“Providing a Technology Edge for Liberal Arts Graduates” is an initiative of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Alberta designed to understand the computing needs of liberal arts students who are entering the world of work, and to provide relevant skill training for them in conjunction with their academic studies. The initial goals of the project, identified as complementary research into the IT skills deficit of liberal arts students, and the piloting of training materials in academic courses, was funded by the Office of Learning Technologies, Human Resources and Development Canada. The work was led by staff at Alberta, in partnership with Chinook Multimedia, and the University of Victoria, University of British Columbia, and the University of New Brunswick.

The research phase is reported in the Technology Edge Needs Assessment Report; this report discusses the pilot implementation of the Technology Edge training materials in three academic courses at Alberta, and the development of a prototype e-portfolio system at Victoria.

The Tech Edge project was successful in using an integrated approach to enhance Arts students’ IT skills in their regular academic courses. The reaction from students and instructors also confirmed that this was the preferred method of instruction, since the integration provided the crucial connection between IT skills and the discipline-specific content of the courses.

The e-portfolio system developed a Victoria can become an essential part of a student’s lifelong career planning, by holding in a secure and easily accessed format the student’s work along with the academic assessment of it.