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ORU Is Gearing Up For ePortfolio
By Sarah Reichle, Class of 2005
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Canadian education research company Chalk and Wire developed ePortfolio with ORU to evaluate students and programs throughout the university's departments.
"Oral Roberts University is the first higher education institution in the world to use ePortfolio and RubricMarker to collect performance data across the entire university," said Geoff Irvine, president of Chalk and Wire.
Students will upload artifacts such as writing samples, projects, or other class work that is "portfolio-worthy" to their ePortfolio. These artifacts will then document their progress according to outcomes that ORU has established. Upon graduation, students can continue accessing their ePortfolios for a small fee, making it a personal or professional portfolio.
Dr. Ralph Fagin, executive vice president for academic affairs at ORU, views this program as a promising technological step for the university.
"While electronic portfolios are becoming more common in higher education, this ePortfolio system's ability to organize data and assess students, programs, and schools across an entire comprehensive university qualifies this initiative as a cutting-edge assessment system," said Fagin.
In an article in University Business ("Can ePortfolios Connect?" May 2004) Joseph Panettieri places ORU within the ranks of other universities who are also using e-portfolio systems, such as the University of Minnesota, the University of Delaware, the University of Rhode Island, Georgetown University, and Indiana University.
Though current freshmen won't get acquainted with ePortfolio until their various instructional labs begin, the overall student anticipation seems just as positive as that of the faculty.
"I heard that ePortfolio is supposed to be helpful after school for getting a job," said Kelsey Laird, a freshman from California. "I think it's good that ORU is trying to stay on top of technology. I think overall it will be helpful."
Cara Ojeda, an ORU senior, who is president of the Education Student Association, also has a positive outlook on the program.
"The ePortfolio program serves both the students and the faculty of the university. For students, essentially you've been given your own website, and ePortfolio provides excellent research and assessment tools for faculty," said Ojeda, who was one of the first ePortfolio trainers on campus.
Ojeda, along with fellow education majors Christie White and John Warrior, developed a curriculum and PowerPoint presentations to train freshman education majors when ORU first adopted the ePortfolio system. Now that the entire freshman class will be using ePortfolio, the Academic Peer Advisors (APAs) are responsible for training the incoming freshmen on the ePortfolio system. But not only freshmen use the system.
"Students in the nursing and engineering programs began last spring. Education majors have been using ePortfolio for almost three years now," said Ojeda.
Ojeda said she thinks it was wise to integrate ePortfolio one step at a time.
"I feel that the university chose the best way for implementing ePortfolio. There will be some bumps and scrapes to start, but they'll provide excellent learning experiences to build on for the future," said Ojeda.
But so far there haven't been too many bumps or scrapes for those using ePortfolio, which Ojeda believes is a user-friendly program. According to Ojeda, so far those who have been exposed to ePortfolio are catching on quickly and having successful results.
"Between the excellent software that Chalk and Wire has provided and the university's effort to provide students with help resources—students are feeling pretty comfortable," said Ojeda. "Due in part to the excellent training provided by the APA program, freshmen are completing the training in half of the time originally anticipated," said Ojeda.
Ojeda also supports the use of the program upon graduation, and plans to use it as her personal and professional portfolio.
"ePortfolios and similar electronic programs are definitely the direction of movement in higher education," said Ojeda.
