SIUE is beginning to plan for adoption of ePortfolios, starting with pilots in the University Honors Program (UHP) the Community-Oriented Digital Engagement Scholars (CODES) program. Since 2016, the UHP has wanted to use ePortfolios to deepen student learning, highlight student competencies, and enrich program assessment. In 2020, the UHP initiated conversations on implementation with our education technology support unit, Information Technology Services (ITS). They recommended identifying an external ePortfolio platform vendor during the 2021-2022 academic year. In the case of CODES, planning began in 2017; because the program uses digital community engagement practices, portfolios have been central to the design of CODES’ curricula and assessment practices.
Participation in the 2022 AAC&U Institute will prepare the working group to launch experimental ePortfolio pilot programs within the controlled environments of UHP and CODES. This initiative entails several discrete steps: 1) We will gather best practices and implementation strategies to make the adoption of ePortfolios as impactful as possible at the instructional, assessment, and strategic levels. Learning from other institutions that have adopted ePortfolios will enable us to avoid common pitfalls and identify productive opportunities. 2) We will establish a network of partners across campus to identity current ePortfolio users and form an advisory committee dedicated to creating a culture of ePortfolio use that engages faculty, staff, and students. This will ensure a personnel and resource infrastructure at SIUE. 3) Next we will determine viable strategies for funding and long-term sustainability at SIUE, as well as institutional support structures necessary for implementation and maintenance. 4) Our final task is to develop a plan of action and a timetable for integrating ePortfolio usage in the UHP and CODES. A strategy for introducing students and faculty to the utility of ePortfolios is essential for ensuring positive outcomes in both programs. This plan will also be designed to maximize ePortfolio effectiveness for assessment in both programs.
Project Director
Jessica DeSpain, Ph.D. is Professor of English at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and is the co-director of SIUE’s IRIS Center for the Digital Humanities. She is the author of Nineteenth-Century Transatlantic Reprinting and the Embodied Book (Ashgate, 2014). In many of her projects, she works with local citizens and middle and high school students to tell stories about their lives and communities using the medium of digital storytelling. She also directs Community-Oriented Digital Engagement Scholars (CODES), a general education opportunity for underserved students who work alongside community organizations in interdisciplinary teams to address the local manifestations of global issues. She is the leader of the ePortfolio team, and she is designg the CODES ePortfolio pilot with Meg Smith.
Project Team
Jessica Hutchins, Ph.D. is the Interim Director of the University Honors Program at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. She employs digital humanities pedagogy in her courses and is the editor of the Texaco Wiki.She is planning the Honors Program ePortfolio pilot with Zachary Riebeling and is interested in the use of ePortfolios for program assessment, student retention, as well as student identity and career development. Her research interests include relationships between narrative, identity, and social justice in literature of the African Diaspora. She received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Washington University (2014) and her M.A. in Foreign Languages and Literatures from Southern Illinois University Carbondale (2008).
Sarah Laux, Ph.D. is an Instructional Designer at SIUE and adjunct instructor in the University Honors Program. Her professional interests include experiential learning and the intentional design of curricular and co-curricular opportunities to enhance learning, engagement, and holistic development of students. She earned an M.A. in Student Personnel Administration and a Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration from Saint Louis University. She has 15 years of experience in student affairs and higher education, including classroom and online instruction.
Zachary Riebeling, Ph.D. is a Lecturer in the Honors Program, where he also coordinates the Honors service requirement. He received his doctorate in history from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2019, and he works on European intellectual history, historical theory, and the histories of trauma and waste. He is interested in the scholarship of ePortfolios and their many uses for enriching learning and engagement in honors education.
Margaret Smith is Research Assistant Professor of Digital Humanities in the IRIS Center at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. As a medieval historian, her research centers on the construction of identity and authority. Questions of identity also inform her interest in ePortfolios as a tool for students to interrogate and construct their digital identities. In the IRIS Center, she supports programs like Community-Oriented Digital Engagement Scholars (CODES) and Realizing Inclusive Student Engagement in the Digital Humanities (RISE-DH). She is collaborating with Jessica DeSpain to design and implement the CODES ePortfolio pilot.
Sarah Stover, SOAR