to connect learning across courses or from a course assignment to a work environment. EPortfolios are designed to integrate learning and build personal and academic identities. Faculty design and evaluate assignments within electronic portfolio systems, and the university might sample work from electronic portfolios to support program-level assessment.
Wichita State’s ePortfolio team consists of Elaine Bernstorf and Cheyla Clawson-Chandler from the College of Fine Arts; Drs. Kimberly Engber and Kevin Harrison from the Cohen Honors College; Chelsea Redger-Marquardt from the College of Applied Studies and Honors College; Carolyn Speer from Instructional Resources; and John Watkins from the College of Engineering.