Issues & Challenges
ePortfolio issues & challenges
What is Identity
Identity is the percieved persistence of the structure of an entity through its transformation over time. Identity might be dependent on context as people can have multiple identities as manifestation of their persistence within different worlds - professional, social, recreational, etc. The issue of identity is discussed by philosophers, psychologists, sociologists as well as educators and computer scientists (digital identity).
What is a Digital Identity?
In the context of this website, we will refer to digital identity as short for 'personal digital identity' that is the use of technologies to support the construction of one's identity and the expression of one's identity with technologies. The personal digital identity is not a static object, but the result of the multiple conversations we have with ourselves (reflection), peers, organisations, mediated through or captured with digital technologies. In this context, it is a given that the same person can have multiple digital identities, depending on the context where they operate, and that part of these identities can be the result of a conscious process (e.g. reflective blog) or the simple tracking of Internet transactions (e.g. cookies).
ePortfolios and Digital Identity
While we are still in the infancy of ePortfolio history, its emergence has already had a major impact on current learning technologies development, as well as on our reflection on information systems and architectures. Beyond learning, employability and social inclusion, the ePortfolio elicits the critical issue of privacy and control: who owns and can exploit our personal data, the digital representation of ourselves. Perhaps the issue of ePortfolio can be subsumed to that of digital identity, i.e. the extension of our physical identity, an ePortfolio being the mere projection of one's identity?
