Politics, Programmatic Self-Assessment, and the Challenge of Cultural Change

Eportfolios on the Job: The Use of Assessment Eportfolios in the Business and Technical Communication Job Market

“…For the purposes of this study, eportfolios will refer to public-facing websites created by students to house their work and showcase what they learned in their programs. Over the past several decades, eportfolios have gained popularity in BTC programs as both assessment tools and assignments (e.g., Cargile Cook & Zachry, 2010;Graves & Epstein, 2011). Researchers have demonstrated several benefits of eportfolio assignments beyond the claim that they will be useful in the job market.…”

Creating Professional ePortfolios in Technical Writing

“…Thus, having students create professional eportfolios will help them not only to bridge the gap between academic and professional writing (Blakeslee, 2001;Freedman & Adam, 1996;Powell & Jankovich, 1998) but also to develop multiple literacies (Cargile Cook, 2002;Cargile Cook & Zachry, 2010;Jablonski & Nagelhout, 2010;Yancey, 2004). Knowing how to incorporate this project into technical writing courses could be beneficial for instructors who want to bolster their program's achievement requirements.…”

“…While scholars in technical and professional communication are beginning to recognize the value of eportfolios for professional use (Cargile Cook & Zachry, 2010;Dubinsky, 2003;Graves & Epstein, 2011), we need to pay greater attention to how they are taught in our courses and programs. At Dixie State, the curriculum for the professional and technical writing program includes an upper-division requirement called Writing for Interactive Media, a 3-credit hour course that is equivalent to new-media writing courses in other institutions.…”

“…Print and electronic portfolios (eportfolios) have long been used in assessment (Cargile Cook & Zachry, 2010;Graves & Epstein, 2011;Johnson, 2006), and a growing number of disciplines have begun to employ them for professional development. Moores and Parks (2010), for example, believed in the capacity of eportfolios to support undergraduates when they enter the health care profession and offered important tips for students to consider; Campbell (2002) asked professional and technical communication students to produce a specific portfolio with a set of related documents for a single organization; Williams (2002) endorsed the adoption of portfolios for engineering students and articulated necessary steps for development and maintenance; and Okoro, Washington, and Cardon (2011) promoted the eportfolio assignment in business communication courses as tools for employment.…”

“…Moores and Parks (2010), for example, believed in the capacity of eportfolios to support undergraduates when they enter the health care profession and offered important tips for students to consider; Campbell (2002) asked professional and technical communication students to produce a specific portfolio with a set of related documents for a single organization; Williams (2002) endorsed the adoption of portfolios for engineering students and articulated necessary steps for development and maintenance; and Okoro, Washington, and Cardon (2011) promoted the eportfolio assignment in business communication courses as tools for employment. In their article on programmatic self-assessment, Cargile Cook and Zachry (2010) differentiated two types of portfolios, the students' ''professional'' portfolio created primarily for job-search purposes and the students' ''academic'' portfolio for assessment (p. 69). Apparently, these pedagogical practices add to the multiple purposes that institutionalized portfolios serve to ground curriculum in appropriate contexts for evaluation.…”