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Implementing the SPIF/ePortfolio Approach

Establishing Necessary Infrastructure and Funding

The minimum infrastructure and funding required for the SPIF/ePortfolio approach includes:

• Assessment Coordinator (a faculty member with released time who can conduct analysis)
• Faculty or staff willing to invite students to complete a SPIF/ePortfolio
• Funding for survey and statistical applications required for data collection and retrieval
• Rater Teams (at least 3 faculty/staff/graduate students + on-call primary language experts)
• Space and support for orientation and training sessions

The ideal infrastructure and funding for the SPIF/ePortfolio approach includes:

• Assessment Coordinator
• Technical Assistant for data collection and retrieval (with assigned time or released time)
• Survey specialist to review SPIF, conduct analysis of SPIF/ePortfolio data, and share findings in diverse formats
• Multiple faculty or staff willing to assist students in completing SPIF/ePortfolio
• Multiple teams of faculty raters (offered stipends per portfolio rated)
• Modern language raters (on or off campus for all likely languages to be included)
• Student assistants (offered stipends to assist students with portfolio creation)
• Professional development workshops for faculty and staff orientation to the SPIF/ePortfolio approach, for rater training and for discussions about how to interpret and make good use of results
• Software applications (survey software; statistical software)

Constructing a Data Collection Process

The SPIF/ePortfolio approach is a data rich approach that requires due attention to the process of collecting, housing, and accessing this data. It is advisable to appoint members of your team who will work with:

• appropriate technical staff at your institution to set up the data collection process
  (see ePortfolio and SPIF pages for details on systems)
• designated faculty participants in facilitating the collection of data from the students.

If you have not already included the director of assessment or members of an institutional assessment committee on your team, it is also critical that you seek their support and guidance. They have expertise with institutional assessment and may have infrastructure and resources—such as faculty development programs and funding—that could be put to use in support of carrying out the SPIF/ePortfolio approach. Such expertise might also be helpful for the collection and analysis stage of the approach when you might need assistance in bringing together the rich data from the SPIF with the ratings of the ePortfolio, and presenting these results in the most useful formats.

Acquiring IRB Approval

Depending on your institution's experience with assessment and the reach of your institutional review board (IRB), you may need to present your assessment plan to the institutional review board. While portfolios are commonly used for diverse academic purposes, the SPIF component of the approach may be viewed as a research instrument soliciting sensitive information from students and thus requiring review and approval. This was the case for several of the institutions in the ACE/FIPSE project. It is important to note, however, that the ACE/FIPSE project was an externally funded and administered project and the original design of the project was to include the compilation and review of data across the institutions. When implemented as a local assessment the SPIF/ePortfolio approach may not raise the same level of scrutiny that some of the institutions experienced with this project.

Your team will want to be very clear in addressing the following questions which may also need to be included in any IRB application materials:

• Who will coordinate the collection of data?
• How and where will the collection occur?
• Will students be asked to complete SPIFs together in a computer lab?
• Will students be asked to share portfolio artifacts with faculty first?
• How will the data be entered into the computer? By students? By technical staff? By faculty?
• Where will the data be housed and who will have access to it?
• Who will conduct the data analysis?
• How will the data be shared with the team? And with faculty?
• Will the data be shared with other stakeholders?
• How will student confidentiality be protected?

Please direct questions about this page to:
international@ace.nche.edu
This page last updated on: 09/03/2008