A Decade of Research: Assessing Change in the Technical Communication Classroom using Online Portfolios    

Over a period of 10 years, we have developed a sustainable process of online portfolio assessment that demonstrates both reliability and validity, using both qualitative and quantitative measures. The sustainable cycle is that, each semester, we assess a random sampling of the students' work that they have posted, as per our instructions, in an online portfolio. During the reading, the faculty score the documents for 11 variables, including writing, content, audience awareness, and document design. We achieved validity by a modified online Delphi that led to a redefinition of the construct of technical communication itself; we achieved reliability by adjudication resulting in adjacent scores. The results of our assessment meet the requirements of ABET and result in a continual cycle of improvement for our technical communication curriculum. Results from three semesters show an improving correlation between the course grade and the overall, holistic portfolio score.

Johnson, Carol Siri. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2006). Academic>Portfolios>TC>Online

Portfolio

A portfolio is a collection of materials you have created. You will present five or six substantial samples of your work, each one prefaced with a statement that explains the circumstances under which you created it, as well as an analysis of its strengths and weaknesses.

Boise State University. Academic>Portfolios

Portfolios Across the Curriculum: Whole School Assessment in Kentucky  

When the Kentucky Supreme Court declared the public education system unconstitutional in 1989 and the legislature passed the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA) to revamp the existing system, we Kentucky English teachers became involved in the broadest reform ever attempted by any state in the nation. As part of the reform, a yearly state-wide performance-based assessment of each school was instituted in 1991. Along with other components, the assessment included a writing portfolio, holistically-graded by teachers in each school, that would count 14% in the total assessment.

Moore, Lizabeth and David R. Russell. English Journal, The (2001). Academic>Portfolios>Assessment

Private Literacies, Popular Culture, and Going Public: Teachers and Students as Authors of the Electronic Portfolio  

In The Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology, and the Arts, Richard Lanham suggests that perhaps those most resistant to the 'digital revolution' are members of English departments, those who are often divided between what does and what does not constitute a text. Often at the heart of this debate is the privileging of one literacy paradigm, that of print, and the marginalizing of another, primarily that devoted to the production of electronic discourse. To further complicate the issue, even when we do recognize electronic models of literacy, we tend to shape our experience, as Johnson-Eilola has so eloquently pointed out, through our nostalgia for earlier models of literacy, again, those focused on print and the printed page. It is no doubt important to teach students the ways in which rhetorical and literary texts are produced, distributed, and consumed; however, it is equally important for teachers of writing, primarily members of English departments, to acknowledge the production and consumption processes of texts external to the genres of the academy and to recognize that the essay is a printed form that admittedly for our students has little use outside the academy.

Wilferth, Joe. Kairos (2002). Academic>Portfolios>Writing

Put Your Portfolio on the Fast Track

Amongst pomp and circumstance, many graduates are hitting the pavement this spring looking for that pie-in-the-sky job at the dot-coms, design studios and graphic arts firms. Each year the Design and Publishing Center get dozens and dozens of phone calls, letters and resumes all touting the awesome talent and experience of each new crop of graduates. We tip our hats to you with a little advice.

Design, Typography and Graphics (2001). Academic>Portfolios

Using Portfolios to Help Students Navigate Across Borders  

The concept of borders provides a powerful lens for understanding the student experience in technical communication. During the educational process, our students navigate across borders between teaching and research, between theory and practice, and between nations, cultures, disciplines, and professional organizations. Asking students to think about their experiences at such borders can give rise to interesting questions, insights, and concerns. Student portfolios, developed over the course of their academic careers, provide students with a powerful mechanism for reflecting on and integrating their experiences at these borders.

Turns, Jennifer and Judith A. Ramey. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Academic>Portfolios

Using Web-Based Portfolios to Assist Technical Communication Program Development  

In 1998, the English Department at Carnegie Mellon built an Internet server (english.cmu.edu) to offer free lifetime accounts to English majors and graduate students. We did this (in part) because we had found that students in our professional programs underused campus facilities for web portfolios. Interviews revealed that many Web-savvy students felt alienated from campus Internet publishing options--which serve students while they remain students, but eliminate accounts (and remove alumni websites) soon after graduation. CMU students in professional programs are exceptionally career-oriented, and interviews revealed that they instead planned to postpone website production until they had graduated, when they could create (more) permanent websites--which often did not happen. By encouraging our students --while students--to create online portfolios which they could maintain even after graduation, we removed one of the obstacles to experimentation by our more enthusiastic students, and offered them options to integrate such work into their studies of genre,audience and accessibility. This experiment has been more successful than originally expected; students' websites are among the most popular locations on the entire server, and have led to continuing communications between alumni and faculty. This has led some of us who advised students in Carnegie Mellon's MAPW (Masters in Professional Writing) and CPAD (Masters in Communication Planning and Design) to rethink issues which arise in the creation of web portfolios.

Sauer, Geoffrey. CPTSC Proceedings (2000). Academic>Portfolios