Early Reflections on Engineering Web-Based Portfolios

During a four or five year undergraduate education, engineering students produce a variety of materials that are indicative of their knowledge and skills. Current digital technologies enable the storage and presentation of such materials in an easy to create and easy to access format. At the University of Texas at Austin, we are developing a web-based tool for undergraduate engineering students that provides an environment for them to display and reflect on their engineering accomplishments. The electronic portfolio system (http://pf.engr.utexas.edu) is now available to all students in the College as a result of three years of development. While we are confident that the portfolio system will enrich our students’ university experiences and prepare them for a career in engineering, we have faced a number of challenges that we would like to share in this paper. First of all, since various portfolio activities are in development across the country, we are seeking ways to substantiate our principles in an approach that does not reinvent or overlook important features of other established methods. Secondly, we will share a number of technical issues we faced in creating a web-based tool for undergraduate use (security, storage, etc.). Third, we discuss the difficulties in getting students and faculty to voluntarily adopt the portfolio tool and to incorporate it within their course materials. Finally, we conclude with the current issues we are facing and our future plans.