E-Portfolio Use in an Undergraduate Nursing Course

This paper presents a case study on the second implementation of an e-portfolio in an undergraduate nursing course and considers the e-portfolio implementation in light of Gartner’s Hype Cycle (Fenn, Raskino, & Gammage, 2009). The e-portfolio was developed as a means for students to maintain their clinical placement documents in a single location and in a consistent manner. The e-portfolio was also introduced to enable educators to provide students with timely feedback on their clinical progress. Upon completing their placements, students were invited to complete an anonymous survey using a 5-point Likert scale together with free text response questions. These findings were supplemented with informal feedback from educators; both students and educators were disillusioned. Results showed that whilst there were some advantages to using the e-portfolio, overall users did not perceive there to be sufficient benefits to warrant continued use.