Portfolios

Find out how to design and implement portfolio assessments 

When should I use a portfolio?

Portfolios are particularly effective when:

• learning involves practice, such as placements, projects, or creative work
• learning requires integration of theory and practice
• learning includes reflection, process, or professional development as a key outcome

While portfolios are commonly used in practice‑based disciplines, interdisciplinary programmes, and professional education, they are valuable in any subject where assessment seeks to evidence a broad range of skills.

Portfolios as coherent assessments

Effective portfolios are designed as integrated assessments, rather than as containers for unrelated tasks. Components should connect conceptually and pedagogically, and be designed to enable students to create a clear narrative of their learning. Common approaches include:

• showcase portfolios -- curated selections of a student's best work
• working portfolios -- collections of work produced across a module
• progress or developmental portfolios -- emphasising learning over time and reflection on growth

In all cases, individual components should build on one another and contribute to a coherent whole.

Examples of portfolios as coherent assessments

Here are examples of portfolios loosely categorised into the approaches listed above. Please note that these examples are by no means exhaustive, nor are the categories neatly defined. The aim of providing these examples is to give you a sense of what different types of portfolios might look like.

• Working portfolio

  Here are some examples of portfolio assessments that are collections of work produced across a module and come together to provide a holistic picture of engagement and learning:

  • What I have learnt from grading students on their participation
  • Encouraging attendance and engagement through portfolio assessment
  • Mapping the circular economy: A flexible mapping project for Product Design students
  • Students lead social change campaign
• Progress or developmental portfolios

  Here is a portfolio assessment in Chemistry, used to develop students’ employability skills through a variety of components, like CV writing and interview preparation. In addition the portfolio captures students’ development over the course of the module through a self-assessment of competency in employability skills. Students complete the self-assessment in week one and return to it at the end of the module to reflect on their progress.

  • Developing student employability through assessment design

Considerations when designing portfolios

When designing portfolio assessments, make sure you consider these risks and challenges. 

• Over-assessment

  Moving your assessment to a portfolio format should not increase overall workload. The Univeristy of Sussex Assessment Equivalencies guidance applies an assessment workload model and can be used to support decisions about appropriate student workload.

  While regular or weekly tasks can support ongoing student engagement and reflection, not all weekly activity needs to be summatively assessed. Formative activities, which ideally take place in the classroom, can sit alongside a smaller number of summative components.

  Where regular tasks are included, requiring completion of every component may create challenges around fairness, mitigating circumstances, and resits. You may, therefore, wish to assess only a subset within the final portfolio. Doing so will design-in reasonable adjustments and can reduce the risk of penalising occasional absence or uneven engagement. This can be designed in different ways:

  • students choose which pieces to include, supported by clear criteria and formative feedback (e.g. tutor, peer, or automated feedback) to help them make informed choices
  • the module specifies which tasks must be included
  • some core tasks are required, with additional optional choices 

   

  Selection should not rely on student judgement alone. Students need opportunities to receive feedback during the module so they can reflect on and justify their choices.

   

• Single submission point

  Because the portfolio is submitted as a single assessment, there can be challenges around exceptional circumstances and reasonable adjustments. Individual components are not always visible to those administering the adjustments, making it difficult to apply meaningful alternatives for students. Again, this challenge can be mitigated through careful design. For example:

  • allowing choice in evidence and format
  • enabling learning outcomes to be met in different ways
  • limiting reliance on time‑specific or high‑risk components and assessing these separately
• In-person timed components

  Care should be taken when including in-person assessed components within portfolios, such as in-class tests or live presentations. These should not be included unless there is optionality and/or alternative ways for studcents to meet the module learning outcomes. This is because, in-person assessments within a portfolio can:

  • make it difficult for colleagues, including Disability Support, to identify and support reasonable adjustments
  • put unfair onus on students with disabilities to self-advocate and request a variation of assessment
  • function as proxies for attendance and may be difficult to adapt for students who are unable to attend

Applying Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles can help mitigate these risks. For example:

• giving students a choice over how they meet the assessment requirements, which may include an oral component (or reflection on an oral activity) alongside other options
• offering flexibility or alternative formats for potentially high‑risk components, for example by allowing students to record their presentation or present to a small group rather than to the whole class

Checklist for designing effective portfolio assessments 

When designing portfolios, it is important to:

• align the portfolio clearly with learning outcomes
• ensure expectations around content, structure, and reflection are transparent
• design portfolios as coherent assessments
• apply Universal Design for Learning principles to, where at all possible, design-out the need for reasonable adjustments
• consider workload, particularly where multiple components contribute to a single submission
• select an appropriate marking approach and criteria (e.g. holistic, weighted, threshold). 
• support students with feedback during the process, not only after submission.

Portfolio platforms 

See more from Assessment modes