The Curricular and Technological Nexus: Findings From a Study of ePortfolio Implementation

This paper presents findings from a qualitative study of ePortfolio experiences among health professions students at a major Australasian research-intensive university. This exploratory study of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) aims to understand the experiences and perspectives of students introduced to program-level ePortfolios across multiple curricula in the health sciences. Six key themes emerged from the data: benefits of an ePortfolio at the curriculum level, ePortfolios as an enabling technology, the value of reflection, the role of user support, the speed and quality of feedback, and mitigating distance and isolation. These data show that a program-level strategy that embeds ePortfolios across a curriculum, including delivering assessable tasks in the ePortfolio platform, is beneficial to students when a scaffolded, structured approach is taken.