11 Entry
NaZibah KaMaRuddiN
In 1000 words, write the reason why you like or dislike using e-portfolio as one of your learning and assessment tools.



E-Portfolio is to be beginning a new wave of technology development in education. There is a push to free student work from paper and to make it
  • organized,
  • searchable, and
  • transportable
The following outlines the benefits for e-portfolio user groups.
Student
  • increased learning effectiveness
  • model professionalism
  • enhance information technology skills
  • gain academic credit for learning beyond the classroom
  • reflections on artifacts as well as how they match goals and standards
  • help students make connections among their formal and informal learning experiences
  • prompt learners to articulate their learning goals from different perspectives
In e-portfolio of this class, is a weekly entry reflecting what have read or done and published in blog. For me using the blog for this e-portfolio is not too hard. It is because before this I have my own blog. But the content is very different because in my own blog it just about mine and to share with my friends but the content in this e-portfolio is a purposeful collection of my work that exhibits my efforts, progress, and achievements in one or more areas of the course curriculum. It should represent a collection of my best work and best efforts. This e-portfolio includes notes taken during the lectures/discussions/lab activities/observations made on the use of technologies for library and information management, as well as from relevant materials. So I have a problem with time management to do the content of this e-portfolio. It is because I must take time to do all the entry and must balance in my work and other class. But I try do my best and as well as I can to do this e-portfolio. For me e-portfolio using blog is very interactive and I very like it.
For educational purposes, there are many different types of electronic portfolios (e-portfolio). Most allow for flexibility so that the lecturer can focus and or measure a specific skill or concept.
Because teaching methods and strategies have changed and will continue to change as research and technologies make advances, the means to assess students must also keep pace. Portfolio assessment began as a way to more accurately evaluate a student. By organizing and collecting student work samples, lecturer, students and parents could chart student progress
There are benefits to using an electronic portfolio. With traditional portfolios, files, boxes and or binders holding papers, cassettes, pictures, and drawings would take up lots of space. With an electronic portfolio, information can be easily stored in a computer hard drive, floppy disc, CD or other. This would take up very little physical space and would be accessed with minimal effort.
E-portfolio not only takes up little physical space, but can hold a great deal of information. Pictures, art work and writing samples can be all be scanned in and saved. Once the student work is organized, electronic portfolios can be enhanced by the addition of sound, music, pictures, graphics and even video. Thus making it easier and more appealing to the student and lecturer
Electronic portfolios also serve to enhance computer and technology skills. The student would gain experience by creating, selecting, organizing, editing and evaluating the portfolios. Students would feel a sense of accomplishment and empowerment by displaying, sharing and presenting their electronic portfolios to lectures, fellow classmates and other.
In closing, electronic portfolios are a technology based form of authentic student based assessment. They are a collection of student work over a period of time. Portfolios are both practical and effective because of the rubrics used. The benefits include clear set standards or expectations, quick access, easy storage and increased technology skills. A multi-media computer, a scanner and a software package are the basic technologies needed to create an electronic portfolio. The templates are a way to organize the contents of the portfolio.
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10 Entry
NaZibah KaMaRuddiN
Discuss on the impact of Open Access Initiatives to libraries
“Open Source’ Integrated Library System Software

Open access to scholarly information has been a hot topic for debate among librarians, scholars, and publishers over the last few years. Open-access (OA) literature is free, digital, and available to anyone online. An open-access article has limited copyright and licensing restrictions which means anyone, anywhere, with access to the Internet may read, download, copy, and distribute that article.

The open access gives a best impact to libraries. Their benefits and importance to libraries are examined like:
Ø  Benefits include lower costs, greater accessibility, and better prospects for long-term preservation of scholarly works. The growth of the open access movement is partially in response to the enormous costs of many scholarly journals. With traditional journal publication methods it is not uncommon for an institution to have to pay for an article twice. First they pay scholars to produce the work and then the institution's library pays to purchase the work back from the journal publisher
o   Increased Visibility:  
Open access literature is much more accessible than print-only publications. For
researchers, the barriers to access of literature, such as subscription costs and
inconveniences associated with the traditional model, are removed. As more
scholarly information is made freely available, scholars are relying much more on
materials that they can find and retrieve online. Authors must consider how their
research will potentially be found and used as they plan for future publications.
o   Increased Impact:
The obvious result of higher visibility of open access literature is that open access leads to increased impact and a greater citation rate. Multiple studies conducted over the last several years show that open access materials are cited at a higher rate than articles that are published traditionally.
o   Reduced cost:
For libraries, open access relieves the burden associated with the ever-increasing cost of serials subscriptions. Many academic libraries are experiencing subscription costs that are growing faster than their purchasing budgets. If a researcher publishes with a traditional print-only publication, their colleagues at these universities may have no access to their writing.

Ø  Help library make intelligent decisions about subscriptions and cancellations by having a discussion about the real value of scholarly journals. Librarians often feel pressured to take actions that perpetuate the pricing crisis by subscribing to journals whose price may not be a true reflection of their size, quality, impact, or usage. Educate colleagues and the next generation of scientists and scholars. You can prevent damaging myths or alarmist claims about open access from circulating without challenge. Open access is compatible with peer review, copyright, and career advancement.
Ø  Open Access benefits researchers, institutions, nations and society as a whole. For researchers, it brings increased visibility, usage and impact for their work. Institutions enjoy the same benefits in aggregated form. There is growing evidence to show that countries also benefit because Open Access increases the impact of the research in which they invest public money and therefore there is a better return on investment. Society as a whole benefits because research is more efficient and more effective, delivering better and faster outcomes for us all.
Ø  Open access bring the libraries closer to the users: Information are brought to the users, either at home or work, making it more accessible, and increases its usage. This is very much different that traditional libraries where the users have to physically go to the library.
As a conclusion. When the library has open access Information can be shared where the pacing digital information on a network makes it available to everyone. The open access  provides more choices, and is convenient to user access at any time and at any place and ensure they get the best possible education and are not artificially limited by the selection of information are able to provide.
 
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