I view this response from a few angles. . .
A portfolio, in general, is merely a place to store and show off artifacts. Ownership is co-owned between the student and the teacher. Students fulfill requirements of what needs to be showcased there and they move on. Although the student created the contents, once it is passed on to the teacher, the portfolio becomes the property of the teacher. Once a grade is designated, it is passed back to the student who probably won’t engage with the portfolio again beyond that point. If treated the same way, the eportfolio would also be co-owned and short lived.
Lamar has put ownership of the eportfolio in the hands of the student through applications of the COVA approach. Students are given freedom to design and curate an environment to interact with their learning in a space of their own. I agree with Audrey Watters in that, "It is important to have one's own space in order to develop one's ideas and one's craft. It's important that learners have control over their work-their content and their data (Watters, 2018)." Every topic that we learn is brought to life, in some sort of personally relevant way, in our domain. In the article, Who Owns the Eportfolio, Dr. Harapnuik, talks about ownership of ideas and the necessity of meaningful connections for deep learning (Harapnuik, n.d). It is our continuous interaction with the eportfolio that makes it our own. The weekly blog and reflections are prime examples of this. Looking forward, if we choose to disconnect from our eportfolio at the end of the DLL program, then we rescind our ownership and leave it with Lamar.
Lastly, at this point in our journey, it feels like ownership is the professor's because we are completing tasks to get a grade. As we develop our personal domain, we are fulfilling a checklist of required elements. Luckily, the tasks will be less about the grade and more about our desire to learn as we progress through the DLL program. Andrew Rikard states, “The web is a network for conversations, and if students still see their audience as a teacher with a red pen, then nothing changes (Rikard, 2015).” It’s important to remember that our engagement with the eportfolio supplements our learning and that sharing our learning with peers expands the learning environment beyond just me and the professor.
Ultimately, ownership of the eportfolio depends on the level of interaction in which a person chooses to have.
References
Harapnuik, D. (n.d.). Who Owns the Eportfolio? Retrieved from http://www.harapnuik.org/?page_id=6050
Rikard, A. (2015). Do I Own My Domain If You Grade It? Retrieved from https://www.edsurge.com/news/2015-08-10-do-i-own-my-domain-if-you-grade-it
Watters, A. (2015). The Web We Need to Give Students. Retrieved from https://brightthemag.com/the-web-we-need-to-give-students-311d97713713
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