For years, the Communication Department has been assessing student learning through a portfolio system. The days of grading shelves of physical portfolios will soon be over though (here's a picture of our latest batch of 48 senior portfolios). If everything goes as planned, the department will have completed its switch from analog to electronic portfolios by the academic year 2013-2014. 

Dr. Butler and Dr. Weisgerber have been working with Cousett Rouelas in Instructional Technology to create a Drupal site which will facilitate our portfolio evaluation and assessment process.  

Advisors will set up the student profiles in the evaluation site when they receive new students in their Sophomore year.  The area coordinator will assign evaluators when portfolios are completed, and faculty will receive their assigned portfolios to evaluate through the system. 

The Drupal assessment part of the site is still in development but the Communication Department is confident it can have it completed by the end of summer.  The student portfolios will be housed on a WordPress multi site set up by Instructional Technology.This summer the department will begin developing instructional materials for our students such as online tutorials, hands-on workshops, and information for our "Intro to Comm" and "Internship"courses which will cover aspects of the portfolio process.

The department plans to take a test group of students through the new electronic portfolio system this coming academic year in order to work out any bugs in the system and to clear up any information that might not have been adequately communicated.

Congratulations to all our communication seniors who successfully completed their portfolios and will be graduating in May!