Name: Digital Resilience of ePortfolios for Open Education – Lessons for the Future
Start: 2026-10-08T12:25:00-0400
End: 2026-10-08T12:55:00-0400

All sessions are available online except round tables, special activities, and workshops.

Digital Resilience of ePortfolios for Open Education – Lessons for the Future

Thursday October 8, 2026 12:25pm - 12:55pm EDT

2 Room M

ID: 31780

The focus of this session is to describe, discuss, and debate the collaborative process that was used to publish an edited open-access, online book on ePortfolios that consists of 43 chapters from 85 authors around the globe and was published in 9 months. The goal of the session is to provide “lessons learned” that others can use to publish their own collaborative open-access books and resources.The book is entitled Digital Resilience of ePortfolios During and Beyond the COVID-19 Pandemic: Lessons for the Future, and it delves into the transformative role that ePortfolios have played during and after this global crisis. We have both previously experienced the challenges of academic book publishing: financial cost, extended time to publication, and restricted access for readers. Thus, we selected the Pressbooks publishing platform for this book to decrease the financial cost (virtually zero with an institutional license), increase publication time (9 months), and increase access (online open access).We sent out a global call for chapter proposals via international listservs in November 2024. Based on this invitation, we received 73 proposals in January 2025 from authors around the globe who were passionate and curious about the international use of ePortfolios. During the month of February, we reviewed the proposals and sorted them into 8 themes. We then invited authors from 47 proposals to submit full chapters. These authors submitted the first draft of their chapters in May. These chapters were then anonymized, converted to a Google Doc, and placed in a unique Google folder for each chapter. Each author was then required to peer review two related chapters using a peer review template created in Google Docs. This peer review process took place during the months of June and July and ended with the selection of 43 chapters for the book. At the beginning of August, each chapter team was provided access to their Google folder, which contained the two peer reviews. Authors then revised their chapters and uploaded their revised work along with a table describing how they had addressed the required revisions. In September, we reviewed each of the revised chapters, suggested final revisions, and then received preprint approval from each of the author teams. We then finalized publication, copyright, and accessibility criteria with our institutional library, resulting in the launch of our open access, online book in October 2025 during International Open Access Week.There are four main lessons learned that we would like to share with others from the collaborative, open-access, online publishing experience:Clarity and communication (everyone is clear on expectations of the publication process (e.g., peer reviews) and receives constant and consistent communication about the process).Planning and timelines (a clear plan has been established and communicated with the authors, with an emphasis on the importance and rationale for timelines (deadlines)).Review process integrity (importance of ensuring anonymity throughout the peer review process)Operational challenges (importance of having a support team (e.g., IT and librarians) to overcome publishing challenges (e.g., copyright and accessibility issues)).

Speakers

Norm Vaughn

Professor, Mount Royal University

Norman Vaughan, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Education at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He has co-edited the Digital Resilience of ePortfolios During and Beyond the COVID-19 Pandemic (2025) book as well as co-authored Principles of Blended... Read More →

Mphoentle Modise

Associate Professor, University of South Africa

Mpho-Entle Puleng Modise, PhD, is a multi-award-winning Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instructional Studies, College of Education, at the University of South Africa. Her research areas include digital transformation in open distance e-learning, faculty and... Read More →

Thursday October 8, 2026 12:25pm - 12:55pm EDT
2 Room M MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Presentation

Speaker Modality Hybrid
Track Catalyzing Human Connection Creativity and Curiosity to Thrive

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OEGlobal 2026

Norm Vaughn

Mphoentle Modise

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OEGlobal 2026

Norm Vaughn

Mphoentle Modise

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