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Well I think you know, certainly, I’ve taken a greater
interest in the use of specific uses of e-portfolios in
particular fields and disciplines. The other part of my
scholarly work is in engineering and education so that is
certainly an area that I would like to explore further.
More recently we’ve conducted some pilots at Stanford in
graduate student e-portfolios for PhD students as well as
Masters students and I would say that there has been a
strong recognition of the value of that I think certainly
for a PhD student the first thing they will tell you ‘I am
more than my research, I am more than my data and to be
able to represent myself this way is very valuable
especially for going out on the job market.’ However at the
same time there is some fear about what to include, what
not to include. On one hand they’re eager particularly for
grad students who are not thinking about pursuing academic
careers and so on to be able to showcase their work for a
broader audience is very critical. Yet at the same time the
idea that for those who are thinking about an academic
careers there is the concern that the older, prior
generation faculty may look down upon but then some
students say ‘I wouldn’t want to work at a place where they
didn’t recognise that I had a life outside of my research.’
So I think for graduate students, for post docs, the need
for something like an e-portfolio is actually even more
critical and we’ve been in discussion with our colleagues
and our Vice Provost for education and our post doc office
about those possibilities.
Well I think students increasingly at a much younger age
really need to think about what their digital footprint is,
what is their online presence. I think certainly as our
first year students come in we encourage them to already
think about LinkedIn and we ask the question ‘if you Google
yourself what rises to the top?’ I think that’s inevitable
and I think that is just the reality of today’s day and age
and so on. I think to encourage students to be more aware
of the ramifications of anything that they might post
online. I think this is a generation more open to sharing,
doesn’t really give it much thought but to be aware of what
may continue to follow them via Google or other search
engines as they grow up is very critical. But again as I
mentioned earlier the idea of that you have a space that is
outward facing public and so on but that there could be a
space that is sort of maybe supported by the university as
part of recognising the intellectual development of
students where they can experiment they can share things
and not have a worry that it’s going to follow them for the
rest of their lives and so on I think will be increasingly
important in the name of really helping students develop
intellectually, socially, emotionally and so on.
You know ultimately I really put the onus of responsibility
on the students. That’s where I see e-portfolios having the
greatest benefit are for students and it’s something that
they really need to own. So given careful thought about
what you post online, what you choose to share and what you
choose not to share, there’s certainly work that’s part of
a course and that’s really one kind of instance and
certainly expectations for that. But beyond that how you
want to craft that story. It’s been debated do e-portfolios
make it easier to cheat or less easy because you know
everything is public and you can own it but does it make it
easier for people to copy and paste things into something
else. That is I think part of our responsibility in terms
of helping to educate students about what are the
implications so that they can make that decision
themselves. I think that is something that we all need to
be aware of in terms of what we post online so I think
that’s an ongoing, evolving sort of process that we’re all
learning about.
Well you know, my focus and interest has always been on
implementation and really creating what we’ve called a
folio thinking, a culture of e-portfolios use that includes
reflection and making connections among different kinds of
experiences. I take it as a given but the tool platforms
will change and the platforms that we have now will evolve
into something else a year from now two years from now five
years from now and so on. That for me it is inevitable. I
think how I characterise the different kinds of platforms
and solutions certainly within the university environment I
think having single sign-on or one place to go to where
it’s yet another login and password to remember that it’s
clear to both students as well as faculty and staff where
things go, where to find things. I think those are some
very real considerations and needs on the part of higher
education space. That being said if we really envision
e-portfolios as something to support life long and life
wide learning it should be something that the student owns
and for that we need to take into consideration what’s
currently part of the habits of students that they may have
their official university email account but they may also
be one Gmail quite a bit and so if they are already using
Google docs or Google sites and so on that’s an obvious
place for them to be after the leave the institution. At
the same time if the blog and they’re familiar with
WordPress that might be another place. Interestingly with
our pilot with graduate students we actually kept it open,
gave them the choice of either the institution supported
platforms or one of their own and many of our graduate
students had already purchased domain names so they already
had that in recognising the importance of their online
presence and then chose to use WordPress or Google sites
and again I’m thinking long term about where they will be
after they leave the institution.
Well it’s been a fabulous week I’ve certainly learned so
much I think from being here at Deakin and also with
interacting with you and your colleagues and everything. In
terms of understanding the Australian higher education
space relative to what I know from the United States it’s
really been a tremendous learning experience and I’m very
grateful for the opportunity to come and join you for this
time in Melbourne.