Is it too early to think about my E-Portfolio?

One of my students asked if I could talk about the e-portfolio. It is one of the two options students can choose as their culminating work to satisfy our MLIS requirements. I'm actually impressed that she's starting to think about it now, and I think it's a great question. So even though I did already respond in private email, I want to share what I discussed here as well for other students. So the answer to the title of this post is a definite no! Starting to plan now means you will be prepared when your time to work on your e-portfolio comes around.

First off, the e-portfolio must satisfy all the Core Competencies for the program; there are currently 15, A-O. One thing students can do to plan for meeting all the competencies is to check out which offered classes meet each of the competencies. You can do that here. Each student's academic advisor can also help plan out classes to take if a student isn't sure which electives to enroll for. Just a side note that students may be able to use additional experience outside their MLIS course to help satisfy the Core Competencies.

SLIS also provides an extensive e-portfolio handbook that has detailed information about the e-portfolio requirements and how to meet them. I encourage anyone thinking about the e-portfolio (no matter where in the program you are) to check it out since this will give you a really good idea of what to expect. Each student will be assigned an e-portfolio advisor when they enroll in LIBR 289 in MySJSU in their last semester; this person will not necessarily be the same as their academic advisor and in fact will likely be someone different. This person will guide students through the e-portfolio process, review their work, and give advice on what to improve as they work through supporting each competency with their work.

Students can complete their e-portfolio through the D2L e-portfolio platform or through another platform that they and their e-portfolio advisor agree on. I have heard of e-portfolios completed on a student-made website, for example. Students can enroll in the D2L e-portfolio site by following the instructions in this guide; they don't need to be taking LIBR 289 to do so. This gives students a way to check out the e-portfolio interface provided by SLIS, and they can start uploading their work as they go.

So now that all this information has been thrown at you, what should you do now? My recommendations--aside from reviewing any e-portfolio information you can--would be to make sure and collect your work as you progress through your program and assign it to a competency. I've kept final drafts for all of my work over the course of my program, and I have copies on my laptop, my thumb drive, and in my D2L e-portfolio platform (that's another thing--back up your work!!!!). I also created a folder for LIBR 289 and created subfolders for each competency (A-O). I've put copies of my final drafts into the competency's folder that I feel each one satisfies. To help figure this out, each class (and sometimes each assignment) lists the competency that it satisfies on its greensheet. I've also gone so far as to create a document that lists each competency and notes each of the classes I've taken that fulfill it underneath. This gives me a great visual to see which competencies I have securely under my belt. Doing so actually helped me to plan which two classes I would take this semester (I was in need of some competency K work).

The e-portfolio is a big project, and one that ideally you want to plan for during your whole program. Organizing as you go will mean that your work is easily accessible and less chaotic when it comes time to put it all together!