The e-portfolio component is based upon proven educational, personal, and professional factors. Educationally, an e-portfolio provides a progressive, content-rich basis for assessment of a student's work. Faculty will track each student's progress along the curricular path by periodic review of the e-portfolio. Written and multimedia communication skills are honed in the process of helping students become critical thinkers. These are all important objectives for the institution. Personally, the e-portfolio encourages self-reflection and invites the exchange of ideas and feedback. Professionally, a graduate's e-portfolio is a self-contained mechanism for showcasing accomplishments and providing evidence of competencies required in the workplace. This aggregation of learning experiences and skill sets is an important tool in the individual's job search.

While the e-portfolio approach is not common in the area of computer science at other institutions, it is very common and successful in other areas of studies. Adding the e-portfolio approach provides a valuable and unique addition to our program. The e-portfolio as proposed is more than posting of what students learn in their courses. They will implement the skills they learn creatively by developing a dossier which integrates analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of each course in relation to prior (or concurrent) coursework and the overall degree objectives. We then expect the final product to be useful in job interviews. Potential employees often ask about projects an applicant completed during school, probe an applicant's ability to use technical terms appropriately, and ask questions which require a synthesis or analysis of conditions in response. Building and using the e-portfolio in the way we propose prepares graduates to handle these situations in a systematic manner which faculty can assess along the way.