During the 2008-2009 academic year, Northeastern piloted the eportfolio system TaskStream (www.taskstream.com) through eleven pilot projects, funded by the Office of the Provost. The projects represented each college in the University, as well as every level of education.
TaskStream is an externally hosted system, through which students are provided accounts on a subscription basis. TaskStream allows students to create an unlimited number of eportfolios which can can be shared with individual faculty or others for feedback and/or assessment, or made available through a url or email at the student’s discretion. Faculty can create structured templates to collect eportfolios for assessment purposes or provide flexible templates as a starting point for student eportfolios.
Pilot Descriptions
The eportfolio pilot projects are as follows:
- ASL, Masters in Interpreting Pedagogy
Lead faculty: Betsy Winston
Approx. # of students participating: 15
Description: Students in the Masters in Interpreting Pedagogy program will use eportfolios to document achievement of standards for teaching American Sign Language/English interpreting. Much of the required evidence is video-based. The eportfolio project will provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate their teaching achievements in light of field-specific standards. Portfolios will include primary and secondary evidence of student teaching skills including video clips, relevant written documentation (e.g., course materials, teaching and learning philosophies, course evaluations), and analytical reflection. - Art + Design
Lead faculty: Ed Andrews
Approx. # of students participating: 35
Description: The combination of portfolio and resume is the time-tested standard of representation used by all artists and designers. Incoming Art + design freshmen will be introduced to the importance of creating a professional portfolio in the Introduction to College class. Initially the students will be using eportfolios to fulfill required course goals and to share their work with classmates and friends. As they progress in their coursework, they will replace earlier work with more accomplished examples. Most of our students participate in Co-op and soon they will be preparing to submit their portfolios to potential employers for review. Students could also submit their eportfolios to galleries that curate work to be included in student exhibitions or competitions. - Biology
Lead faculty: Kostia Bergman, Veronica Porter
Approx. # of students participating: 50
Description: In this project, senior-level students, in a capstone course, will create eportfolios by identifying artifacts, from academic coursework and Cooperative education experiences, that are related to learning objectives and Biology curriculum to demonstrate proficiencies. Work will be evaluated anonymously by external reviewers using a defined rubric, and results compiled for curriculum assessment. Additionally, a small group of students will test the use of electronic resumes with potential employers. - College of Business Administration; Full Time MBA Program
Lead faculty: Paul Croke
Approx. # of students participating: 10
Description: This pilot will provide an electronic vehicle/venue to help full-time MBA students plan and evaluate the results of their Management Skill Development interventions and actions taken while on a 6 month Corporate Residency. Students will also utilize TaskStream to build a Representational Portfolio that is a compilation of their academic achievements from in-school semesters and experiential learnings from work experiences prior to entering the MBA program, and during the program (especially their Corporate Residency). - Career Services with Colleges of Business Administration and Criminal Justice
Lead faculty: Kathleen Famulari, Neil Fogg, Peter K. Manning, Nancy Richmond, Christopher A. Walker
Approx. # of students participating: 50
Description: This project will pilot eportfolios with senior-level students to 1) help them analyze the skills they have acquired through archiving examples of their work and academic experiences, 2) assist students in articulating their career goals and abilities to potential employers, 3) develop an electronic presentation that seniors can use in their job search which highlights the skills most desired by employers, 4) to gather feedback from employers regarding the usefulness of e-portfolios during the hiring process. - Computer and Information Science
Lead faculty: Melvin Simms and Mark Erickson
Approx. # of students participating: 70
Description: In this pilot, students will complete eportfolios structured around a rubric of learning goals for the college. For each of three co-op experiences in a student’s Northeastern University career, a student will set goals, based on the rubric, and add artifacts and related reflections to a portfolio to demonstrate accomplishment of the goals. The system will allow faculty to aggregate eportfolios and conduct assessment based on accomplishment of goals across the rubric. - Health Sciences
Lead faculty: George Atkinson
Approx. # of students participating: 50
Description: The vast majority of Health Sciences students plan on attending graduate school in a variety of fields. Therefore, each Health Sciences student creates a unique program of study that combines the Northeastern core curriculum with the sciences, public health courses, and the liberal arts. These students will create developmental eportfolios that allow them to compile and reflect on work from academic and experiential learning to facilitate both advising and students’ understanding of their own growth. It is envisioned that, eventually, the portfolios will be used to create a showcase of a student’s best work for application to graduate school or employment. - Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department, Cooperative Education
Lead faculty: Lorraine Mountain and Karen Kelley
Approx. # of students participating: 50
Description: In this project, Co-op faculty will pilot introducing eportfolios to upper-level students as a tool to increase their competitive standing in a changing economic climate. Faculty have observed that employers who hire students into advanced research and development and product development co-op positions are starting to expect students to prepare a portfolio of their work. This is especially true in the creative product development field where engineering students are being compared with those in industrial design where extensive portfolios are more commonplace. In this project, students will create eportfolios as part of the class, Professional Issues in Engineering. The eportfolios will give students a method of summarizing and creating visual displays of their engineering designs and other accomplishments. - Pharmacy Practice
Lead faculty: Margarita DiVall/Judith Barr
Approx. # of students participating: 140
Description: For the last seven years, students within the Doctor of Pharmacy program have maintained a hard copy portfolio organized around yearly reflection and career development planning. Students have been paired with faculty members, who follow them throughout the six years of the PharmD program, meet with them twice yearly, and receive feedback on their portfolio. This pilot will continue this program in an electronic format and enable the linking of portfolio components with required professional criteria. Students will submit their eportfolio to a faculty mentor, and the student will meet with the faculty to receive feedback, then make revision if necessary. The eportfolio system will enable faculty to aggregate student competency accomplishments across a class. This is useful for curricular assessment and planning, as well as to more easily accumulate information for accreditation reports. - Physical Therapy
Lead faculty: Lorna Hayward
Approx. # of students participating: 25
Description: This pilot project will enable Physical Therapy students to showcase their development and provide evidence of growth during the 6 and 1/2 year DPT program. The eportfolios will demonstrate that PT students can integrate their academic and experiential experiences and reflect upon their chosen artifacts as a method for self-directed professional growth. The eportfolios will also demonstrate achievement of standards set by an outside body; CAPTE is the PT professional accreditor, and this project will take advantage of the capability of Taskstream to link artifacts in student portfolios as evidence of meeting professional requirements. - Speech-Language Pathology & Audiology
Lead faculty: Sarah Young-Hong
Approx. # of students participating: 40
Description: As part of their first clinical practicum experience (Clinic I) in the Speech-Language and Hearing Center (SLHC) at Northeastern, Speech-Language Pathology graduate students participate in the provision of therapy services to a variety of clients across the lifespan. This pilot will use eportfolios to collect work samples from the practicum, including treatment plans, session notes, and progress reports. The portfolio will be submitted with reflections at mid-term and the end of the semester for evaluation.
Year Completed: 2009