Work in progress — Effect of departmental culture on ePortfolios for graduate engineering programmatic assessment

This “Work In Progress” is part of a larger study investigating ePortfolio use for graduate assessment in engineering programs. ePortfolios have been used in a variety of applications ranging from undergraduate assessment to graduate student work showcases and most recently for graduate program assessment. Little work to date has been done that specifically addresses graduate assessment in engineering. Our study helps fill this gap by examining the results of ePortfolio implementations in three separate engineering graduate programs at a large research institution located in the southeast United States. The ePortfolios studied were designed in Fall 2010 and implemented in Spring 2011. During the design phase, anecdotal evidence of distinct departmental cultures emerged. The cultures appeared to have an effect on the final ePortfolio designs. This work formally examines departmental culture from an “insider” perspective and determines the relationship, if any, between departmental culture and perceptions of ePortfolios.