This literature review examines the implementation of e-portfolios in higher education, with a focus on the implementation process, potential barriers, and strategies for overcoming challenges. This review seeks to provide instructional designers and higher education instructors with design strategies to effectively implement e-portfolios. Through an analysis of seventeen studies, we identified six common steps in the implementation process, including identifying a purpose, stakeholders, and platform, conducting workshops, creating e-portfolios, and evaluating the project. The implementation process also raised eight concerns, including concerns related to technology, policy, pedagogy, artifact quality, privacy, student motivation, academic integrity, and teacher workload. To address these concerns, existing strategies suggest that successful implementation requires training and policy support, student-centered pedagogy, criteria for assessing artifacts, privacy and data protection, feedback, anti-plagiarism measures, and shared successful models.

Why teach with blogs?

Although people often think of social media as a space for non-academic interactions, blogs can be helpful tools for instructors interested in enhancing their students’ communication skills and increasing their students’ investment in learning.

Blogs can be spaces for informal or formal writing by students, and the capacity of blogs to support multiple forms of media (images, videos, links, and so on) can help students bring creativity to their communication. Most blogs includes tools for commenting and discussion, enabling students to engage their ideas in conversation with others, either within their local learning communities or on the open Web.

Student writing is often seen by just one person on the planet (their instructor), which can make writing assignments feel like “busy work.” The dynamic interaction between writer and audience that blogs facilitate can help students see real value in their academic writing and take that writing more seriously. Moreover, the public, persistent nature of blogs can help students practice more integrative learning, finding connections among their personal, professional, and academic experiences.