The recent Educause Quarterly artcle, Beyond the Electronic Portfolio: A Lifetime Personal Web Space (LPWS) appears to have attracted the attention of a number of bloggers that I enjoy reading:
I am pretty sure that I read the same article that everyone else read but my immediate reactions lean more toward paranoia, skepticism, and logistical nightmares.
Students who plan to enter the teaching profession would benefit from a completely portable portfolio of the LiveText variety. Even now within that framework are options for long term storage of atifacts, reference materials, projects, etc. So, from that perspective I see real advantages to a technology that would allow the different LPWS's to talk to each other. Looking at LPWS as an aging student who is working on his third+ career, I am not so sure that I want to carry all of that earlier undergraduate luggage with me. So many students graduate with a degree in one field and find passions in other fields, that I wonder if there is really much of a demand for LPWS. Inevitably there will be have's and have not's with LPWS (unless, it becomes some sort of federal mandate).
My paranoia, including the tiny hairs that stand up on the back of my neck, stems from something that looks like it has potential for federal regulations, the need for unique LPWS identities, and the potential for further invasion of privacy within the intellectual rights arena. Which leads me to the logistical nightmare of how all of this will be managed, hosted, indexed, archived, etc...somehow, that sounds like governmental infrastructure rather than commercial enterprise.
For those who need/want LPWS, I am not so sure that there are not already solutions available...start with reserving your own domain name. As long as you are willing to pay the fees for the domain and a hosting service, you have LPWS...perhaps without the glue to connect to other LPWS's, but it is a start. Wheny you decide to terminate your LPWS, or upon your demise, your domain will simply fade away from non-payment for the domain (unless, of course, you pre-paid for some unbelievably longer-than-lifetime term).