In recent years, educators have begun to use learning portfolios as a means of evaluating student learning in higher education. Research indicates that learning portfolios can help students understand better the learning process as well as enhancing learning outcomes. They promote reflection on the learning experience and encourage students to think critically and make judgments about their own learning. The aim of this paper is to explore how short-answer portfolios can support the development of generic skills. We focus on generic skill because one of the central aims of university teaching is to develop the generic capabilities of graduates. These generic attributes represent the qualities, skills and understandings a university community anticipates its students should acquire at university and display as a graduate professional and citizen. This paper reports the findings of a study of learning portfolios and generic skill development of industrial relations students studying on-line at a remote location. The students completed a short-answer learning portfolio as part of their learning experience. Data were gathered about the performance and views of these students from interviews, a survey, analysis of student work and email correspondence with their teacher. Our research indicates that learning portfolios are an effective way of developing generic skills, although they are very labour intensive from the teacher's perspective. (Contains 7 tables and 1 footnote.)