Collaboration in the Center - A Librarian and Faculty Member Explore Eportfolio Development

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by kopisore

Collaboration between communication centers and campus libraries can strengthen both instructional support and student learning. This paper describes a semester-long, faculty-librarian ePortfolio development project in an upper-level public speaking course at a small liberal arts college, facilitated by a library instructional technologist and a rhetoric faculty member. Students built multimodal ePortfolios featuring written, digital, visual, and oral components by completing workshop-driven activities and using Communication Center services, including guidance for incorporating student-recorded presentation videos.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages9

Reading Time23 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Overview of the Advanced Public Speaking Course

Implementation of the ePortfolio Project

Collaboration in the Center: A Librarian and Faculty Member Explore Eportfolio Development Claire Deal Hampden-Sydney College Michael T. Timma Hampden-Sydney College Collaboration between faculty members and librarians has the potential to enrich the work of both Communication Centers and campus libraries. A collaborative, ePortfolio development project that a library instructional technologist and rhetoric faculty member facilitated in an upper level public speaking course at a small liberal arts college demonstrates this potential. The collaborative ePortfolio project allowed students to showcase their rhetorical skills across multiple modalities: written, digital, visual--and for this particular project--oral. Through a series of hands-on workshops and a reliance on the services of the Communication Center, facilitators guided students through the processes of developing their ePortfolios and incorporating videos of their own oral presentations within them. Introduction Communication Center directors and faculty members are likely familiar with the National Communication Association’s“Learning Outcomes in Communication,” a compilation of what graduates with a degree in communication should “know, understand, and be able to do”(2015) . The fourth outcome,“Create messages appropriate to the audience, purpose, and context” reminds teachers and Communication Center directors that communication is a complex endeavor. In atypical public speaking classroom, for example, we teach students to learn to speak confidently and cogently in traditional “face to face” contexts with audience members. Yet, it is imperative that in our technologically-driven culture students possess the skills to craft and deliver messages in digital modes as well. The authors discuss the semester-long, collaborative, ePortfolio development project that they facilitated in an upper level public speaking course at a small liberal arts college located in rural Virginia. Project leaders worked together to help students create ePortfolios that showcased their rhetorical skills across multiple modalities: written, digital, visual, and oral. Facilitators addressed the challenge of incorporating videos in the ePortfolio through a series of workshops and a reliance on the services of the Communication Center. Similar in some ways to a traditional résumé, an ePortfolio is “a multimodal project, incorporating visual, oral, and written communication modes” that is“intended to show the value of students’educational experiences in ways that are interactive, engaging, and creative” (Fairfield & Carpenter, 2015, p.63) . Further, it serves as “a collection of experience-based artifacts, presented digitally (usually online), that may contain elements of a student's reflections on their experiences, goals and philosophy, as well as artifacts of experiences, output, and work; it is commonly used for the purposes of reflection, development, assessment, and/or showcasing their best work”(University of Michigan MPortfolio, 2018) . In the reflective processes that lead to ePortfolio development, students learn to identify connections between knowledge gained from life experiences and that from academic courses; document learning that has occurred both within and beyond the classroom, making it explicit and visible; develop an understanding of how knowledge and skills gained in one context can be applied to others; assess and determine common themes and goals from the combination of values, knowledge, and experiences; and present the synthesis of learning across contexts to multiple and varied audiences.”(University of Michigan MPortfolio, 2018) The authors explain the process that led both to the students' successful completion of their ePortfolio projects and to the presentations oftheir ePortfolios to the campus community. They found, as Norander and Rouse (2017) attest, that“collaborating with campus partners engaged in ePortfolio work can position Co

FAQs

What was the purpose of the collaborative ePortfolio project described in the text?

The project aimed to let students showcase rhetorical skills through a multimodal ePortfolio tied to an advanced public speaking course, using workshops and Communication Center support.

Which ePortfolio components did students develop?

Students created ePortfolios that incorporated written, digital, visual, and oral modalities, including videos of their own oral presentations.

How did the Communication Center and its services support the implementation?

Facilitators relied on Communication Center resources, providing media equipment and editing support, acting like a second classroom, and helping students design, troubleshoot technology, rehearse, record, and revise their ePortfolios before a showcase.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by kopisore