At many points, the project teams have had to clearly articulate the rationale for the use of eportfolios. The benefits have been argued and researched for many years around the world, but students and faculty are generally unaware of why eportfolios can be so valuable.
The UBC Arts eportfolio service references arguments in educational theory around "Emergent Knowledge" and "Folio Thinking". Eportfolios support complex and decentralized approaches to learning which are most appropriate for learning situations in which there exists more than one response to a topic. This requires creating a space and structure that allows for certain ideas to trigger other ideas and for knowledge to be discovered within this process.