Citation
Haggerty, C., & Thompson, T. (2017). The challenges of incorporating eportfolio into an undergraduate nursing programme. Open Praxis, 9(2), 245-252.
Abstract
Registered nurses today are required to maintain a portfolio of evidence of their competence to practice. This evidence collection commences at undergraduate level with nursing programmes requiring portfolio’s as assessments, which are often submitted in hard copy. This paper describes the outcome when a small group of tutorial staff introduced ePortfolio’s into an undergraduate nursing degree. Evaluation of the effectiveness was collected through reflective conversations, which focused on issues that arise when implementing this change to a curriculum, along with improving understanding of ePortfolios and their use in practice. Routine student evaluations and the lessons learnt from tutorial staff reflections were used to inform the planning for wider implementation of ePortfolio’s.
Annotation
Registered nurses are “required to maintain a portfolio of evidence of their competence to practice”; a practice that begins in the undergraduate nursing program (p. 245). At a university in New Zealand, where the portfolio was paper based, the authors of this article wanted to explore the impact of introducing an e-portfolio to a small group of tutorial staff and undergraduate first- and second-year nursing students from two cohorts, over the course of one semester (and just prior to beginning a clinical placement), in order to inform a strategy for a wider e-portfolio implementation. Through reflective conversations [interview] with tutorial staff and student evaluations, the authors identified issues that arose that had to do with implementation–the themes being “motivation and timing; training and support; technology and access” (p. 248). The study’s key findings “were directly related to ensuring that ePortfolios align with curriculum, add value and are purposeful” (p. 251).