Supporting sustainable student learning at USP through the use of ePortfolios

Abstract

Universities have a responsibility to provide students with the means to support themselves in their learning processes in the contemporary workplace, particularly in light of the emphasis on “work-readiness”. As a result, recent focus for universities has been to accommodate individual student learning and achieving graduate attributes to nurture professional growth and development of students. With grades less relied upon as a proof of learning: multiple stakeholders in education and the workplace want documentation that provides evidence of the entire process of learning and students' capability. To answer these calls, our faculty at University of the South Pacific (USP) has introduced the use of ePortfolios and mentoring in its four-year undergraduate degree programmes in Bachelor of Software Engineering and Net-Centric Computing. The purpose of this paper is to highlight this approach employed by the Faculty to support its accreditation processes and foster closer industry-academia linkage. Using ePortfolios, students are provided a context within which they can appreciate the knowledge and skills they are acquiring and contextualize understanding of the many roles within the profession, and are guided by their mentor on the additional capabilities they might require to achieve (over the medium term) their career goals.