E-Portfolios for Developing Transferable Skills in a Freshman Engineering Course Export

@article{citeulike:2547868, abstract = {Reflective thinking and learning skills are essential for engineers in the knowledge economy. This paper describes an approach to develop these and other transferable skills through individual and collaborative reflective learning using open-source software. The learning activities and an open-source e-portfolio system called Dotfolio were tested by freshman engineering students. Findings from a survey-based study, which investigated students' beliefs about reflective learning and their expectations and experiences related to the task and open-source tool, are reported. From the beginning of the semester the students understood the significance of reflective learning and chose to work with the tool. However, they were less positive about the collaboration with peers during this activity. At the end of the semester, students were significantly more positive about the tool, but even more negative about the collaboration. The main problems encountered by the tutors and learners were plagiarism and a tension between the privacy of students' reflections and knowledge sharing. The open-source modular architecture allowed for the use of student and tutor feedback for the addition of new features that addressed their concerns.}, author = {Carroll, N. L. and Markauskaite, L. and Calvo, R. A.}, booktitle = {Education, IEEE Transactions on}, citeulike-article-id = {2547868}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TE.2007.907554}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=4371515}, doi = {10.1109/TE.2007.907554}, journal = {Education, IEEE Transactions on}, keywords = {ieee}, number = {4}, pages = {360--366}, posted-at = {2008-03-17 22:50:11}, priority = {2}, title = {E-Portfolios for Developing Transferable Skills in a Freshman Engineering Course}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TE.2007.907554}, volume = {50}, year = {2007} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:2547868 L3 - citeulike-article-id:2547868 N2 - Reflective thinking and learning skills are essential for engineers in the knowledge economy. This paper describes an approach to develop these and other transferable skills through individual and collaborative reflective learning using open-source software. The learning activities and an open-source e-portfolio system called Dotfolio were tested by freshman engineering students. Findings from a survey-based study, which investigated students' beliefs about reflective learning and their expectations and experiences related to the task and open-source tool, are reported. From the beginning of the semester the students understood the significance of reflective learning and chose to work with the tool. However, they were less positive about the collaboration with peers during this activity. At the end of the semester, students were significantly more positive about the tool, but even more negative about the collaboration. The main problems encountered by the tutors and learners were plagiarism and a tension between the privacy of students' reflections and knowledge sharing. The open-source modular architecture allowed for the use of student and tutor feedback for the addition of new features that addressed their concerns. IS - 4 JF - Education, IEEE Transactions on EP - 366 TI - E-Portfolios for Developing Transferable Skills in a Freshman Engineering Course VL - 50 T2 - Education, IEEE Transactions on SP - 360 KW - ieee AU - Carroll, NL AU - Markauskaite, L AU - Calvo, RA PY - 2007/// UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TE.2007.907554 ER -