Exploring e-portfolios in a discipline specific context

Within Higher Education, e-portfolios are used to capture Personal Development Planning (PDP) activity, progression, reflection, articulation of learning and achievement. An e-portfolio can document a student’s journey from first to final year, allowing them to organise, share and showcase examples of their work with tutors and peers. This popular view of the e-portfolio is predominant in the literature; however, the creative arts offer an additional perspective based upon the long established tradition of a physical portfolio of work for employability and professional development (Art, Design and Media Subject Centre, 2006; Strivens and Ward, 2010). Barrett (2011) considers these two perspectives as the two faces of an e-portfolio (process and product) and discusses the balance between them. So how would this balance work for the creative disciplines? How might an e-portfolio complement or even replace the traditional portfolio as a means of capturing a student’s visual journey, culminating in a curated showcase for potential employers? What is the role of assessment and feedback and where would this sit? This presentation will explore these questions and consider whether e-portfolios vary in relation to the disciplinary context.

Through a consultative participatory approach (Barreteau et. al, 2010), the Learning Development team of the School of Art, Design and Architecture at the University of Huddersfield along with subject tutors of the creative disciplines evaluated the affordances of e-portfolios in the context of creative arts and explored what it means to them. It considered the role of an e-portfolio as a record of students’ achievements and a mechanism to promote themselves for employability. Data was collected through focus groups and e-portfolio events where participants discussed these topics and these were recorded for analysis. This presentation will illustrate the findings and discuss whether the use of e-portfolios is distinct within the creative arts.