Public Group active 8 years, 9 months ago
CAT ePortfolio Subcommittee
Members of the Committee on Academic Technology ePortfolio Sub-Committee
Admins:
ePortfolio Subcommittee Response to the CUNY IT Strategic Plan
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Per our discussion at the full CAT meeting yesterday, I have attached a preliminary draft of our advisory statement regarding the item in the CUNY IT Strategic Plan that suggests an enterprise solution. This is a DRAFT. Please read Michael’s post, which was not only taken under advisement — one paragraph was taken directly from it. (Thanks, Michael.) Please feel free to delete, edit, add, or otherwise contribute in any way to this document. It’s Sunday and I really wanted to move this off my desk. Enjoy the rest of the weekend.
Attachments:
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This looks like an excellent start. I think we need some kind of firm statement (like an executive summary) right up at the beginning and the end, to reach some of the people who won’t read beyond the first sentence. I’ll take a stab at that tomorrow and post for critique.
I also think that, beyond just rejecting the statement that’s in the IT Strategic Plan, we should propose an alternative. What do we think SHOULD be said about eportfolios in there? I’ll try for something to start with on that, too–but I really hope others can chime in on that question.
Thanks for kicking this off, Barbara. We should be able to get it done quickly now.
(Oh, and you know me–I’ve never liked the preferred spelling. I’m an “eportfolio” proponent, stubbornly! 🙂 ).
Hello, from Chicago, where I first took a look at the statement and Joe’s response on the taxi ride out. I would go a little further than Joe and say that the statement should be so concise that it doesn’t need anything like an executive summary. My advice would be to begin with the last sentence of your first paragraph, briefly say why this is so, and have done.
Well, not quite. I agree with Joe that alternative phrasing is called for. Because I always sent the minutes to Lexa, and she thought at least that “eyebrow-raiser” of a first paragraph should go to the people behind the IT Strategic Plan (as a “heads-up”), I did that, saying I expected statements representing the committee’s concerns shortly, and I hoped they would be helpful in revising the problematic points in the draft.
About the spelling, I agree with Joe. I spell it ePortfolio in the minutes in deference, not just to local preferences, but to the effort of AAEEBL to promulgate that as the standard. But every time I do, I think of what Dr Johnson said about those who would control language being like those who would control the wind or the waves. We tend to simplification in such usages, and the camel-case never lasts long except in corporate branding. But that’s just by the bye.
Here’s a shot at a new opening passage, with a preface added to the key sentence George identified:
“In the past several years, ePortfolios have developed across CUNY in multiple forms. This is wholly appropriate to the most powerful underlying purpose of the ePortfolio: enabling CUNY’s students to build a stronger and more resilient academic identity. It is the consensus of this committee that an enterprise system would defeat this underlying purpose, which must be tailored to engage, retain, and evaluate learning for a diverse student population enrolled in a vast array of different programs with different goals and needs.”
Thanks for the responses, and especially Howard, for taking a stab at rephrasing. Having reflected further on the comments and suggestions, I’m wondering if it might make more sense to recast this in affirmative and positive language. Even when reading “D” and “F” student papers, if there is even a glimmer of hope, it’s always best to start off with on a positive note to enhance their receptiveness to constructive commments. “I really like that your first sentence uses the active voice and informs the reader of your very strong opinions about the subject of the assigned readings.” This usually works better, in terms of reception, than telling the student that his or her opinions are completely ignorant. Following this basic principle, I have created a third draft below that incorporates the comments by George, Joe, and Howard. If we can get consensus on the basic message, maybe one of the wordsmiths can take over.
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It is the consensus of the CAT ePortfolio Subcommittee that the underlying educational purpose of ePortfolios, which must be tailored to engage, retain, and evaluate learning for a diverse student population enrolled in a vast array of different programs with different goals and needs, poses extraordinary — perhaps insurmountable — challenges to an enterprise solution. A full decade of research on ePortfolios corroborates our own shared experience of an empirical disconnect between enterprise solutions and the compelling commitment to student engagement and participation that is at the heart of successful ePortfolio programs. The likely result of an imposed enterprise solution will be a proliferation of local solutions that leave students bewildered and confused as they meet requirements at the level of the classroom, alongside a cost-efficient ideal, but vacant, central platform.Corrected the mismatched noun and verb: Monday morning grammar problem —
Howard and I are in Oak Brook, and while I fully support the stance of the eportfolio group, just a thought…. One strong argument in favor of an enterprise solution would be transfer. If the community colleges and senior colleges have different platforms, this may impede transfer. Since we are rightfully focused on student need, I think we will need to balance the immediate needs of the student in their present course of study, with the issue of transfer and the future needs of the students.
I take your point, Barbara. I still think, with Joe, that explaining (with some buffering) the problem with the statement may not be enough. The fact is that ePortfolios get some real estate in the IT Strategic Plan. Striking the statement about an enterprise solution gives the discussion of ePortfolios no raison d’etre, at least in the ITSP; logically, that section would be stricken entirely. (The pushback we would be likely to get would then be as much about the prospect of reformatting as the need for revision.)
I think we need to think, not just of a way of sounding somewhat positive about our negative reaction to what’s proposed, but of giving the IT folks something to say about a role for them that we can consider positive. We want to see support of local solutions, not just speak against imposing an unworkable uniformity on them. Can we embrace goals of integration if not uniformity, infrastructural support and coordination if not control? Can we embrace guidelines for the protection of (and authorized access to) student work so that each program doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel? Can we accept that the growing use and importance of ePortfolios poses a special challenge to those who manage teaching and those who manage technology to work together for solutions that are both flexible and effective? (After all, sheer/mere “proliferation” is not a wholly positive goal.)
Sorry if this isn’t clear. It’s the best I can do while sitting in one of the Blended Learning Conference sessions here in sunny but frigid Illinois.
So, I took a bit of a stab (home sick today, so I hope this is coherent).
I think that the Howard and Barbara efforts so far are valuable, and I want to keep them–maybe as a second page or appendix–the “rationale” or explanation of what we need to say in terms of revisions.
But I also agree with George that those revisions are what we really need to present. If we want to have a real effect here, we need to give a real constructive alternative. And we need to acknowledge that even though a total “enterprise solution” for eportfolios would be a disaster, there are benefits (as Stephen points out) to having some sharing or commonality.
So here’s what I would propose that we propose. I tried to catch every place where eportfolio stuff appears in the draft, and provide alternate wording which might be more acceptable. (and, Barbara, I’m willing to bend on the camel-case argument if you like. But I don’t like the way they say “E-portfolio” in the singular all the time. That just reads weird. Anyway, I’m just going to paste here–not do a Word attachment. Hope the formatting works out.
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Third bullet under objectives on page 9:
Currently reads:
Identify best practices, recommend software solutions, and support requirements for an enterprise e-Portfolio solution.Revise to read:
Support campus-based eportfolio solutions by evaluating and identifying requirements for software platforms and promoting interoperability and shared technological efficiencies.
Eportfolio section on page 11:Currently reads:
CUNY campuses continue to strive to find new ways of capturing
both student and faculty work in web-based interactive formats, such as e-Portfolio. E-Portfolio enables students and faculty to preserve and present the work done through their academic careers, discover cross-curricular connections, engage in reflective self-assessments and present their work to others. Students can create and customize portfolios for academic, career, or personal uses; maintain their plan of study; and share their work, goals, and achievements with advisors, career counselors and employers. Faculty, departments, and institutions can also create portfolio assignments. Assessment committees can randomly select portfolios, score them with rubrics and generate assessment reports. Since several campuses are in the process of piloting or considering e-Portfolio, there is strategic value in assessing whether an e-Portfolio solution can provide cost efficiencies and value at an enterprise level.Revise to read:
CUNY campuses continue to strive to find new ways of capturing
both student and faculty work in web-based interactive formats, such as eportfolios. Eportfolios enable students and faculty to preserve and present the work done through their academic careers, discover cross-curricular connections, engage in reflective self-assessments and present their work to others. Students can create and customize eportfolios for academic, career, or personal uses; maintain their plan of study; and share their work, goals, and achievements with advisors, career counselors, employers and others. Faculty, programs, departments, and institutions can also create eportfolio assignments. Among other assessment strategies, assessment committees can randomly select portfolios, score them with rubrics and generate assessment reports. Since many campuses are in the process of implementing, piloting or considering eportfolios, and since CUNY experience and over a decade of research indicates that eportfolio solutions must be tailored to meet the specific needs of specific campuses, programs, and students, we will work to support flexible and independent campus-based solutions, while striving to also promote interoperability and shared standards, and to leverage economies and efficiencies of scale where possible.
Fourth element in table on page 32.Currently reads:
Indentify software solutions for enterprise e-PortfolioRevise to read:
Support interoperability and efficiency for campus-based eportfolio solutions.==================================
George — If I read your message correctly, we need to go beyond the simple statement of the problem. We need to provide succinct language that could be substituted for the existing “goal” in the CUNY ITSP, language that outlines our role expectations for IT eportfolio support. This language needs to be supplemented by a brief rationale.
Thanks, Joe. Your post should now move to postion 1 in the working draft queue..
Gosh I can’t wait until we have the BuddyPress Docs feature to support our discussion of this statement!
I echo George and Joe’s thoughts that we have to do our best to put in IT’s hands what we would like them to do, not just what we don’t want them to do. Working from Joe’s suggestions I thought we might want to focus the statement at the end of page 11 on research. I might make sense to propose that determining an enterprise solution in the short term is not practical as the practice eportfolio continues to evolve in lots of different ways.
Joe’s current suggestion for last few sentences of page 11:
Since many campuses are in the process of implementing, piloting or considering eportfolios, and since CUNY experience and over a decade of research indicates that eportfolio solutions must be tailored to meet the specific needs of specific campuses, programs, and students, we will work to support flexible and independent campus-based solutions, while striving to also promote interoperability and shared standards, and to leverage economies and efficiencies of scale where possible.
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Suggested changes for end of page 11.
Many campuses are in the process of implementing, piloting or considering eportfolios. CUNY experience and research indicates that specific eportfolio technologies must be tailored to support the diverse uses of eportfolio meeting the needs of campuses, programs, and students. We will work to support flexible, independent campus-based eportfolio practice research, while striving to also promote interoperability and shared standards, and to leverage economies and efficiencies of scale where possible.
I have combined the response from Joe and Michael and made just a few minor edits. These are also attached as a Word document. Maybe I have a different version, but the page numbers on the document I have do not match the page numbers that Joe and Michael provided.
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Third bullet under objectives on page 5 (9 in Joe’s posting):
Currently reads:
Identify best practices, recommend software solutions, and support requirements for an enterprise e-Portfolio solution.
Revise to read:
Support campus-based eportfolio solutions by evaluating and identifying requirements for software platforms and promoting interoperability and shared technological efficiencies.
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Eportfolio section on page 6 (11 in Joe and Michael’s posting):
Currently reads:
CUNY campuses continue to strive to find new ways of capturing both student and faculty work in web-based interactive formats, such as e-Portfolio. E-Portfolio enables students and faculty to preserve and present the work done through their academic careers, discover cross-curricular connections, engage in reflective self-assessments and present their work to others. Students can create and customize portfolios for academic, career, or personal uses; maintain their plan of study; and share their work, goals, and achievements with advisors, career counselors and employers. Faculty, departments, and institutions can also create portfolio assignments. Assessment committees can randomly select portfolios, score them with rubrics and generate assessment reports. Since several campuses are in the process of piloting or considering e-Portfolio, there is strategic value in assessing whether an e-Portfolio solution can provide cost efficiencies and value at an enterprise level.
Revise to read:
CUNY campuses continue to strive to find new ways of capturing both student and faculty work in web-based interactive formats, such as eportfolios. Eportfolios enable students and faculty to preserve and present the work done throughout their academic careers, discover cross-curricular connections, engage in reflective self-assessments and present their work to others. Students can create and customize eportfolios for academic, career, or personal uses; to maintain their plan of study; and to share their work, goals, and achievements with advisors, career counselors, employers and others. Faculty, programs, departments, and institutions can also create eportfolio assignments. Among other assessment strategies, assessment committees can randomly select portfolios, score them with rubrics and generate assessment reports. Many campuses are in the process of implementing, piloting or considering eportfolios. Because the CUNY experience and over a decade of research indicates that eportfolio solutions must be tailored to meet the specific needs of specific campuses, programs, and students, we will work to support flexible and independent campus-based solutions, while also striving to promote interoperability and shared standards, and to leverage economies and efficiencies of scale where possible.
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Fourth element in Table on p. 27 (under Teaching, Learning, and Research — 32 in Joe’s posting).
Currently reads:
Indentify software solutions for enterprise e-Portfolio
Revise to read:
Support interoperability and efficiency for campus-based eportfolio solutions.Attachments:
You must be logged in to view attached files.By George, I think we’ve got it!
Can we attach the rationale as an appendix?Thanks, Joe. In the absence of additional comments, this sounds like a plan. Barbara
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