Take care when constructing your e-portfolio solution
At the recent e-portfolio symposium it was interesting to hear the range of opinions on how e-portfolio solutions should be constructed. We had the example of the experienced Web user who preferred to mash an e-portfolio together from existing web services (blogs, wikis, file and imaging services etc) whereas less experienced users preferred institutionally provided applications along with a much greater level of support (see here for more detail). There has been much discussion on how long to keep institutionally provided e-portfolio content available, how much space to provide etc. A number of organisations placed no limit on the time period that the content would be available to the users but there are no guarantees. During the symposium there seemed to be a reasonable amount of support for a systemically provided solution that could draw on services from around the Web. The main concern, in terms of access to a person's e-portfolio seemed to be around the longevity of the service. What happens though, if someone hijacks your identity and/or otherwise causes your provider to remove you from the system as recently discussed by danah boyd? How can you recover your identity/e-portfolio once you have re-established your credentials etc? In an e-portfolio that draws upon multiple services this could get quite interesting, depending on where your 'identity crisis' is located (ie with one or more e-portfolio based services). There is something to consider here for both e-portfolio providers (using multiple services) and e-portfolio users.
technorati tags: e-portfolio, identity
