"Making Learning Visible": The BU ePortfolio Project
Directors: Victor Coelho (Office of the Provost), Evangeline Stefanakis (School of Education), David Whittier (School of Education)
The academic work produced by a typical student over the four-years of an undergraduate degree program is an extremely valuable body of scholarly, creative, and reflective activity, much, or all of it supervised by eminent scholars in the field. Taken together, this material constitutes an intellectual and creative profile of its author, and it has traditionally been carved up, not always delicately, for use in graduate school and job applications, as writing samples, and for personal use. What this material does not reveal is the extracurricular activities of the student—clearly a large part of the college experience—and it does not show how all of the branches of learning over the four-year experience are attached to a common trunk—in short, how the student has unified it all in a personal and professional way.
The BU ePortfolio Project, "Making Learning Visible," aims to provide all students with a site in which they will create a digital portfolio of their academic, creative, and curricular work that can be used for their professional and/or academic goals. As students become more exposed to research in the classroom as a result of a greater commitment to inquiry-based learning, ePortfolios will be crucial in documenting students’ own academic history, offering a complete picture of a student’s achievements. Moreover, as interdisciplinary programs become more embedded within the culture of the University, ePortfolio will offer an environment in which both the diversity and consolidation of the material can be showcased.
A cycle of conferences about eportfolio, open to all students and faculty, entitled "Making Learning Visible," was initiated at Boston University on 26 September 2008. Click here for more information. The second conference will be held on 8 October 2009 in the Kenmore Conference Room, One Silber Way, 9th floor, from 9-5, and will showcase the ePortfolio programs currently underway at BU.
Innovative ePortfolio projects are currently beng developed in many departments around BU, including Musicology, Music Education, the School of Public Health, the Writing Program, and in the College of General Studies and the School of Education, in addition to a pilot program underway at the BU Academy.
