Departmental and Student Guidelines for Electronic Submissions

The Writing Committee on August 23, 2020, outlined guidelines to academic departments and students about electronic portfolio submissions.  Please review the guidelines below and share them with your faculty and students.

Writing Committee Guidelines to Departments about Electronic Submissions of WPP Portfolios

  1. In the absence of a current Lincoln e-portfolio platform, departments can use a google drive to compile and store students’ WPP electronic portfolios by major. Students can be asked to email their portfolios to the Department’s announced Gmail account. Alternatively, departments can contact Cengage to learn about and set up digital portfolios for their majors. 
  2. Departments should notify students of the file formats they will accept for electronic portfolio submissions, whether in Word, PDF, or another file format.  
  3. Departments should inform students that their WPP portfolios have to contain no less than four documents. These documents can range from research papers, essays, lab reports, resumes, cover letters, or personal statements, etc. Departments should decide upon the range, type, and length of papers to require students to submit in their electronic portfolios and communicate this information to their majors. 
  4. Though it is preferable, for departments, that students submit their graded papers and the filled out rubrics for their WPP portfolios, it is not required of students this academic year. Since students do not have access to visiting the campus, reaching out to their professors for rubrics (as some might be adjunct faculty who no longer teach at Lincoln), or accessing their papers on their email account, due to the loss of all their email files (which many students used to save their papers), we recommend that students not be required to submit graded writing samples or rubrics in their portfolios. 
  5.  We recommend that departments send out correspondence to their majors in early September 2020 notifying them of the WPP portfolio requirements and deadlines and the resources available for portfolio preparation and revision. The WPP portfolio submission date should be clearly outlined in the department’s correspondence to their majors, since departments can set their deadlines within the parameters outlined in the WPP Calender. 

Writing Committee Guidance to Students about Electronic Submissions of WPP Portfolios

  1. Students should communicate with their departments to ensure they follow the portfolio submission guidelines and meet the submission requirements and deadlines.
  2. Students should reach out to their department chair with any questions or concerns about the WPP portfolio submission process, deadlines, and revision dates.
  3. For help with portfolio preparation and/or revision, students should use the Writing and Reading Center.  To receive help with their writing, students fill out a form and submit their paper at the above link. The student will hear back from a WRC tutor and will be able to receive the feedback either by email or through a Zoom conference.
  4. Students, who need additional help with their portfolio preparation or revision, should reach out to Dr. Gamie at sgamie@lincoln.edu.

Important WPP Dates

November through February  

  • Junior and Senior Portfolios due: Nov 2—February 19 
  • Departments collect the juniors’/seniors’ portfolios 
  • All departments should inform their majors about the requirements for the departmental writing portfolio. (Depending upon when they declare the major, all students should receive at least one such reminder before the junior year.) 
  • Whenever a student declares a major:  he/she should be given a paper statement of the department’s procedures for assembling the writing portfolio and a paper copy of the rubric by which the portfolio will be evaluated. 

February to April 

  • Portfolio Review by departments: Feb 28—April 2 
  • No later than April 5, departments should inform all juniors/seniors of their portfolio status – met expectations or did not meet expectations and advise them of what they need to submit their revised portfolios.  Departments report these results to the Registrar’s office and to the Director of the WPP Program 
  • Reporting of portfolio results to students and the WPP faculty: No Later than April 5. Students who have not passed the portfolio requirement are directed to meet with the WPP Director or go to the Writing and Reading Center to work on their portfolio revision.  

May 

Students submit their revised portfolios to their department chairs no later than May 3.