The University did have the choice to go with either PebblePAD (a highly structured, high customisable and feature-rich site that is programmed entirely in Flash) or Blackboard (a bare bones, no frillls,  "blank sheet" site). It was decided that the University had already made a lot of investment with the Blackboard VLE, we couldn't possibly support another system.

I had argued at the time that students in other instituitions had expressed the opinion that their e-portfolio tool should be separate from the VLE (the Institutional tool) as the e-portfolio belonged to them. I had heard that some institutions had listened to the students and offered a tool that was separate from the VLE; and equally, I heard that other institutions had scrapped the personalised e-portfolio and brought it back into the domain of the Institution's control.

The WebCT e-portfolio tool seems to sit inbetween PebblePAD and Blackboard in terms of features and functionality, such as the enhanced feedback / comment for each asset created; resume; reflection and goal creation tool along with a range of tools that enable the user to customise the interface. With my own Blackboard e-portfolio site, I am using the HTML features and have created a cascading stylesheet to manage the look and feel, so that it is "low maintenance" and "highly configurable".

The rub that I am having with the WebCT tool is that I don't particularly want to construct yet another e-portfolio space, especially as I already have an emotional and intellectual investment with Blackboard, despite it's severe shortcomings - the feedback / comment element to the tool is excruciatingly poor and unhelpful. Whilst I think it would be good for me to maintain a shareable e-portfolio for my MSc studies, I would much rather maintain it on an e-portfolio tool that I am currently involved with than with one that I am not.

Phew! That was a surprisingly hard entry to write.