Accessible ePortfolios for Visually-Impaired Users: Interfaces, Designs, and Infrastructures

Abstract

Institutions of higher learning have dedicated much energy and many resources to assessment measurements and standards through individual tools, through high-stakes testing, and through ePortfolio management systems.An ePortfolio is a selected collection of work presented electronically.An electronic performance support system, specifically, is an integrated electronic environment designed to reduce complexity in order to make sense of things, to provide employee performance information in order to foster improvement, and to provide workers with a decision support system in order to maximize productivity.As higher education continues to learn from efficiencies and new technologies in the workplace that refine performance measurement, study knowledge transfer and Web 2.0 tools (Gerben, 2009), and develop viable and sustainable products through interaction theory and website design principles, this collection of essays from knowledgeable scholars and practitioners of ePortfolios helps foster increased understanding of intersections between ePortfolio composing, presentation, and assessment in the academy and workplace, including ideas for embracing electronic performance support systems.Ideas and the discussion related in this collection published by the WAC Clearinghouse are extended online through Creative Commons licensing, as well.Please consider purchasing the print version, but also freely link to and share materials in the online version.Essays in this collection ask readers to consider ways in which ePortfolios, as distinguished from non-electronic portfolios, facilitate sustainable and measureable writing-related student development, assessment and accountability, learning and knowledge transfer, principles related to universal design for learning, just-in-time support, interaction design, and usability testing.The collection contributes to recent scholarship on ePortfolios and provides new dimensions to the field of portfolio development in the academic and in workplaces.Traditionally, portfolios have been considered valuable tools because in addition to embracing principles of validity and reliability as assessment measurements, they enable students to continue to learn as they construct their portfolios.Portfolios have specific audiences-most traditionally a program or a teacher Delivering College Composition: The Fifth Canon (2006), Electronic Portfolios 2.0: Emergent Research on Implementation and Impact (2009), and the forthcoming co-authored Contexts of Writing: Transfer, Composition, and Sites of Writing, which is a study of the transfer of writing knowledge and practice in college.Rich Rice follows Yancey's principles and core values of representation in "The Hypermediated Teaching Philosophy ePortfolio Performance Support System."Rice directs the Multiliteracy Lab in the Texas Tech University Department of English, and he teaches using ePortfolios both online and face-toface in the TTU Technical Communication and Rhetoric program.See http:// richrice.com.He is a member of the Conference on College Composition and Communication's Committee on Best Practices for Online Writing Instruction.His recent articles are in the areas of new media knowledge creation, mobile medicine, basic writing and photo essays, remediated film, nontraditional graduate support systems, ePortfolios, and media labs.With Nedra Reynolds (2006a, 2006b) he has co-written the second editions of Portfolio Keeping and Portfolio Teaching.Reynolds is soon to release third editions.In this essay, Rice draws on research in electronic performance support systems in order to point out ways in which the traditional teaching philosophy essays fall short as a genre of invoking its intended audience and multiple purposes because of hypertextual and reflective exegeses similar to those in ePortfolios.He suggests that in order to become an effective ePortfolio support system, the teaching philosophy should be taught and received as a networked performance space.In this second essay, Rice opens by expanding on Yancey's belief that ePortfolios, like a palimpsest, can be "retooled."Rice then hints at upcoming ideas in Lauren Klein's essay that discusses how blurring the boundaries of social media and ePortfolios can enhance classroom and workplace experiences.Furthermore, Rice elaborates on Carl Whithaus' discussion later in the collection of teaching philosophies as a "thirdspace" from Grego and Thompson (2008).ePortfolios multiply opportunities for presenting the self in diverse kairotic performances such as hypermediated teaching philosophies.Next, Lauren F. Klein details another systematic approach to academic portfolios using social media.Klein directs the portfolio program in the City University of New York's Macaulay Honors College (http://macaulay.cuny.edu/ eportfolios/lklein).She is an Assistant Professor in the School of Literature, Me-How can teaching institutions serve many stakeholders?Ultimately, the authors conclude teachers using ePortfolios must serve in their role as technical communication educators.Any institution rebuilding its use of ePortfolios would benefit from this analysis of Arizona State University's program.It serves as a technical communication bridge between the academy and the workplace.D'Angelo's publications include several book chapters and articles on the use of outcomes for curriculum development and assessment and on information literacy.Maid founded the Technical Communication program at Arizona State University in 2000 and headed it for more than 10 years.His recent publications are in the area of information literacy, writing assessment, online education, and independent writing programs.Most recently, with Duane Roen and Greg Glau, he is co-author of The McGraw-Hill Guide: Writing for College, Writing for Life, currently in its 3 rd edition (2012).Learn more about these researchers' ongoing work at http://www.public.asu.

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