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IMS ePortfolio Best Practice and Implementation Guide

The use of ePortfolios in distributed learning in compulsory and higher education worldwide has increased dramatically over the last five years. While ePortfolios previously took the form of static Web pages, the growth over the last few years has been fueled by the growing availability of commercial and open source ePortfolio tools in the form of database-driven, Web applications. Currently available systems, known to the IMS ePortfolios Development Committee, store ePortfolios in formats that do not reflect accepted open standards, and have no facilities for importing and exporting ePortfolio information conformant with accepted standards. This makes it difficult or impossible to move ePortfolios intact between systems, and leads to inefficiency and redundancy when integrating ePortfolio tools with other enterprise systems.

In addition to being used in particular courses, ePortfolios are increasingly being used across whole programs and institutions. ePortfolios are beginning to be used as tools for personal development planning, lifelong learning, and learning in the workplace. ePortfolios are also beginning to be used for high-stakes assessment and credentialing.

ePortfolios need to be portable to ensure the educational continuity between programs within an educational institution that use ePortfolios, the integration of evidence about learning over time, and the smooth transfer of verifiable information about learning and evaluation between institutions, levels of education, and employers. From an individual perspective, information about and artifacts of a person’s performance and achievement, as recorded in an ePortfolio, need to operate across institutions and countries throughout their lifetime.

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