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 e-Portfolio development includes the following steps:
 

Stage 1: The decision and selection stage

This stage is one of the most important stages of creating e-Portfolio, where the purpose of using e-Portfolio, the audience, ,and the way e-Portfolio presents/ publishes are determined . What resources are available for electronic portfolio development? What are the technology skills do you have?

Stage  2:  Planning and design stage

What is the content of portfolio items (determined by the assessment context) and the type of evidence to be collected? This is where the standards become a very important part of the planning process. Knowing which standards or goals you are trying to demonstrate should help determine the types of portfolio artifacts to collect.
For example, if the portfolio goal is to demonstrate the standard of clear communication, then examples should reflect studentís writing (scanned or imported from a word processing document) and speaking abilities (sound or video clips).

Which software tools are most appropriate for the portfolio context and the resources available?The software used to create the electronic portfolio will control, restrict, or enhance the portfolio development process. The electronic portfolio software should match the vision and style of the portfolio developer.

Which storage and presentation medium is most appropriate for the situation (computer hard disk, videotape, LAN, the Web, CD-ROM)? The type of audience for the portfolio will determine this answer. There are also multiple options, depending on the software chosen.

What multimedia materials will you gather to represent a learnerís achievement? Once you have answered the questions about portfolio context and content and addressed the limitations on the available equipment and usersí skills, you will be able to determine the type of materials you will digitize.

This can include written work, images of 3-D projects, speech recordings, and video clips of performances. You will want to collect artifacts from different time periods to demonstrate growth and learning achieved over time.

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Stage 3: The Reflective Portfolio

 How will you select the specific artifacts from the abundance of the working portfolio to demonstrate achieving the portfolioís goals? What are your criteria for selecting artifacts and for judging merit? Having a clear set of rubrics at this stage will help guide portfolio development and evaluation.

How will you record self-reflection on work and achievement of goals? The quality of the learning that results from the portfolio development process may be in direct proportion to the quality of the studentsí self-reflection on their work.

How will you record teacher feedback on student work and achievement of goals, when appropriate? Even more critical is the confidential nature of the assessment process. Teachersí feedback should also be kept confidential so that only the student, parents, and other appropriate audiences have access. Security, in the form of password protection to control access, is an important factor when choosing electronic portfolio development software.

How will you record goals for future learning based on the personal reflections and feedback? The primary benefit of a portfolio is to see growth over time, which should inspire goal setting for future learning. It is this process of setting learning goals that turns the portfolio into a powerful tool for long-term growth and development.

You will know you are ready for the next stage when you have:
selected the artifacts for your formal or presentation portfolio, and written reflective statements and identified learning goals.

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Stage 4: The Connected Portfolio

How will you organize the digital artifacts? Have you selected software that allows you to create hyperlinks between goals, work samples, rubrics, and assessment? The choice of software can either restrict or enhance the development process and the quality of the final product. Different software packages each have unique characteristics that can limit or expand the electronic portfolio options.

How will you evaluate the portfolioís effectiveness in light of its purpose and the assessment context? In an environment of continuous improvement, a portfolio should be viewed as an ongoing learning tool, and its effectiveness should be reviewed on a regular basis to be sure it is meeting the goals set.

Will you develop a collection of exemplary portfolio artifacts for comparison purposes? Many portfolio development guidebooks recommend collecting model portfolio artifacts that demonstrate achievement of specific standards. This provides the audience with a frame of reference to judge a specific studentís work. It also provides concrete examples of good work for students to emulate.

You will know you are ready for the next stage when:

your documents are converted into a format that allows hyperlinks and you can navigate using them, you have inserted the appropriate multimedia artifacts into the document, and you are ready to share your portfolio with others.

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Stage 5: The Presentation Portfolio

How will you record the portfolio to an appropriate presentation and storage medium? These will be different for a working portfolio and a presentation portfolio. The best medium for a formal portfolio is CD-Recordable disc, Web server, or videotape.

How will you  present the finished portfolio to an appropriate audience? This will be a very individual strategy, depending on the context. An emerging strategy is student-led conferences, which enable learners to share their portfolios with a targeted audience, whether parents, peers, or potential employers. This is also an opportunity for professionals to share their teaching portfolios with colleagues for meaningful feedback and collaboration in self-assessment.

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