Building Digital Resilience: ePortfolios in Times of Crisis
Digital resilience is the central theme of this book, and this section contains six chapters that directly address the relationship between resilience and ePortfolios. The chapters in this theme explore how ePortfolios adapted and endured during the COVID-19 pandemic. The first chapter, ‘Empowering Digital Resilience: Strategies for Success through ePortfolios,’ focuses on the type of skills that can be fostered through an ePortfolio process. These skills include digital literacy as well as a multidimensional construct encompassing adaptability, emotional regulation, critical thinking, and identity formation.
The second chapter, ‘Digital Resilience in the 21st Century: The Role of ePortfolios in Fostering Adaptive and Technological Competencies,’ describes additional skills and competencies that are derived from ePortfolios. For example, an ePortfolio process encourages critical self-reflection, facilitates continuous learning, and empowers individuals to adapt to dynamic environments.
‘Demonstrating the Resilience of ePortfolios in Times of Disruption: Two International Case Studies’ is the third chapter and expands on the ability of the ePortfolio process to foster resilience. The case studies draw on ePortfolio research that has been conducted at Old Dominion University (ODU) in the United States and The University of Queensland (UQ) in Australia.
The fourth chapter, ‘Think Again: How Communication ePortfolios and Work-Based Learning Foster Resilience Through Double-Looping,’ is the fourth chapter in this section, and it describes how ePortfolios in combination with work-based experiences contribute to double-looped learning. The authors define double-loop learning as a recursive, metacognitive process through which students not only reflect on their learning outcomes but also interrogate the assumptions behind their choices.
‘The Resilience of ePortfolios During and After COVID-19: The Past, Present, and Future’ is the fifth chapter, and it further explores the ability of ePortfolios to foster student resilience. The findings of this study imply that ePortfolios can serve as a sustainable and flexible assessment tool that supports continuity, transparency, and student-centred learning in both crisis and post-crisis educational contexts.
The sixth and final chapter of this section, ‘Transforming Education Through ePortfolios: Key Takeaways from the Pandemic—A Bibliometric and Systematic Review,’ provides a summary of an extensive review of ePortfolio literature between 2001 and 2024. The findings suggest that while ePortfolios promoted students’ engagement and reflective practice, their impact was often limited by digital inequality, insufficient training, and a lack of systemic support. Despite these barriers, the pandemic provided valuable insights into effective ePortfolio implementation. The chapter provides recommendations that aim to optimize the integration of ePortfolios into diverse educational and professional contexts, ensuring their sustainability in both traditional and virtual learning environments.
