Aaisha Al.

Badi (68701/06)

Fall 2009
Overview / background:

With the recent growth of the Internet and other distance technologies, web based
portfolios has become an attractive option for expanding the educational management
system which could be more appropriate to the instructor and to the learner. The
instructor dr.Alaa who taught the course of the distance education in the spring 2008
applies for the first time e-portfolio. Thus the students must submit their activities and
assignments using e-portfolio instead of submitting portfolios in CDs. They have a
home page which is uploaded on freewebs and has links to the assignments which was
uploaded previously in freewebs, blog or scribd. We conduct this survey to evaluate
the effectiveness of the e-portfolio and its effectiveness from the students' perception
and the aspects that need more consideration and emphasis when we need to apply e-
portfolio next time.

Here is a screen shoot for one of these e-portfolios:

Purpose of the study:

The purpose of this study was to:

1. Evaluate the effectiveness of web-based course portfolio.

 2. Evaluate the appropriateness and attractive of the homepage interface to the
portfolio visitors

3. Evaluate to which extant the student benefit from others portfolios

4. Reveal the difficulties that the students face in uploading and managing
their portfolios.

Method:

Context of the Study:

Our study was conducted in the learning and instructional technology

department where some students take the Distance Education & the Internet"
TECH4101"course.In this course the students developed their portfolio which
contain all the assignments and activities throughout the course and by
following some guidelines which was provided by the instructor. Some of these
guidelines were to use the same template or design for the homepage of the
portfolio.

Participants in this study:

Eight groups out of 17 groups were in the course are participate in this study.
Each group has one portfolio.

Interments:

This survey data was collected by using questionnaire which can be called
(WBLP) which was developed by chang (2001).In addition; we interview some
students who take the course of distance learning to reveal the reasons behind
some findings and to explore the disadvantages of the e-portfolio as
management system.

Findings of the study:

Portfolio effectiveness of the portfolio:

Effectiveness of exploring and appropriateness of the e-portfolio instead of the CD-
portfolio:

(%) of agreement
Statements: Mean
1 2 3 4 5
1. The explore process of
62.50
the portfolio is clear and 37.50% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 1.38
%
easy to understand
2. The E-portfolio is more
appropriate and convenient 62.50
37.50% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 1.38
method to browse my %
course activities
3. The E-portfolio is an
appropriate and convenient
62.50
method to browse the 37.50% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 1.38
%
activities in more
organized way.
4. The E-portfolio is an
Appropriate and
62.50 12.50 1.63
convenient method for 25.00% 0.00% 0.00%
% %
explore contents of
portfolio
5. The E-portfolio
Appropriate and
62.50
convenient method to fill 37.50% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 1.38
%
out the feedback opinions
of the peers
6. Upload method of 25.00
62.50 2.38
course works is 12.50% 0.00% % 0.00%
%
appropriate and easy to use
7. Filling-in method be
appropriate and easy to use 62.50 12.50 12.50 2.25
12.50% 0.00%
for self-reflection and % % %
assessment records
8. Personal basic 25.00% 75.00 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 1.75
information is appropriate %
and easy to set up and
maintain
9. Upload method for
50.00 12.50 12.50 2.13
personal web page files be 25.00% 0.00%
% % %
appropriate and easy to use
75.00
10. E-portfolio platform is 25.00%
% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 1.75
simple and appropriate

11. Portfolio production is

62.50 2.13
a time consuming task and 25.00% 0.00% 0.00% 12.50%
%
with much effort
12. It is easy to write the 62.50
12.50% 25.00% 0.00% 0.00% 3.75
feedback for peers %

Analysis of the results:

Above average of the students who take the course of distance learning see that the e-
portfolio is an effective way to upload, submit and explore the course assignments.
This can be reveal from the table which has 12 items related to the term of
effectiveness of the used e-portfolio. The item 12 shows high disagreement (meant
3.75).This result was according to the e-portfolio condition which didn't has a direct
way to comment on others works and to discuss such point. The e-portfolio was in
short a webpage which has some links to assignments in blogs and scribd and most of
the student get the way to navigate and comment much complex than if having the
ability to add comments in the homepage of the portfolio.

The result of agreement in the other items and relatively the high agreement may was
due to that the whole students who take this course are from the learning and
instructional technology major and most of them are in their final year. Thus according
to the participant characteristics their mastery level of technology is relative high. In
addition, some of the students have some bad experiences in previous courses in
submitting their portfolio of the course in CD. Some the instructor e-mails them that
the CD was empty. Furthermore, the e-portfolio is more flexible to submit from
anywhere and at anytime.

The effectiveness of the e-portfolio in the distance learning course in term of

exchanging and sharing ideas with other classmates and the course instructor:
 (%) of agreement Mean
Statements: 1 2 3 4 5

13. E-portfolio helps me to

37.50 37.50 12.50
share my activities with 0.00% 12.50% 2.13
% % %
my classmates

14. I benefit from other 12.50 50.00

12.50% 12.50% 12.50% 3.38
activities and assignments % %

15. I have explored the

12.50 37.50
course works of most of 0.00% 25.00% 25.00% 3.63
% %
my classmates

16. I have explored the

12.50 37.50
teacher feedback of most 0.00% 12.50% 37.50% 4.00
% %
of my classmates

17. I have explored the

12.50 37.50
peers’ feedback opinions 0.00% 12.50% 37.50% 4.00
% %
of most of my classmates

18. I have explored the

12.50 50.00
feedback opinions from 0.00% 12.50% 25.00% 3.88
% %
my teacher

19. I have explored the 12.50 37.50

12.50% 12.50% 25.00% 3.63
feedback from my peers % %

20. Exploring my
classmates’ works helps to 12.50 37.50
0.00% 25.00% 25.00% 3.75
upgrade the quality of my % %
works
21. It helps me to know
about my teacher feedback 0.00% 12.50 37.50
25.00% 25.00% 3.75
and suggestions by using % %
this system

22. It helps me to know

about my classmate 12.50 37.50
12.50% 12.50% 25.00% 3.63
feedback and suggestions % %
by using this system

23. It enhances my
interactions and exchanges 12.50% 12.50% 0.00% 37.50 37.50
3.75
with my classmates by % %
using this system

Most of the students how enrolled in the course of distance learning didn't agree that
the e-portfolio help them to explore others works and benefit from peers and teacher
feedback. This because of that each group e-mail the link of their portfolio to the
course instructor and there was no board to collect the whole portfolios on it. Thus
most students didn't have peer feedback to benefit from it.

(%) of agreement
Statements: Mean
1 2 3 4 5

24. The e-portfolio

25.00 12.50 37.50 12.50
homepage of my 12.50% 3.13
% % % %
classmates was attractive

25. I hope to use this

75.00 25.00
system (e-portfolio) in 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 1.25
% %
other courses as well

As this table shows that most of the students see that the design of the homepage
portfolio was not attractive to the portfolio visitors. This result may because that
portfolio homepage was the same for the all portfolios of the students in the course.
The web page was so poor and doesn’t have images in it which could be more
attractive.
About 75% from the survey participants want to use the e-portfolio again and thus may
be according to their good experience with e-portfolio in comparison with the CD
portfolio. In addition, their technology mastery level may be high so they can use
computer and programs well.

Difficulties of using e-portfolio:

Most of the students get problems in using the webs and how to make pictures appear
on their websites properly. This because that the student use the webs for the first time.
In addition, they had some difficulties in uploading their assignments to scribd.
Furthermore, some of the participants weren't able to explore others works to improve
their works and didn't get feedback from the instructor.

Advantages of using e-portfolio:

• The e-portfolio is more flexible way than submitting portfolio in CD. You can
submit anywhere and anytime.

• The e-portfolio provide much guarantee to submit activities in proper way

Recommendations:

• The e-portfolio is an appropriate way to gather activities and share them with
other but it is important to give the students a discussion board to discuss
together the difficulties either related to the activities or technical problems and
help students to exchange feedbacks to improve their learning.

• The student should have some option to change the homepage of the portfolio
to be more attractive with some guidelines from the instruction related to the
design and page elements.
— Reference:

— Chang, Chi-Cheng; “A study on the evaluation and effectiveness

analysis of web-based learning portfolio(WBLP)” ,2001 [Online]
British Journal of Educational
Technology,http://www.stanford.edu/dept/SUSE/projects/ireport/articl
es/e-
portfolio/a%20study%20on%20the%20effectiveness%20analysis%20
of%20web-based%20learning%20portfolio.pdf (Accessed: April
30/2008)