Developing an Effective ePortfolio in Nursing: A Comprehensive Guide

This essay provides a comprehensive overview of developing an ePortfolio in nursing, emphasizing its importance in today's digital job market. It defines a nursing ePortfolio as a digital footprint showcasing personal and professional achievements and proficiencies. The essay highlights the benefits of creating an ePortfolio, including personal reflection, goal identification, tracking accomplishments, and learning online application strategies. It outlines the purpose and aims of developing an ePortfolio, such as monitoring progress, evaluating abilities, and presenting oneself optimistically to potential employers. The essay also discusses suitable platforms for ePortfolio development, required materials and artifacts, career development prospects, and a timeframe for the development process. Strategies like evidence-based practice, mindfulness, and reflection are recommended, along with the utilization of Gibbs Reflective Cycle for journal writing. The creation of a nursing ePortfolio assists nurses in understanding their strengths, limitations, and career opportunities.

Running head: EPORTFOLIO IN NURSING
EPORTFOLIO IN NURSING
Name of the Author:
Name of the University:
Author note:

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Introduction: ePortofolio
Today’s present scenario of extensive media dissemination and technological
advancement have provided opportunities to establish connections across online as well as
offline environments. A majority of the global population now engages in extensive
conversations and establishment of connections and hence, has resulted in the emergence of job
opportunities online (Lai & Wu, 2016). Considering that employers are now extending their
reach digitally, potential employees like nurses must seek to enhance their online profile, hence
necessitating creation of an ePortfolio. A nursing ePortfolio, is defined as a digital-based
footprint and outlook of one’s achievements and proficiency in both personal as well as
professional fields (Chang et al., 2019)
Reason and Importance
The development of an ePortfolio is important since it helps in presenting an individual
in a positive and credible light across the digital job environment and hence, further helps a
potential professional nurse to demonstrate her skills and abilities in an optimistic manner
towards professional recruiters like health practitioners, academic organizations and managers of
health organizations (Nielsen, Pedersen & Helms, 2015). Hence, a nurse should create an
ePortfolio in the following ways (Collins, & Crawley, 2016):
1. Nursing ePortfolio development encourages personal reflection of strengths and
weakness, and hence, is helpful for enhancing future development in the professional
fields.

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2. Nursing ePortfolio development allows nurses to identify and outline their goals for short
and long term achievement which further helps in understanding their future potential in
career.
3. Nursing ePortfolio is beneficial in allowing nurses to keep a track of their educational and
occupational accomplishments from beginning to present.
4. Nursing ePortfolio development is helpful in teaching nurses on adequate strategies of
creating their employment applications across online platforms.
Purpose and Aims
The purpose underlying the development of a nursing ePortfolio, is to enlighten self on
occupational and educational achievements, present shortcomings and capabilities and in
identifying the scope for improvement in the future. The following are the aims for creating ones
nursing ePortfolio:
1. To assist self in monitoring and evaluating progress in educational and occupational
platforms.
2. To assist self in reflecting and evaluating one’s abilities and weaknesses.
3. To aid in presenting self optimistically across potential employees like health
practitioners, recruiters and organizations engaging in nursing evidence based research.
Platform for Development
Considering that an ePortfolio is a portfolio and application of one’s academic and
professional overview in a digital platform, the same must be prepared across online
applications. Hence, for development of personal nursing ePortfolio, online applications which

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provide digitalized portfolio formats will be used. These include Google Classroom, Google
Documents and online resources provided by the university (Andrews & Cole, 2015).
Required Materials
Hence, the creation of the ePortfolio will be started, by first collecting, analyzing an
using the following materials and artefacts:
1. Creating one’s cover letter and resume highlighting accomplishments across various
educational and professionals fields.
2. Documents and certificates as evidence and record of all achievement and past
experiences in academics as well as professional healthcare organizations within
Australia as well as internationally, if any.
3. A personal and professional document which contains an outline of personal objectives,
mission statement, limitations, capabilities and scope for future changes.
4. A reflective journal containing information on past and presence experiences as a student
nurse as well as a novice preparing for future professional engagement.
5. All records of nursing performance such as prepared care plans, handovers and case study
details.
Career Development
The creation of a nursing ePortfolio will assist in development in personal fields by
providing an insight on the nature of nursing experiences, existing repertoire of strengths and
limitations and ways in which one can improve nursing professional performance in future
healthcare organizations. Professionally, the development of ePortfolio will also aid in obtaining

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career opportunities from potential recruiters as well as pave the way for understanding
requirements to obtain required nursing registrations (Birks et al., 2016).
Timeframe
The ePortfolio will be developed using the following timeframe
Week ePortfolio development activity
First week Creation of the outline for ePortfolio
Second week Collecting professional and personal
documents
Third week Writing of journals which are reflective
Fourth week Compilation of information across online
platform for final ePortfolio development
Strategy
For the development of the nursing ePortfolio, usage of strategies like evidence based
practice, mindfulness and reflection will prove to beneficial since these will provide insights on
nursing experiences encountered. Associating experiences with Benner’s model of nursing will
further help in development of the nursing ePortfolio by enlightening the nurse on development
from novice to expert (McAllister & Hauville, 2017).
Theory and Framework
Gibbs Reflective Cycle will be utilized in writing journals of reflection due to its usage of
relating nursing experiences with identification of areas of concern, improvement and strength
across academic and professional platforms (Tanaka, Okamoto & Koide, 2018).

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Reference
Andrews, T., & Cole, C. (2015). Two steps forward, one step back: The intricacies of engaging
with eportfolios in nursing undergraduate education. Nurse Education Today, 35(4), 568-
572. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2014.12.011.
Birks, M., Hartin, P., Woods, C., Emmanuel, E., & Hitchins, M. (2016). Students' perceptions of
the use of eportfolios in nursing and midwifery education. Nurse education in
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Chang, C. P., Lee, T. T., Mills, M. E., & Hsieh, Y. P. (2019). E-portfolio functional requirements
for the final semester baccalaureate practicum course: A qualitative research
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