Introducing ePortfolios to computer science and engineering students: A New Zealand experience

This paper discusses an ePortfolio initiative for engineering and science students at Massey University, New Zealand. Eportfolios are electronic version of portfolios that are extensively used in arts and education. We have introduced ePortfolios to our students to impart life long learning skills at university-level. We have chosen open source portfolio (OSP) management tool and customized it to our requirements. Industry representatives were involved in indentifying the skills set and providing feedback on the developed portfolios. Student participation in this project has been voluntary. Each registered student was given some hard disk space on the platform for their documents and training was provided. Both, the industry representatives and the students felt that portfolios are a valuable tool. This paper presents our ePortfolio environment and discusses the application of ePortfolio platform in engineering and science education.