RePort_Bot: A Computational Approach to ePortfolios and Reflection

This article is an experimental effort to add a new dimension to the priority of reflection, which characterizes the crafting of both print and ePortfolios (see Yancey 2009; Bourelle, et al. 2015: the concept of rhetorical velocity. Rhetorical velocity (Ridolfo and DeVoss 2009; Ridolfo and Rife 2011) refers to how reusable texts are in acts of circulation and recomposition. In this article, I outline a computational approach to measuring rhetorical velocity of ePortfolio textual content, visualizing findings, and using these findings to assist reflection and refinement of ePortfolio composing. This computational approach revolves around a Python “bot” script with the portmanteau RePort_Bot (Report + ePortfolio + Bot). The RePort_Bot crawls web pages, scrapes textual content and metadata such as page titles, analyzes the ePortfolio, and returns results to users in the form of descriptive statistics and visualizations.