All the comments above seems to be coming from new users of WP or those who dont understand the potential that internet have to offer. There is a difference between a blog and a website. With WP, I cannot provide a user login feature to allow my clients view their order status. There is no option to give access to my sales team with their own page and some feature to track their progress.

When I hired a developer, he told me what I was loosing. WP themes waste H1 tag for the website title. H1 tag can be used for SEO. There is no possibility of preventing SQL injection website hacks. Passwords can be hacked by some very old fashioned hacking tools.

With my new website I have had so many functional modification and updates in past one year that were unimaginable with WP. WordPress can be a good option of people who are working from home on their own. But dont expect to get a big customers with WP as it lacks CRM and visitor tracking.

Firstly, I would ask if WP is capable of providing the IMS export/import facilities required to transport from one institution’s system to another? If not, by definition it is NOT an e-Portfolio.

Secondly, I would ask if WP is capable of embedding the assessment tools that any teacher/lecturer/professor would expect to use?

Thirdly, I would expect an e-Portfolio to be capable of using at least some of my content for different purposes and for different audiences. To come back to the word ‘professionsl’, if the e-Portfolio cannot present different ‘faces’ for different audiences I would not consider it to be professional. If WP cannot do this, then it is NOT an e-Portfolio.

Fourthly, is the question of presentation and layout. As a graphicist I appreciate the desire to impress with a unique self-representation – and this can be done by creating links to one’s own websites. However, as a teacher, I would expect certain pages of all my students to be in the same places and with a reasonably similar layout. Are you really suggesting that every student should create their own very different sites? – That would certainly create the very situation described, where few lecturers are willing to take on this additional workload.

Lastly, I would ask if WP is the sort of tool that is capable of being used by all age groups and abilities, from ’5-95′? If not, is this the Lifelong, Lifewide tool that an e-Portfolio is supposed to be?

Since the MU system is constrained by the available themes & plugins set by the admin, then it’s *up to the admin* to make sure there are plenty for their users to choose from.

Anyone who sets up MU for their own business, college, whatever – has all the options in the world. If they can’t understand their user’s needs (in this case the student’s use of portfolio) then they haven’t; given enough thought and planning to the whole setup.

Almost any plugin or theme for single WP can and probably has been set up on a WPMU-based site somewhere.

I do know of others in a university setting that are helping students set up portfolios, and of course there are countless WP-based portfolios out there. You did at least find out that for more static info, pages are the way to go. the blog part can be shuffled off to the side via a template and the setting in the back end to force a page to show on the main site address.

That’s available in both WP & WPMU.

To Micheal above – letting some users have their own WP might be overkill. Especially if most don’t even know much HTML. instead of applying for their own install, let them apply to have extra plugins or themes installed. Either or both can be restricted to a particular blog. And there are more and more themes with extensive customization options from the admin area – no template editing required.

I left my URL to my WPMU tutorial site, if it helps.

I wonder if it would be best for the university to use both wordpress and wordpress mu. For example, any student/professor can create their own wordpress mu. Then if they want more customization or they can apply for their own database to install wordpress on.

It would be difficult to setup servers for everyone to have their own wordpress setup, but if only 10% of the campus population wants their own, it could be achieved.