The Art of ePortfolios: Insights from the Creative Arts Experience

Abstract

This chapter examines the creative production context as a vehicle to reveal the issues, problems, and complexities that may be encountered when working with ePortfolios. We utilize metaphors from the creative arts as tools to provide new perspectives and insights that may not otherwise occur in other disciplines to provide a unique critique of the performativity of ePortfolios. Through reference to case studies drawn from drama, dance, music, new media, and the visual arts, the authors’ research has problematized ePortfolios from the teacher, student, institutional, and pedagogical perspectives. They identify the issues and propose approaches to resolving them, and illustrate how these ideas derive from creative arts knowledge and outline how they are transferable to other disciplines using ePortfolios based on rich media forms of presentation. In conclusion, we examine the performing arts as temporal art forms attuned to the unfolding of a narrative and examine the notion that the audience experiences the reading of a portfolio as a performance.