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Abstract
Background: Little is published about the role of faculty advisors and use of students' e-portfolios. Purpose: This article reports advisors' observations and understanding about 1st-year students based on information from students' journaling as part of an e-portfolio. Methods: Data were collected on Blackboard™ survey module for 8 volunteer advisors at two medical school campuses. Responses were hand coded, verified by two authors, tallied, with example comments recorded. Results: The four male and four female advisors are all mid-career, mixed between clinical and nonclinical faculty. The students' responses in the portfolio gave advisors greater insight into students' thinking, maturity, and reflective ability, and they helped advisors identify early warnings about problems. The e-portfolio enhanced meaningful interactions and more focused discussions with students. Advisors reported no improvements in efficiency of communications and had technical difficulties with Blackboard™ (version 6.0). Conclusions: Advisors reported students' reflective responses to focused questions in an e-portfolio contribute valuable understanding about students' thinking and attitudes. Advisors are enthusiastic about the value of the e-portfolio for this purpose. We anticipate benefits will generalize when fully implemented.
The authors wish to thank Dr. Robert McAuley for his invaluable help with Blackboard™ for this study.