A traditional tool of artists to transport and display samples of their work, portfolios increasingly are being used by students and professionals in other fields as well.

At the University, for example, teachers pursuing master's degrees in instruction are required to assemble a portfolio that includes such items as lesson plans they have developed, examples of their students' work and demonstrations of how they inform and involve parents in their classroom activities.

Another group of UD students, seniors in an apparel design course, create a portfolio of original drawings and photos of their completed projects for faculty review. And, prospective art majors must submit portfolios showing the variety of work they have done.

For all those students, the portfolio is being transformed by technology. More and more frequently, the work samples and other written and visual material are compiled on a web site or a CD-ROM instead of as a bulky collection of papers. The use of such electronic portfolios is only expected to increase with the development of the Open Source Portfolio (OSP) Initiative, a national collaboration involving UD and other institutions.

Faculty members who are using or considering the use of e-portfolios point out that the electronic version is more portable and accessible than the traditional type, can be reviewed by several people simultaneously and is more user-friendly.

"In our college, we have a committee whose members represent all the programs or departments that have portfolio requirements," Jim Raths, professor of education in the College of Human Services, Education and Public Policy (CHEP), says. "Portfolios are more and more commonly required in higher education, and we thought we ought to work together in CHEP to take advantage of all the incredible technology available on campus."

Raths, who is coordinator of the master of instruction (MI) program, says students currently are not required to put their portfolios in electronic form. But, he says, as students try out the format and share the results with others, it's becoming increasingly popular.

One advantage this option offers MI students, he says, is that the graduate program has aligned its portfolio requirements with those of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. As a result, the MI graduates' completed CD-ROM portfolios "are designed to give them a leg up in seeking national board certification," Raths says.

For apparel design and art students, portfolios are more visual, featuring photos that show the range of their work. Again, the electronic version has significant advantages, according to Hendrik-Jan Francke, assistant professor of art. Artists and designers can photograph their work from different angles and in close-up to show portions in detail. They can update the portfolio at any time, substituting a new version of a work if they feel they have improved upon it.

And, in the Department of Fine Arts and Visual Communication, where all prospective majors must submit a portfolio for review, a
CD-ROM full of digital photos gives a much better view of the student's work, Francke says. Before the department began requiring electronic portfolios, he notes, applicants submitted boxes of slides that had to be passed around to several faculty members, who needed a light table and loupe to study them.

Even with portfolios that emphasize written material, a web site or CD-ROM often gives a better picture of a student's work, Raths says. He says MI students make use of electronic links that allow someone perusing the portfolio to move easily from subject to subject, exploring various aspects.

"The teachers' portfolios are supposed to demonstrate that they're using good educational practice in their classrooms," Raths says. "That's not always something that you can tell in a linear fashion, and the various links let teachers tell the story the way they want to."

Raths and other faculty members have met with Carl Jacobson, director of UD's Information Technologies Management Information Services, to discuss the open source initiative and how the portfolio software being developed by that collaboration might be used at the University. In addition to the master of instruction program in CHEP, prospective science and English teachers in the College of Arts and Sciences may be using e-portfolios to document their undergraduate progress and the progress of their own pupils during their student-teaching experiences.

Kate Scantlebury, associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and Joan DelFattore, professor of English, are considering the use of e-portfolios by their teacher education students. Such documentation is especially important because the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education requires universities to demonstrate that their prospective teachers have learned the appropriate material and that they are able to help youngsters achieve, Scantlebury says.

"We think portfolios will give our students maximum flexibility in documenting their development as learners and as teachers," she says. "They can continually update them, and the faculty can continually assess the contents and provide feedback. It has a lot of potential for teacher education."

Another proposed project at UD that may make use of the OSP software would enable students to earn a "Global Citizenship" certificate. The project, still in its early stages, would award the certificate to students who have participated in a number of specified activities with an international focus, according to Lesa Griffiths, director of the University's Center for International Studies.

"Because students would be doing a variety of different things--such as study abroad, international service learning or research on an international topic--we thought it would be useful for them to compile a portfolio so we could track their activities," she says. "As soon as we thought of portfolios, we immediately thought that they should be electronic."

As with other portfolios, the Global Citizenship collections could include not only written material but also photos and videos, and they could be transferred to a CD-ROM for students to use in job searches or other pursuits.

The OSP Initiative, which began at the University of Minnesota, consists of a group of individuals and organizations interested in collaborating on the development of the best nonproprietary, open source electronic portfolio code possible. The first release of the OSP was made publicly available in July 2003.