Executive Summary

The use of electronic portfolios for authentic student assessment is growing rapidly (Batson, 2002). Creating portfolios electronically offers a number of benefits not available using traditional paper-based portfolios. Advantages include the portability from one application or institution to another, wider accessibility of the portfolio, and the reusability of artifacts in different contexts and to create multiple portfolios. The two broad approaches to eportfolio implementation have advantages and disadvantages. Some experts advocate using generic tools (e.g., word processors, HTML editors, portable document format) to create eportfolios. Advantages to this approach include flexibility for portfolio authors to customize their portfolio to reflect their individuality and portability from one system to another. Start-up cost may also be low using this approach. However, generic tools carry disadvantages. Authors unskilled with the tools may suffer cognitive overload, producing lower quality portfolio content as they struggle to use the tools. Second, it is hard to aggregate data from portfolios created using generic tools. Finally, securing the contents of the electronic portfolios may be difficult if they are to be accessible from Internet-connected computers. Alternatives to the traditional generic tools are specialized electronic portfolio systems