Polaris: An Online Portfolio System for Undergraduate
Engineering Students
The University of Texas at Austin
What is it?
Just three years ago, The University of Texas at Austin’s College
of Engineering introduced Polaris, an in-house e-portfolio system
made available to all engineering students, who were encouraged to use it on a voluntary basis. Produced by the college’s
Faculty Innovation Center (FIC), in collaboration with the Mechanical Engineering Department and with support from Ford Motor
Company, the Polaris Portfolio Tool is distinguished from other eportfolio systems by the ways in which it has been tailored to the
discipline-specific developmental needs of engineering undergraduates. Given the homegrown nature of the Polaris framework,
the FIC can add and integrate new features as needed. More
than a repository for résumés and other documents, the Polaris
framework includes special exercises designed to help engineering students reflect on the relevance of their course projects and
experiences to their evolving sense of themselves as engineers.
Prompts and exercises assist them in describing their projects
accurately in terms that dovetail with those established by the
Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), the
accreditor of U.S. college and university programs in applied science, computing, engineering, and technology.
The customized system is noteworthy for the manner in which it
integrates its recordkeeping functions with its prominent reflective components. Although countless hours of Web development have gone into the system so that students can produce a
professional-looking portfolio quickly and easily, UT engineering
students are not using their e-portfolios solely to showcase their
best work and evaluations for prospective employers. Instead,
the Polaris system was modified through the collective efforts
of engineering faculty, the FIC, and students from UT’s School
of Education to support the learning process itself. Guiding students through the description and analysis of their own course
work, the system uses a “metacognitive” strategy that encourages students to study their own learning patterns in an effort to
improve their performance over time.
To date, more than 800 engineering students have created
e-portfolios, recognizing the benefit of sharing their learning artifacts and reflections with fellow students, faculty, and prospective employers. The Polaris-produced e-portfolio is a portrait of
an evolving learner in the process of integrating personal goals
with professional perspectives, and theoretical issues with realworld contexts. A feedback cycle included in the Polaris system allows students to post their individual work electronically,
perform intragroup and extragroup reviews, question project
assumptions, and learn to critique their peers constructively, as
they must do throughout their engineering careers. Biomedical
engineering faculty have begun to use the system in their capstone design courses to develop a beneficial exchange between
their senior-level students and industry partners, who offer feedback on posted student projects.
What problem does it solve?
In 2001, the mechanical engineering faculty at UT Austin was
faced with an enviable problem. Having just received support
from the Ford Motor Company to foster hands-on learning activities and course projects for undergraduate engineering students,
the department needed a way to document and share student
projects, tracking the achievement of learning objectives, reinforcing the link between class work and real-world engineering
concerns, and encouraging students to reflect on the efficacy of
their educational experiences. At the same time, faculty used the
e-portfolio development and implementation process to gather
empirical data on the effectiveness of student portfolios in engineering instruction when students are encouraged to reflect on
their own learning processes.
How did they do it?
The current Polaris system has several basic components:
●
Public site: All individual student portfolios are accessible by the general public from the Polaris home page and
through unique Web addresses. The introductory page
allows the student to present an overview of his or her capabilities targeted at an audience of prospective employers,
faculty, and acquaintances.
●
Wizard and Web development: When students initially
log on to Polaris, they are directed to a series of pages that
guide them through the process of creating the four basic
components that make up the functional portfolio: (1) a
home page, including picture, brief biography, and links to
their projects; (2) a résumé page; (3) a contact information
page; and (4) the first project page. They can return at any
time to modify or add to their portfolio. To assist students
as they create their first project page, Polaris offers a series
of Web pages that ask simple questions about the associ-
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Polaris
ated course and the project team. This is followed by two
series of checkboxes, the first listing potential learning outcomes to help the student reflect on what she has experienced, and the second listing specific engineering skills that
were gained in the process, along with queries regarding
the software that was used. A final set of questions focuses
students on information that might be included in the project description’s concluding paragraph: “What would you
do differently?” “How does [the project] relate to real-world
applications?” Polaris developers are encouraged by survey
results that suggest students welcome the simple exercises
that help them write a project abstract and are beginning to
recognize that these exercises will save them time in the long
run, improve the advising process, and help them articulate
what they have learned at UT.
●
●
Mission-statement functionality: Drafting a mission
statement compels students to consider how to describe
themselves and their life’s goals to the outside world. The
Polaris developers added this functionality to the original
framework to ensure that students documented the entire
arc of their development as engineering students rather
than deferring portfolio production activities until their
senior year. The construction of a mission statement also
becomes a pivotal part of the advising process, focusing
faculty-student discussion on larger issues than the logistics of course scheduling.
Web journaling tool: In another effort to ensure that students see the value of working on their portfolio throughout
their college career, the Polaris framework now includes a
guided process of reflection called “Web journaling” that
allows students to chronicle their experiences, sort through
choices, and look at their decisions with a critical eye as they
begin to think more like engineers.
Why is it noteworthy?
●
Faculty-generated initiative: In 2001, faculty seeking
to foster innovative, hands-on projects within mechanical
engineering courses launched the Polaris e-portfolio development initiative because they saw it as way to track the
project-centered accomplishments of students and faculty.
Subsequently, faculty worked with learning researchers and
technologists to modify the system as a means of supporting student project teams during the collaborative process
of project definition, review, and revision.
●
Integration of reflection with recordkeeping: Designed
to supplement in-class learn-by-doing activities in a projectbased engineering curriculum, the Polaris e-portfolio system
includes significant reflective and collaborative components
aimed at supporting guided student self-assessment, group
interactions, and peer-based project review.
●
Flexible, adaptable solution: While many Web development tools now exist for creating online portfolios, the Polaris
system—as a homegrown product—is distinguished by the
relative ease with which it can be adapted to address specific career development and instructional needs. The Polaris
customized system allows UT to implement engineeringspecific options that guide and nurture undergraduates.
●
Institutional cooperation: Development and promotion of
the Polaris system was a joint effort of the FIC, Career Assistance Center, faculty innovators, and curricular advisors.
To learn more
Please contact Kathy Schmidt, director of the FIC for the College
of Engineering at UT Austin, at [email protected], or
visit the FIC Web site at http://fic.engr.utexas.edu/index.cfm.
To share your innovation
If your institution has a practice that you believe would be of interest to the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative, please share it with us.
To submit your innovation for review, please use the ELI Innovations Contribution Form on our Community Exchange page
<http://www.educause.edu/ELICommunityExchange/6797>. A
panel will review your submission and make a recommendation
to the ELI staff.
About the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative
The EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) is a community of higher
education institutions and organizations committed to advancing learning through IT innovation. To achieve this mission, ELI
focuses on learners, learning principles and practices, and learning technologies. We believe that using IT to improve learning
requires a solid understanding of learners and how they learn. It
also requires effective practices enabled by learning technologies. We encourage institutions to use this report to broaden
awareness and improve effective teaching and learning practice.
www.educause.edu/eli
September 2006