Utilization of the Student E-Portfolio in the Graduate Education: The Case Report of "Nitobe School Program" in Hokkaido University

To correspond to current trend in the international society which is rapidly adopting to the notion of globalization, the graduate education plays a key role in development of human resources for the future. A new trans-graduate-school education program called Nitobe School was launched in 2015 as one of the main education projects of Top Global University Project at Hokkaido University, Japan. To foster the overall development of graduate students and to track their progress throughout the program, Nitobe School introduced a student e-portfolio called NITOBE Portfolio. This portfolio is accessible to the registered students until their graduation. The student can freely interact with the instructors, discuss with fellow students, submit assignments on the e-portfolio and most importantly track individual progress during the course. This paper reports the impact of utilization of student e-portfolio in the program for evaluation, and discusses the system development assuming wide-spread use of such e-portfolio systems for research university in the future.