Quick guide

Getting started with e-portfolios

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Many educators see e-portfolios as vital to learning, teaching and assessment. Our quick guide takes you through the basics.

Many educators see e-portfolios as vital to learning, teaching and assessment. Our quick guide takes you through the basics.

What is an e-portfolio?

It is a digital presentation of a learner’s experiences, achievements and aspirations for a particular audience. It is much more than a paper portfolio and the term often refers to the underlying tools, techniques and systems in addition to the content or work.

However, it is the learning that really matters. Creating an e-portfolio involves skills essential for 21st century learning – organising and planning material, giving and receiving feedback, reflecting, selecting and arranging content to communicate with a particular audience in the most effective way.

It is these processes that support an engaging and enriching experience for learners and staff.

What are they used for?

Different sectors, disciplines and professional bodies have their own approaches, but our research shows that e-portfolios are valuable at all stages in the learning lifecycle.

A well-managed approach to e-portfolios offers students, staff and employers ways of:

  • Evidencing employability skills and attributes
  • Assessing learning in a more authentic way
  • Making sense of learning and achievements across various parts of the curriculum
  • Engaging with personal and continuing professional development
  • Making coherent links between different stages of learning
  • Achieving deeper learning through reflection and dialogue
  • Developing lifelong learning skills

Further resources

Find inspiration and discover tips and strategies for implementing e-portfolios from our resources:​

Digital e-portfolio examples

To inspire you, Jisc's subject specialists have created some e-portfolio examples using different tools.

Padlet

Google sites

Other sites

Useful links

Our employability toolkit provides a framework and guidance to help dialogue, decision making and planning for developing learner employability.

The pedagogy toolkit will give inspiration when using blending learning tools and techniques to gather evidence of learning that can be collected in an e-portfolio. 

This guide is made available under Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND).