The e-portfolio provides students, or rather learners in general, with an infrastructure during their individual learning careers. This infrastructure can be used for presenting and documenting personal learning matters as well as for reflecting on them. In the author's opinion, this rightfully signifies a step towards the realization of the vision of lifelong learning.
However, two aspects, which are usually disregarded when it comes to dealing with technology, presentation of content and software functionalities, need to be taken into consideration. These aspects are the possibility of referencing online information and its reliable availability. This is particularly true, if as opined in this article - e-portfolios are especially valued for their potential as personal rooms for reflexion where external sources are processed (learning material, e-portfolios of other students) and other persons are involved. E-portfolios will only work efficiently if a transparent solution is successfully developed, which controls whether and how long information is preserved (or rather available) and how information can be reliably referenced.
This article provides a possible solution for the problem of reliable availability. The solution is a concept for the definition of guarantees of existence.
You can find a printable version here:
GOE for online information as a precondition for hyperlinked e-portfolios (PDF, 361 kB)
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