Who owns the ePortfolio?

Ugh. This has been an issue for me for years. I have encouraged my high school students since 2012 to create a digital portfolio of their work to show potential employers and/ or schools the authentic work they have been doing. For my field, theatre, this usually includes photos of a production and the process of their part (acting, lights, costumes, etc), a headshot and resume, and sometimes a video of their skill. The problem that I had many times was students using their school email or Google account to create it and then it disappeared once they graduated. This tells the student that their work is the property of the school/ district and stops once they leave.

NOT TRUE! So, in an effort to help the students when I realized the problem, I looked at some other sites and encouraged the students to make their ePortfolios there. The problem we ran into there was that many of the sites require that the creator be 18 or older in order to create a page, or their terms and conditions somehow conflicted with my district's policy in another way. My next plan was to have students create their own personal Google account that they could hang onto after graduation. Unfortunately, the district not only blocked access to outside Google accounts to student log ins from any campus wifi, but they also blocked sharing documents between school Google accounts and Google accounts that were not linked to the district. I fully understand the logic behind this; we want to keep our students safe both in the real world and the cyber one. The problem was, this made it very difficult to show authentic student work to anyone outside of the district. If the student (especially those who were 18 and/ or about to graduate from high school) wanted to present his or her ePortfolio, they had to use one of many inconvenient work arounds. 

Subject: Robert Di Donato; Photographer: Jenna Horn

A great example of one of my former students ePortfolio is

 https://www.robertdidonato.com/ Robert graduated from high school in 2013, earned his bachelor's degree in 2016 and is going to start his graduate work in Ohio in August of this year. He told me that he used his ePortfolio during interviews for school and many program directors were very impressed that he had one, while others expected it. Think about that. He graduated from high school in 6 years ago and some programs expect it already. What does that say for those who are graduating this year? We have to give them a way to create and maintain an ePortfolio that is relevant to their goals because it will help them achieve those goals. 

So, the short version of the answer to my title question is: Whoever created it owns it. If it was the student, it is theirs. If it is a professional, it is theirs. We have to find a way to give students access to platforms that will help them create an ePortfolio that will be available to them after they graduate or move to another school district. This has to be done using common sense and should be taught in conjunction with internet safety and maintaining a positive digital footprint in order to be successful.