ePortfolios

If your learning has not been pre-evaluated, you can go through an ePortfolio process to have your learning assessed for college/university credits.

What is an ePortfolio?

An ePortfolio is a Web-based tool that helps document your learning and add evidence to demonstrate how you have used your learning. The ePortfolio can accept text, images, multimedia and many other forms of digital evidence. You control what you place in your ePortfolio and what you share to be evaluated. You can also share different pages of your ePortfolio with professors, friends, family and potential employers.

NOTE: Building your ePortfolio is free to you. There is a cost for evaluating an ePortfolio.

Building an ePortfolio

To begin, you will answer questions that will ask you:

  • to think about how you acquired your learning
  • what types of activities you engaged in with this learning
  • what you have learned through these activities.

You will also be asked to provide evidence of your learning as you move through the process. Your responses will help you build an ePortfolio of your learning.

All the questions you are asked to help you create your ePortfolio directly relate to the Global Learning Qualifications Framework. This framework will be used to evaluate your learning.

As you document your learning following the reflective questions and providing evidence of your learning, you are aligning your ePortfolio to the evaluation criteria.

To prepare your ePortfolio, you will need to be able to describe your learning and use evidence to support your descriptions. This requires critical reflection. The questions will help prompt your through your reflection.

Critical reflection involves:

  • introducing how you acquired your learning and provide context for your learning
  • identifying the concepts you know
  • organizing the concepts in a logical and organized manner to describe your learning in a way that makes sense to you, but also others can follow
  • connecting the concepts to show how you see that they are related.

Your ePortfolio should provide a clear picture of your learning and identify the topic for which you are requesting academic credit. You also want to make sure that the evaluator understands the depth and breadth of your learning and how you understand what you know.

Evaluating an ePortfolio

When you are ready, you will submit your ePortfolio to be evaluated.

A qualified faculty or field expert will evaluate your learning. The evaluator may ask questions during the evaluation process to get a better understanding of your depth and breadth of learning. Once you have submitted your ePortfolio for evaluation, be sure to monitor any questions or comments posted by the evaluator.

The ePortfolio is evaluated against the Global Learning Qualifications Framework. This framework has been developed through extensive worldwide research to determine what is considered college/university level learning.

Next Steps

Once the ePortfolio evaluation is complete, you will be provided a summary report of the evaluation and the credit recommendations.

Every college or university reserves the right to accept prior learning assessment credits. Before transferring credits, be sure to check with the specific institution.

Learn more about how to use your assessed credits towards an undergraduate degree at SUNY Empire.

Contact an Advisor

To speak to a SUNY Empire State College advisor about your ePortfolio or to ask questions about the process or the Global Learning Qualifications Framework, email SUNYREAL@esc.edu.

Include your name and phone number with your question.

An advisor will contact you within two business days.