Abstract:

There is a body of evidence around the use of e-portfolios in higher education. E-portfolios can provide a repository for students to create a body of work that can be used both during their studies and post-study for recruitment purposes. E-portfolios, as a digital format professional portfolio, are becoming common tools in health professional education because of their potential to promote student responsibility for the self-regulated development of professional capabilities. This paper synthesises the process by which a health sciences faculty in a major, research-intensive New Zealand university selected and deployed an e-portfolio solution based on Bates and Poole’s SECTIONS model (2003).

In terms of selection, we:
+ Mapped the requirements identified during the recent needs assessment against each platform, prioritizing the “need to have” items over the “nice to have” ones.
+ Shortlisted two systems for piloting.
+ Conducted an evaluation survey with two pilot cohorts of both systems.
+ Liaised with our IT Services unit to ensure any selected system conformed to university security and integration requirements.
+ Debriefed with both staff from the pilot cohorts.
+ Synthesised these various data to recommend a system.

Fifty-one per cent used Chalk and Wire: 41 per cent used Foliotek and eight per cent (all staff members) used both systems. Overall, more female (91%), Nursing affiliates (69%), and students (77%)completed the survey. Most respondents’ primary device for accessing the e-portfolio platform was their own laptop (64%); an additional 20 per cent primarily used a University computer. Thirteen per cent used their own desktop computer, whilst a minority (3%) used some other sort of device. However many respondents used multiple devices to access the platform. Very few used either a smart phone or tablet to access the e-portfolio platform:this may be because we did not explicitly instruct pilot participants they could do so.

In terms of descriptive data, participants:
• Strongly preferred using an online platform over paper-and-pen
• Felt the system was reliable and fast
• Were less confident that the system made recording work
• Were mixed with respect to ease of setting the e-portfolio platform up
• Were somewhat negative about ease of use
• Were negative about whether the system facilitated teaching and learning

Students viewed the system as faster than staff did (c2 (2, n=56)=6.396, p=.04). Participants were more neutral about Chalk and Wire rather than positive (c2 (2, n=56)=8.246, p=.02).Pharmacy participants viewed whichever platform they used as more reliable (c2 (2, n=54)=6.988, p=.03), easier to set up (c2 (2, n=54)=7.512, p=.02), and easier to use (c2 (2, n=55)=6.417, p=.04) than Nursing affiliates. As well, Pharmacy affiliates more often agreed that using an e-portfolio made it easy to record work (c2 (2, n=55)=7.457, p=.02). There was also a statistically significant difference between the two programme cohorts with respect to (whichever) system facilitates teaching and learning (c2 (2, n=51)=6.656, p=.04). But in this area, while Nursing’s perception is more negative, Pharmacy’s is merely more evenly distributed across the spectrum of perceptions

Keywords:

Eportfolio, e-learning, health, nursing, pharmacy, medicine, New Zealand.