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Resumes have traditionally been used to provide information regarding relevant work experience, educational preparation, awards and honors. For the nursing students at the University at Buffalo (UB), a list of mastered skills is also important when applying for graduate nurse positions, summer internships, and other health care positions. As faculty members, we were frequently called on to write references for students attesting to their clinical skills and academic abilities. However, it soon became apparent that references and resumes displayed only a portion of what nursing students had achieved. This presented increasing challenges after our school of nursing underwent a curriculum change, de-emphasizing experiences in traditional medicalsurgical in-hospital care.
To better represent students' skills and talents, our students were first required to develop paper portfolios. After the first semester of implementing this project, we discovered that the paper portfolios were cumbersome for prospective employers to review, difficult for students to mail ahead or carry to interviews, and labor-intensive for faculty to review. When the opportunity presented itself, we shifted students to developing electronic portfolios (or ePortfolios). By preparing an ePortfolio students can communicate their accomplishments and competencies, have an opportunity to work with technology, and demonstrate their ability to use information technology as a tool. After reviewing the literature, this chapter describes a project that prepared UB nursing students for professional practice in an ever-increasing technologically challenging and complex environment by using a technology-based format showcasing their talents and skills in the form of ePortfolios. In addition, the advantages and disadvantages of implementing ePortfolios are discussed.
What Is an Electronic Portfolio?
A portfolio is "a purposeful collection of assorted work that represents a student's efforts, progress and overall achievements in a course of study" (Karlowicz, 2000, p. 82). Portfolios include work completed over a course of time and are usually organized in chronological order. Portfolios have long been used in the arts and fashion design arena, and only recently in the educational preparation of nurses and teachers (Oermann, 2002; Ryan & Carlton, 1997; Scholes, Webb, Gray Endacott, Miller, Jasper et al., 2004; Williams, 2001). Although portfolios of the past were in paper or multimedia formats, nursing faculty only recently began using computer-based technologies in the collection, storage, and communication of ePortfolio content.
The ePortfolio has...