ETEC 588

Group B: Activity 1
Betsy Vela
Kerry Whitehead
Kelli Parmenter
Katie Warnick

Findings Report

Group Bs recommendation is to approach the graduate faculty as a Collective Decision. The

team findings below will be disseminated to the Provost to facilitate a decision to be made by all
the university graduate faculty.

Knowledge and Persuasion Stage

Relative Advantage

There are many benefits to using e-portfolios to assess graduate students. One of the main
benefits is that it allows the students to demonstrate and document specific learning outcomes set
out by the college. Students are able to showcase their achievements and previous work. These
two most significant benefits have trickle-down benefits. Creating e-portfolios helps students
become more critical thinkers, and enhance their writing skills. These two benefits are achieved
through student reflections. E-portfolios also help students develop their 21st-century skills
which are a necessity in today's technological world. The college has many options when it
comes to e-portfolio systems/software. The college could choose to create a system for the
students to use. The institution could opt for an open source system. With an open source
system it is free to the public; however, there are costs to support and maintain the system that
would be incurred by the institution. There is the commercial route. The college could purchase
a system/software from a vendor. A benefit to going this route is that the vendor does technical
support and maintenance. Still, yet another option is that the student chooses their platform.
There are numerous websites, such as Wix or Google Sites, that help students set up and create
their e-portfolio. No matter what the college chooses to go with, e-portfolios allow students to
show creativity and personality as they choose their artifacts and write their reflections.

Observability

Observability is easy to defend in the persuasion stage. An ePortfolio is set up for the purpose of
observing the evidence of past work. As an electronic collection of evidence that shows a
persons learning over a specific course of time, having an ePortfolio is the pinnacle of
observability. Evidence that is included for observation could be writing samples, pictures,
videos, research projects and observations. An ePortfolio can contain material evidence of one
class, one semester, or any other amount of time. It is a fabulous way to keep material together
to be seen by many people in a effective and timely manner. Being electronic, it can be saved,
stored and added to over the course of time. EPortfolios are an effective and efficient way to
store evidence of one's work.

Trialability

The concept of creating an E-Portfolio may seem like a daunting task for the novice user but its
now easier for novice users or experts to create an e-portfolio. E-portfolios can be created on any
type of smartphone, laptop, tablet or computer that has internet access and an updated operating
system. Students need an email address to begin. Some of the options to create an Eportfolio are
mobile portfolios for Apple products such as iPhone or iPads. Google, Wordpress, Bloggers, or
any free website can serve as the platform to get started. The majority of these websites have
ready made templates along with easy drag and drop features. The final product can be
previewed and always updated by logging back into their account. Trialability of e-portfolios is a
smooth experience for users of all expertise levels.

Compatibility

Comprehensive exams are popular indicator for proof of knowledge of a particular topic.
Students in the 21st century need more than just an exam to regurgitate information on. An
eportfolio is not only good for knowledge of a topic, but show that knowledge can be applied to
in a real world sense. Students learn by doing, not by circling an answer. Students will be able to
use the eportfolio in order to demonstrate their knowledge of a topic as it applies to their degree
and career path. Instead of students studying facts and algorithms that will be easily forgotten
after a test, real world application will be seen through the eportfolio. Eportfolios are also a
valuable tool in receiving true reflection of learning in a course. Eportfolios will contain the
demonstration of knowledge that is needed to be successful in their desired career path.
Therefore, eportfolios will be able to validate a learners true understanding of the material.

Complexity

As a team, we feel it is best to inspire our faculty to a collective decision. We know the
importance of eportfolio in showing the true learning of a student, but we felt that making an
authority decision would not work well with many of the faculty members. We also felt that by
making an optional decision, many faculty members would not implement the eportfolios at all,
and perhaps stick with their way of implementing the comprehensive exams. By making a
collective decision, our faculty will have a chance to have their voice heard about their worries,
concerns or enthusiasm towards eportfolios. As a team, we would love to be able to show how
successful eportfolios are in the classroom setting. In order to help persuade faculty members
into moving from comprehensive exams to eportfolios, we would find research based articles
proving the success of eportfolios. We would also like to provide examples of eportfolios as well
for the faculty to see as well. Both of these, we feel, would help inspire the staff to see the
importance of eportfolios and the many benefits of switching from comprehensive exams to
eportfolios. However, if the faculty votes not move towards eportfolios for all programs and to
keep with comprehensive exams, some faculty members may chose to move to eportfolios for
their specific program.

Implementation/Confirmation Stage Findings

What will be done to ensure that all members of the social system and their concerns will
be addressed when implementing the innovation?

Since the university faculty reacts negatively to demands and is resistant to change the Collective
Decision will allow all graduate faculty to listen to the Provosts case on why the graduate
faculty should vote to adopt EPortfolios as a uniform method of assessment.

The Provost will present the following points to the graduate faculty as a way to ensure that all
concerns of the faculty members are addressed while implementing the innovation.

All graduate faculty will receive professional development on various approved

EPortfolio systems as a means to reveal the simplicity and user friendliness (WordPress,
Google Sites, Edublogger).
Emphasize to faculty that this is a student centered approach of formative assessment and
there will be no need to administer paper based comprehensive exams.
All graduate faculty staff will receive an EPortfolio guide (hardcopy & digital access)
that delineates the expectations of graduate student portfolios as an assessment of their
learning.
Samples of exemplary EPortfolios will be made available as links for graduate faculty to
share with students.
EPortfolio Guide
Required Contents (Opening Page, Table of Contents, Coursework Evidence, etc)
Faculty assessment (Feedback, Internal verification of links, copyrights, etc)
Evaluation & Approval Departments will work together to evaluate and approve
graduate student EPortfolios.

What are some potential barriers to adoption and implementation and how will those
barriers be addressed?

One of the biggest barriers when it comes to adopting and implementing e-portfolios is time.
This includes the time that it takes to train the faculty, the time that the faculty must use to assess
the e-portfolios and the time that students must invest in the creation and updating of the
e-portfolio. The implementation of e-portfolios should be a two to three year process. Start
small and continuously add steps to build the system that is desired by the university. One way
that the university could address the training on e-portfolios is to have a coordinator on site to
help faculty and students. The coordinator could also help with implementation of e-portfolios.
In regards to the use of faculty time to assess e-portfolios, a timeline should be put into place that
will not make the assessing seem too daunting. This timeline would also be beneficial to the
students to help keep the students on track. For the resistant faculty, the coordinator could
conference one-on-one with those resistant members to help resolve the issues the faculty
member may be experiencing. Another barrier is technology needs. This includes both the
needs of the university and the technical skills that are needed for both the faculty members and
the students. The university needs to conduct a technology assessment to make sure their current
system can handle the increased traffic due to e-portfolios. Faculty members and students will
need to improve their technical skills to make implementation effective. The role of the
coordinator would be to help both stakeholders improve their skills.

What are some potential advantages to the adoption and implementation of this
innovation? How will those be put to use?

There are many advantages for adopting and implementing e-portfolios campus-wide. At the
university level, e-portfolios have advantages. E-portfolios can be integrated into university
system in place. E-portfolios can also help create consistency in the graduate program for the
university. The university does not have to use the same e-portfolio system for every graduate
program. Each program would have some flexibility in the creation of the e-portfolios and the
required elements since each graduate program is different. Faculty are another group that
benefit from the adoption and implementation of e-portfolios. E-portfolios allows faculty to
track students and their progress. One of the biggest advantages to using e-portfolios is the
portability. This is also an advantage for the student. Faculty or students can access the
e-portfolio anywhere there is an Internet connection. There are no more huge three-ring binders
that need to be maintained or huge file folders that need to be carried around. Although time can
be a barrier it can also be an advantage. In regards to being an advantage, it saves the faculty
time. As they become accustomed to using e-portfolios it can be a time-saving device in
monitoring students. Students are one the biggest groups to benefit from e-portfolios.
E-portfolios give students ownership over their own learning. Part of the ownership of their
learning is reflecting on the artifacts they included. They help students plan their academic and
career pathways. Students will be able to take their e-portfolio to a potential employer and let
them see what they have learned and gained from their college classes.

What will be done to further confirm this innovations use?

Students will be provided with an EPortfolio checklist that indicates the starting point of the
creation of their EPortfolio and guides them to the final stage of evaluation and approval. Their
EPortfolio progress will undergo verification each semester by their department advisor
(informal assessment) to ensure the students are updating their course projects in a timely
manner and are providing accurate information. A student will not be cleared to register for
additional courses until their EPortfolio progress is approved.

How will this be integrated into the system?

For new graduate students, the integration will start immediately upon entering grad school. For
those that have already taken classes, the integration will have to be adjusted to accommodate the
fact that they wont have as many artifacts in their ePortfolio as the student that has been
building theirs from the beginning of their grad school hours. Until the ePortfolio system has
been in place long enough for all grad students to have used it from the beginning, there will
need to be adjustments made to what is expected of students that have had multiple classes
before ePortfolios were adopted. This would need to be discussed and agreed upon by the
faculty. As stated before, there isnt one set way to build an ePortfolio, so each professor can
individualize what they expect to see from their particular class in a student ePortfolio.

How will this innovation be promoted?

The Provost will provide trainings to the faculty and a select few students as well. Trainings
would be led by professors that have used Eportfolios successfully in their program and students
that have used Eportfolios in their studies. Those professors and students may or may not be
from the same university. Faculty and student feedback throughout the process would be a
necessity. Faculty would need to be able to voice their concerns, fears or enthusiasm as they go
through the trainings. Also, faculty would need to be able to address their concerns as a group so
issues that may arise can be problem solved or address immediately. Student feedback would be
essential as well. Students would need to see what Eportfolios are and if they would be
something that would be beneficial in their learning and for future use.

How will the benefits/long term effects of this innovation be determined?

Data will need to be collect from students and faculty to view the satisfaction and impacts of
learning from Eportfolios. Retention of data by using Eportfolios instead of comprehensive
exams would need to be evaluated as well. Here are examples of data that would be collected
from faculty and students.

Satisfaction survey of students and faculty with comprehensive exams

Satisfaction survey of students and faculty with Eportfolios
Survey from faculty of students understanding of material with comprehensive exams
Survey from faculty of students understanding of material with Eportfolios
Students survey post-graduation success
Survey done a year, three years and five years after graduation
Compare data with post graduation of students with comprehensive exams
What will be done to prevent discontinuance?

Ensuring that everyone has had sufficient training or experience to feel comfortable using
ePortfolios will help insure the success. As students and faculty become more familiar with the
process and see the advantages of using ePortfolios, more and more professors will get on board
with the process and the product will become so beneficial that discontinuance will not even be
an option. EPortfolios are so effective in so many ways that I dont see them going away, only
becoming more perfected over time.