ePortfolio

ePortfolio is a digital collection that documents knowledge, skills, and abilities you have gained through all your experiences in college.

Creating and working on an ePortfolio enables you to figure out how all the different parts of your college experience fit together. It is an online space where you can create, collect, curate, converse, and connect your academic experiences and engage in reflection. You can include a variety of representations of your work and experiences, from audio files, video links, graphics, and more. In short, the ePortfolio is your chance to tell your story, and if you choose, share it with faculty, employers, and peers. 

ePortfolio Benefits

Using an ePortfolio can benefit you in many ways. Here are some of the major ones: 

  • Reflect and find your purpose. Creating an ePortfolio gives you crucial practice reflecting on what you’ve done and what you want to accomplish. Reflection is shown to deepen learning, cultivate critical thinking, and heighten identity exploration. Importantly, you get to determine how you share it: you choose who has access to what and when you share your ePortfolio components.  

  • See your progress. Transcripts only tell part of your story. Your ePortfolio is a thorough account of all your knowledge, skills, and experiences – in and out of the classroom. And just as learning isn’t linear, your progress may not be either. Your ePortfolio provides you with an opportunity to reflect on the challenges and successes you’ve had that made you who you are today makes your learning visible. 

  • Get jobs, internships, scholarships and more.  You can share your ePortfolios with employers and can be a richer and more dynamic version of your capabilities and experiences you may not otherwise: you can share video, audio, files, images and more. Sharing your ePortfolio with faculty also helps you get better, more detailed recommendation letters. 

  • Make curricular connections. As part of your undergraduate degree, you take a variety of classes and without a dedicated space to reflect, you may not understand how that knowledge and experiences connect to each other. Your ePortfolio is a place for you to integrate those various courses and knowledge together and make meaning from them. 

  • Build your digital literacy skills. In ePortfolios, you are engaging in many skills such as learning a new technical tool or digital media platform. They can be a powerful example of skill building to demonstrate to future employers.  

  • Cultivate your digital presence. In this virtual space, you can develop your digital identity, personal brand and engage in digital storytelling, which are opportunities you may not engage with otherwise in your collegiate career.   

What platform do I use to create my ePortfolio?

PebblePad is an application used to develop digital portfolios (ePortfolios) and curate and manage evidence of reflection, learning, assessment and professional development. Learn more about getting started with PebblePad at OTDI’s page.  

Note: if you started in Fall 2021 or earlier, you have the option of continuing to use your u.osu.edu page or migrating to PebblePad.  

What should I include in my ePortfolio?

Since the format of an ePortfolio lends itself to sharing a variety of files, including video, audio, images, PPTs, and more, you can be as creative as you wish. These assets serve as supporting evidence in your reflections. Here are some ideas to get you started: 

  • A concept map you used to write a paper 

  • A video file from a class presentation 

  • A business proposal from group project 

  • A picture from a service-learning experience  

  • The text from your nomination for leadership in a campus organization  

  • An audio file from a reflection you submitted in a class 

  • A link to a website you created for an internship 

Helpful Resources

Visit OTDI’s Getting Started with PebblePad for Students page.  
Visit the PebblePad help page.  

For more information about Honors and Scholars ePortfolio resources, contact honors-scholars@osu.edu.  

ePortfolio Examples

To inspire you to get started, here are some great ePortfolios from past and current Honors and Scholars students: 

Jocelyn Hsu 
Jenna Samosky 
Aaron Stant