SE-3091 Individual Portfolios

Winter quarter 2003-2004

Dr. Mark J. Sebern

Introduction

The purpose of the individual student portfolio submission process is to assist the student and instructor in assessing each student's achievement of the course objectives (found in the official course description).

Each software lab student will make several portfolio submissions, by the end of each week indicated in the course schedule according to the designated submission groups.

Each submission will consist of one or more parts. Each part will consist of:

One identified course objective, from the course description.
One or more pieces of evidence that demonstrate how the student has achieved the specified course objective.

The idea is that, by the end of the course, each student will have submitted sufficient evidence to demonstrate achievement of all the course objectives.

Evidence

Each piece of evidence should demonstrate that the student has achieved (at least partially) the particular course objective that is being addressed. Note that a general statement that "I made a major contribution to the design of the XYZ component" is not evidence, but rather an opinion. An example of evidence would be a portion of a design document, with the student's contribution clearly identified.

In general, evidence should be submitted in PDF (Acrobat) format. You are encouraged to use the lab's ps2pdf print queue to produce PDF files; if you don't know how to do this, ask the instructor for assistance. Some types of evidence (e.g., an oral presentation) may require special arrangements, such as asking the instructor to witness the presentation; even in these cases it is desirable that related evidence (e.g., presentation handouts) be submitted in PDF format.

The quality of the evidence submitted is more important than the quantity. Indeed, small representative samples of your work will make it easier for the instructor to provide timely feedback. If the feedback indicates that the evidence you submitted is not as strong as you thought, you are welcome to submit additional evidence for the same course objective, in the next portfolio submission.

Submission process

While we hope to build some infrastructure support for submitting and evaluating these portfolio items, for now they should be submitted by email to the instructor. The body of the email should contain a summary of the submission, listing for each item:

The course objective being addressed.
The file name(s) of the PDF file(s) containing the evidence for this course objective.
Brief comments that may be necessary to explain the evidence (e.g., the specific sections of a document that represent the current contribution of the individual student making the submission).

The PDF files should be attached to the email. If you have questions concerning the portfolio process, or the submission format, please consult the instructor well in advance of the submission deadline.

This page was last updated on Tuesday, 02-Dec-2003 09:50:40 CST.