[Barbara R. Walters, PhD – AKA Barbara Walters Doehrman]

The CAT ePortfolio subcommittee met yesterday via Go to Meeting. Members present included yours truly, Joe Ugoretz, Mariette Bates, Jennifer Sparrow, Angelique Corthals, and Howard Wach, plus Sarah Morgano. Bill Bernhardt just missed it – rushing between a Digication session at CSI and an Elluminate conference with his class in NYC.

The discussion centered on two central committee targets: (1) reporting on the upcoming AAEEBL conference, and (2) deciding on key themes and a venue for the what we began by calling “platform independent principles and procedures” and ended by referencing themes in “universal concerns.”

Angelique kicked off the conversation by questioning the possibility of anything that vaguely resemembles an idea uniformity across the colleges — even within one college — given the diversity of needs alongside her reflections on the way in which many JJ faculty might resist a platform that lacks flexibility and adaptability. The considerable commentary from Howard, Jennifer, Joe and Sarah highlighted how and why this is an important theme for our “universal concerns.” Joe suggested that rather than thinking of the platform selection as a single point focus with one solution, we might instead develop a theme around the evaluation of platforms based on a spectrum. At one end is complete customizability – at the other is a fully regimented template. Each end has its own virtues and faults.

A second key theme in “universal concerns” emerged from our discussion of the relationship between various platforms, Blackboard, CSI and individual college IT staff. Key were concerns regarding access, showcasing to audiences outside CUNY, privacy controls, and whether the vendor or the college hosts the platform. Again, there is a spectrum of options rather than a single vanishing point; however, there is near universal agreement on the need for a platform that is independent from Blackboard.

A third topic that emerged from the discussion drew together two seemingly unrelated themes: ADA compliance and intellectual property. Mariette raised a number of important considerations both for CAT and as items to consider as she develops an ePortfolio project for faculty in the SPS Disability Studies program. Her questions led to a more general theme: “Employability” and back then to both the AAEEBL conference program — with an eye toward sessions focused on professional and employment ePortfolio presentations. Sarah offered to look up and attend some of the sessions from other health professionals if Mariette is unable to get to the AAEEBL conference on Wednesday.

Both Jennifer and Mariette raised questions regarding student control over their own ePortfolio, especially as this concerns privacy settings, as well as other key themes in teaching and learning and in assessment. Especially important is faculty development and student participation.

On that note, we turned out attention to the first item: reporting on the AAEEBL conference, ensuring that we try to “spread out” while at the same time having the freedom to attend what most interests us. Howard noted that our own selection process will be similar to the process for the audience of our deliverable – mostly people will want to attend sessions relevant to their current stage of ePortfolio project development.

For the purposes of reporting on the conference each of us agreed to write a blog or blogs on the public ePortfolio group blog – this was created this morning along with a link to it on the CAT ePortfolio subcommittee blog. Toward the goal of getting started on the development of platform-independent principles and procedures, or “universal concerns,” we agreed to begin blogging in the closed environment of the CAT ePortfolio subcommittee space, fanning out to a public wiki or page in the existing ePortfolio wiki (to be created) — creating tags as we go. And, we all agree that we need to continue fleshing out the table on the existing wiki, updating information and adding details as each college makes progress.

Please feel free to add or edit these brief notes. I look forward to seeing everyone in Boston. Barbara

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