Personal Portfolios on Blackboard This handout has four parts: 1. Creating Personal Portfolios p. 2-11 2. Creating Personal Artifacts p. 12-17 3. Sharing Personal Portfolios p. 18-22 4. Downloading Personal Portfolios p. 23-26
Part 1: Creating Personal Portfolios on Blackboard Portfolios are your own personal website on Blackboard. They provide the student a way to display a collection of artifacts. Artifacts are materials that demonstrate your personal skills and accomplishments. 1. Portfolios are created in the Content Collection area of Blackboard. To begin, click on the Content Collection tab. 2. Next, click the action button next to Portfolios in the Jump To area. 3. The Portfolios page has 3 options. Note the text below each link. 2
4. Click My Portfolios. Note that there are two types of portfolios, Personal and Basic. You will be creating a Personal Portfolio. Click on the garnet Create Portfolio button. 5. Once you click Create Personal Portfolio, you will be taken to a portfolio creation wizard. You can continue with the wizard by clicking Save and Continue. You can click submit if you want to leave the wizard and come back later or if you want to go through the rest of the steps manually. 6. You will be using a template for the USC Connect Portfolio. Click Select Existing and click USC Connect. Then click Save and Continue. 3
7. Select your layout theme. You can place your navigation links or buttons on either the right or left side, or along the top. 8. Select a background color (you can leave it white if you wish). You can also use a background image if you have one that will work well with a webpage. 9. You can change the default font and default font color for the portfolio if you wish. If you want to change the font settings for the page title and page headings by clicking the + icon to expand the sections. 10. Select your navigation menu options. Select either buttons or text. Keep in mind that buttons only work well if your page titles are 18 characters or less. If the labels are going to be longer than that, you should use text. Text can wrap to additional lines if 4
necessary. You can pick the background color of the Navigation Menu, the font and the font color. 11. You can mark this step as complete or leave it marked in progress until you are done with your portfolio. Click Save and Continue to move to the next step. 12. The next page allows you to build the content within your portfolio. Since you have used the USC Connect template, you will see a header, a footer, an About page, and six 5
different area pages. Click the action button next to Header and click Edit. 13. Replace the instructions in the text box with your header information. Note that the text box editor works a lot like a word processor. You can pick fonts and colors, add images, center, italicize and bold. However, this is just a header for each page. It will display at the top of every page in your portfolio. You may want to put something like Joe Student s USC Connect Portfolio or create a small, graphically pleasing page banner. When you have finished creating your header, click Submit. 6
14. After you click submit, you will be taken back to the Build page. You can now begin working on the main content for your portfolio. The first content area is labeled About. It is intended to be a welcome page. It will be the first page visitors will see when they access your portfolio. The word About is what will appear in the navigation menu. You can change that label to Welcome, Introduction, or anything else that would be appropriate for the opening page. To change the About Label, click the action button next to the word About, then click Edit. 15. Change the title, then add content for the page. You can click Browse to add an existing artifact or you can click Create New Artifact if you have not yet created the artifact you need. 7
16. Click Browse to add an existing artifact. a. Type a keyword to search for your artifact either by name or description OR b. Leave the search box blank c. Click Go d. You will see a list of the existing artifacts e. Select the artifact you want to use by clicking the check box to the left of the artifact name f. Click submit 17. See section?? on creating artifacts if you want to create a new artifact. 8
18. After you have selected your artifact, click submit. 19. Repeat steps 14-18 for each of the desired content areas. If you want to remove any of the content areas, put a check in the box next to its name, then click Delete. 9
20. If you want to add additional pages, click the garnet Create Page button. 21. Give the page a name and description. You can add artifacts now, or go back and click edit to add the artifacts later. Click Submit. You can click the Submit button on the top or the bottom of the page. They both do the same thing. 22. When you are done adding content, click Save and Continue. 10
23. Click the check box next to Complete if you wish to mark your portfolio as completed. Click the check box next to Available if you wish to make your portfolio available to share with others. Click the check box next to Comments are Private if you prefer not to allow others to comment on your portfolio. Click Submit. 24. On the next page, you can go back and edit any of the portfolio areas if you choose. 25. You can share your portfolio or download your portfolio. Those topics are covered in separate handouts. 11
Part 2: Creating Personal Artifacts Personal artifacts are items you want to include on the pages of your portfolio. They can be examples of your work over your college career, like a paper you wrote or a presentation you created, or you can create an artifact from scratch using the text editor within Blackboard. Artifacts can be video files, audio files or links to other web pages. Artifacts are stored in the Content Collection area of Blackboard. 1. Login to Blackboard as you normally do, then click on the Content Collection tab. 2. In the second box on the left navigation bar, click on the double yellow arrows to the left of Portfolios to expand the selection. Next, click on the Personal Artifacts link. 3. Click on the garnet Create Personal Artifact button. 12
4. Type a name and a description for your artifact. If you are using a template to create your Personal Portfolio, you may want to name your artifacts based on the template areas where you will display them. Don t click submit yet, there are a few more steps before you are done. 13
5. The next area is called a text box editor. It works very much like a word processor. You can type anything you like, bold or italicize text, change font, font size, or font color. 6. The icons on the third row are for inserting files. You can include images, videos, audio files, Word documents, Excel files, PDFs, or other types of files. To insert a file click on the appropriate icon, then fill in the details in the box that pops up. Click Browse, then navigate to the file you wish to insert. 14
7. Click on the file you want to insert, then click open. 8. Type in the name you want to display for the link to the file, then click Submit, then click Submit on the next page. The link will appear in the text box. 15
9. If you want to include an image click on the icon. The image will display within your page. You can resize the image by clicking on the image, then dragging the boxes that appear on the corners in a diagonal direction, either smaller or larger. However, it works better to use an image editing program to size the image ahead of time. 10. To include a link to another web page, click the icon. Fill in the info for the link, then click Submit. 11. The best way to line up text and images is to insert a table, then insert the text or images in the appropriate cells. To insert a table click the of rows and columns you need, then click Submit. icon. Fill in the number 16
12. Insert text in one cell, then insert an image in another cell to align text with images. 13. When you have added all the content for the artifact, click the Submit button. 14. The artifact is now available for use in your Personal Portfolios. You may use it in multiple portfolios if you wish. 17
Part 3: Sharing Personal Portfolios Once you have created your Personal Portfolio, you can share it with others. You can share it with other users of the USC Blackboard System. You can share it with individuals who are not users of the USC Blackboard System who are called External Users. Portfolios can be shared with entire courses and organizations as well. 1. Sign on to Blackboard as you normally do. Click the Content Collection tab. 2. In the second box on the left navigation bar, click on the double yellow arrows to the left of Portfolios to expand the selection. Next, click on the My Portfolios link. 3. Click on the action button next to the name of your portfolio. 18
4. Click on the Edit link. 5. Click Share Portfolio. 6. Click the garnet Share With button, then click on the type of use with whom the portfolio will be shared. 19
7. To share with users within the USC Blackboard system, click Users. If you know the individual s username, enter it. If you don t, you can browse for it. You can click to send email and a message will be sent to the user to let them know they should look within the Received Portfolios area to view the portfolio. When done, click Submit. 8. To share with individuals who do not have accounts on the USC Blackboard system, click External Users. In the email message area you can edit the message that will be sent to the individual if you like, however do not remove the <PORTFOLIO_URL>. That phrase causes the system to include a URL or link to the portfolio in the email. 20
9. You can require a password to view your portfolio and you can set an expiration time if you desire. Once you have made those selections, click Submit and the message with the email will be sent to the individuals listed in the recipients box and to you. You can use that link in other portfolios or web pages if you desire. 10. If you need to retrieve the URL at a later date, click Share Portfolio, then click the action button next to the user s name. Click Details and the next page will display the URL. 21
11. To share with all the users within a particular course, click Courses. If you know the complete course ID, you can type it in the box. Otherwise, click Browse to find the course. Type in part of the course ID, click Course ID, then click search. Put a check in the box next to the course with which you want to share your portfolio, then click Submit. 12. Sharing a portfolio with an Organization works the same as sharing with a Course, except that you click Organizations. 22
Part 4: Downloading Personal Portfolios 1. Create a folder on your computer that will contain the portfolio files 2. Login to Blackboard and click on Content Collection 3. Click Jump To, then click My Portfolios 4. Determine whether your portfolio type is a Basic Portfolio or a Personal Portfolio 5. Follow the download directions below for your portfolio type, then return to number 6. 6. Save the file to the folder you created. a. Navigate to the folder you created b. Name the file something meaningful c. Click Save 7. Open the file 8. Click Extract All Files 9. Navigate back to the folder you created for your portfolio 10. Click Extract 11. Copy the portfolio folder to a CD 12. To access the portfolio, click on the 23
index.html file 13. Portfolio files can be stored wherever you have storage space and can give others access to files Basic Portfolio 1. Click the action button next to your portfolio 2. Then click download 3. Click the link that says Click to Download Portfolio (note the instructions below that link). 24
Personal Portfolios 1. Click the Action Button next to your portfolio 2. Click Edit 3. Under Portfolio to Go, click Package the Portfolio 4. Click download and note the instructions below 25