The U of A ePortfolio Institute Team — a student-success focused project more than two years in the making — debuted several new resources, including an ePortfolio website dedicated to helping students and faculty use the WordPress platform to build their portfolios.

Lynn Meade, team leader for the ePortfolio Institute and a teaching assistant professor on the Fulbright College Student Success team, said the project's overall goal was to "create resources so that any faculty on campus would have the tools needed to include ePortfolios in their class."

"The U of A campus has seen an explosion of ePortfolio use in the last couple of years," she added. "These initiatives are springing up all over campus, and our team tried to provide a place for these groups to share ideas and to learn from each other. We also wanted to provide informational and technical support for those interested in using ePortfolios as a learning tool."

Templates, training videos, samples and more are now available at portfolio.uark.edu.

The team who developed the new campus-wide resource included:

• Aviance Taylor, director of career education
• Angela Seawood Williams, teaching assistant professor in Fulbright College Student Success
• Ryan Calabretta Sajder, associate professor of Italian
• Curtis Maughan, director of the World Languages and Digital Humanities Studio
• Kathryn Zawisza, associate CIO, Campus Partnerships

Zawisza, who served as the team's technical adviser, said the collaborative project involved teams across campus working together "to discover the needs, create the platform and ensure that faculty, staff and students had the support to be successful."

"It is always exciting to be part of a project that directly serves one of our campus' core pillars," she added.

Another outcome of the ePortfolio Institute project was the creation of an Open Education Resource textbook, Building a Professional Portfolio, written by Meade.

The book is free to all and provides numerous resources to assist students in building their portfolio.

Eddie Watson, associate vice president for Curricular and Pedagogical Innovation for American Association of Colleges and Universities, endorsed the book, saying that it is more than just a guide.

"It is a companion in your professional journey. It empowers you to take control of your narrative, showcase your talents and open doors to new possibilities," he said.

When U of A Global Campus' Alex Dowell and Cami Wood heard about the ePortfolio Institute project, they reached out to Meade to contribute to a third outcome of the project — the Pedagogy Podcast.

"The goal of the podcast was to help faculty learn more about the benefits and barriers and the resources available to support them if they decide to use ePortfolios in their classroom," Meade said.

Two podcast episodes about ePortfolios are now available on streaming services. Their titles are Beyond a Resume, Part One: ePortfolios in Higher Education and Beyond a Resume, Part Two: ePortfolios in Higher Education.

Additionally, Fulbright College launched its first ever micro-certification and included the class Professional ePortfolios as one of the qualifying classes.

This new micro-certificate, known as The Professional Agility and Career Essential, or PACE, was designed to provide students with opportunities to develop career readiness.

To make ePortfolios available to online students, the decision was made to create an online section of Professional ePortfolios to make sure online students also have access to create ePortfolios and related experiences.

"We wanted the course to include student voices," Meade said. "So we worked with the Global Campus production team to create quality videos of students demonstrating their work."

Students Caroline Collins, Jiya Patel, Delanie Smith and Hannah Moehnke were interviewed on camera about their ePortfolios.  

Fulbright College's Assistant Dean of Student Success Deb Korth was instrumental in identifying key leaders for the ePortfolio team.

Korth said she was excited to be involved and to include "a diverse group known for being student-centered and future-oriented. We were looking for leaders who would create an actionable plan to promote ePortfolio use on our campus," she said.

Korth added that ePortfolios are also another way that students can meet their General Education Learning Outcomes.

"Our campus is committed to helping students find ways to synthesize and apply their knowledge," she said.  

Meade and Calabretta Sajder will also give a presentation about ePortfolios, hosted by the Wally Cordes Teaching and Faculty Support Center, as part of the May 3 All Faculty Reading Day Event.

"Now that we have these resources in place," Meade said, "we want to share with others how they can use the resources and let them know the potential positive impact on student learning."

The U of A ePortfolio Institute Team was part of The American Association of Colleges and Universities' ePortfolio Institute.