ENGL 1102 Portfolio Instructions Navigation
Part 1: Overview | Part 2: Composing Your Portfolio | Part 3: Portfolio Creation Tips
Part 4: Sample Portfolios | Part 5: Using Canvas to Create Your Portfolio
As you’re creating your portfolio, consider the following tips.
Contents
Composing Your Work
- Compose your text in a word processing application (Word, Google Docs, etc.) for easy editing before placing it in the Canvas portfolio system. Be sure to regularly save your work!
- Carefully title each artifact. Titling each artifact helps give focus and shows how you are thinking about the artifact’s purpose in the portfolio.
Formatting Your Work
- Consider your reader as you format your Canvas pages; it is easier for a reader to click on an embedded video than for them to click through to another page, download a file, open a new application and watch a video.
- Structure the layout and format of your page carefully so your artifact is easy to find and to differentiate from supporting process documents. Your artifact should be the main feature of the artifact page. Use subsections, headers, and/or labels to enhance clarity and organization.
Process Documents
- For the artifact reflecting a substantial revision process, provide sufficient process documents for your artifact to accurately reflect your work and support your argument about your process and intellectual development in the course.
- If you have multiple drafts or process steps, show all of them instead of picking and choosing among them. Remember that drafts might be in different modes/media than the final product.
- Include all elements of a project on its artifact page. For example, a presentation might include a video of you speaking, an embedded PowerPoint, and a script; all three pieces make up the final artifact. Label each appropriately: Final Artifact Video, Final Artifact PowerPoint, and Final Artifact Script.
- If you wrote an artist’s statement to go along with a creative piece, include both the statement and the creative piece.
Archiving Digital Work
- Include a link to an online final project such as a website at a minimum. Screenshots are not a sufficient replacement for a full website or social media page, though they may be good for showing a draft or highlighting a particular section you are discussing in your reflection.
- While an image gallery of screenshots can be a useful way of showing either details or larger context of a physical artifact, any text in an artifact must be visible and readable. If text that is part of a physical display cannot be readily seen in an image gallery, include a transcript or other representation.
- Use screenshots to draw attention to details in web pages, posters, videos, drafts, etc.
- Adding a circle or an arrow can help draw attention to a revision you discuss in your reflection. Photoshop, GIMP, or Skitch can help with this.
Other Tips
- Do not include entire artifacts in your introductory reflection essay as a visual or attachment. Instead, highlight a specific page/paragraph/element that you would like to draw attention to for your reader.
- Make Word documents into PDFs and embed them in the site. Host the PDF on Google Drive and then embedded it using the PDF’s sharing ink and Canvas’s HTML/Embedded Content function. Make sure embedded PDFs take up a reasonable amount of visual space.
- Beware of online video makers like PowToons and other digital animation systems. Yes, you can complete the video using a free trial of a software, but you’ll need that video again at the end of the semester, long after a 30-day trial has expired. The same applies to free trials available via Adobe.
- In general, beware of software that is “free” but will add a HUGE watermark if you don’t pay, or won’t let you export your artifact without paying.
ENGL 1102 Portfolio Instructions Navigation
Part 1: Overview | Part 2: Composing Your Portfolio | Part 3: Portfolio Creation Tips
Part 4: Sample Portfolios | Part 5: Using Canvas to Create Your Portfolio