The ePortfolio project unfolded throughout the duration of the course, and consisted of various elements. The following is the ‘overall’ ePortfolio project component. By clicking on active links, you are able to see various other prompts and rubrics for the ePortfolio component.
ePortfolio Over the duration of the term you will be approaching conversations, activities and written work regarding an ePortfolio due at the end of the class. All components, as well as the actual ePortfolio, will contribute to the project grade. Please consult the breakdown at the bottom. The ePortfolio must represent you and your interests in Media Studies. Media studies, being a characteristically interdisciplinary topic, will manifest itself differently for each individual, and you must identify your focus(es). This might mean that you have a blog and/or creative writing focus, a moving image/interactive focus, a theoretical/scholarly focus, a journalist or photojournalist focus, a visual or digital focus, a computer science focus, etc… And this might mean, (and I completely understand) it will have a focus outside of Visual Arts, and may not include any visual work! This is okay, as long as it represents you and who you are, there are no ‘requirements’ on what that is –as the purpose is to identify those for yourself. So while this ePortfolio is located in this Visual Arts class, and it is a somewhat visual/digital media work, it is not intended to focus on this topic area. The topic is “you”. As a result, I will not enforce any particular formatting or templates, nor will I enforce specific sections. Instead, you are to find this ambition within yourself and find a way to relay it in an ePortfolio format that manifests an image of who you are through your studies and products of your studies.
As a general guideline, please consider these decisions towards execution:
- Please have an appropriate URL, and be sure your site is uploaded to the domain for us to see it. If using UBC Blogs, this happens automatically.
- Please be aware of what your default/home page, where your URL leads.
- Know your audience, and have the site work to attract and keep the audience you want. Know you who are and how you wish to convey that. Think this through before making decisions so that your follow-through will be decisive and have conviction and vision.
- You may use any platform (wix, HTML5, processing, etc….) but there is the most guidance for beginners to use UBC Blogs, which uses WordPress
- You may have your site public for everyone to see, or you may have privacy settings for only us to see in order to grade. If it does have privacy settings, please remember to give us the passwords and/or allowanced we need to see the site before the project is due and it must be visible for final class critiques. Do not password protect individual pages.
- Even if you are not focusing on visual abilities in the portfolio objects/content themselves, please consider adding visuals to the ePortfolio for added dimension and as a way to illustrate other areas of your interests/work, such as screenshots, stills, etc…
- You should be presenting some understanding of yourself, who you are, a bio/statement/about area to give viewers indication of what they are looking at. Be sure to make every detail of your delivery of self as mature and selective for your audience. If you wish to use an alias, or present yourself in illusionistic and/or coy ways, you may do so. But this still entails a manifestation of some sort of persona of self, and you must do this with consideration and attention to detail.
- Be poignant and communicate clearly, through language and placement, where your navigation leads and how it works on the site, so that visitors do not feel anxiety about how to get around your site and find things if they return back. Use design and formatting to communicate groupings or sections to help your viewer to have an overall grasp of the ePortfolio.
- Pick a design format (composition, colour, style, etc) that works for the image you wish to convey about your style, but also be sure that it has a good sense of economy, is legible, and doesn’t distract.
- Be particular about what you do and do not include in the portfolio, how you organize it and how each piece in the portfolio speaks to another. Have at least 3 (but endless more) portfolio items to start with in your portfolio, and you may leave rooms or headings or openings for other items that you wish to add in the future. Evaluate how each piece of po
- Be specific in how you distribute, describe and present content of your portfolio, especially if it is for a medium that may be more difficult to show in this format. Find a way to relay each project as cohesively as possible to avoid confusion.
- Pay attention to details! Keep formatting consistent and organized, including font types and sizing, make sure it is legible, and ensure that it works well on various devices, especially if your topics of focus need to appeal to different device users.
- Try to find ways to describe the more abstract/nuanced concepts of your work and topics of focus for your portfolio. Find ways to describe, visualize, and point out more complex skills and abilities that called be described as basic skills. Push yourself in identifying deeper levels of learning that happened in specific projects, and take the time to articulate them thoroughly. This will help, not only your grade for the ePortfolio project, but your overall professional delivery of self to future networks.
- Be creative and innovative in the ways you deliver information that may contribute to a revelation of who you are, how you think, and how that manifests in things you do.
Some notable resources:
- There are drop-in office hours available in January and March for one-on-one support. For more details, they should see: http://eportfolios.arts.ubc.ca/need-help/ (note that the March dates & times aren’t yet scheduled).
- On March 27/28th during lab time, IT will be available and come in to help with any final issues that you are having in setting up your site. Please have an adequate amount of work done on your site so that when this day comes you may utilize the class work time wisely.
- Arts UBC has online resources to help you to build an ePortfolio using UBC Blogs (WordPress).
- Tutorials: http://eportfolios.arts.ubc.ca/getting-started/creating-an-eportfolio-using-ubc-blogs-wordpress/
- Wiki: http://wiki.ubc.ca/Documentation:WordPress_Basics/Basics_1_Guide
- There are two videos in the VISA 110 online technical demonstration modules that may be helpful, they are:
- Appendix A: Concepts – Basic Design
- Appendix B: UBC Facilities – WordPress
Individual components leading up to the final ePortfolio will be described in full in the ePortfolio section of Connect, and so I recommend you check often.
As a general overview, the main components, their worth and due dates are: Written Preliminary Assumptions 10% (Due: January 15th) “Looking” Workshop + Analysis Presentation 20% (Due: January 30/31st) Post-Reflection 10% (Due: February 3rd) URL & Mid-Term Mapping 10% (Due: February 27/28 – in class) Final ePortfolio 40% (Due: April 3/4th) TOTAL: 100% (18% of final grade)