Be Distinctive: Create Your e-portfolio

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WWU Career Services Center www.careers.wwu.edu A unit of Academic and Career Development Services 360-650-4240

Be Distinctive: Create Your e-Portfolio

Portfolio: An intentional collection of documents or evidence of your work or

experiences. The portfolio captures what you have done and why it is significant.

e-Portfolio: Presents your portfolio in an online format visible to future employers. Why do you want an e-portfolio?

 Competitive advantage to be able to describe and show the range of your skills and experiences in a professional format

 Helps you to identify and articulate your strengths, experiences and transferable skills

 Provides an easy way to create your own personal website

What is included in your e-portfolio?

 Documents from projects or programs you are involved in

 Pictures, video, or website links that provide information about your activities  Descriptions about why these events or experiences are significant to you

How long will it take?

 1-2 hours to get a basic framework and layout

 10+ hours from if you to develop and polish your descriptions or scan items to make them available in an electronic format. This includes your reflection and planning time as well as gathering materials.

How do I access the Optimal Resume software?

 WWU Career Services and Western’s Leadership Advantage websites  Go to https://wwu.optimalresume.com/

Helpful resources within Optimal Resume

 Webinars accessed from the WWU Optimal Resume home page  Video within each tool

 PDF help file

 Feedback button—allows you to ask specific questions and receive a personalized response

Helpful Resources at WWU

 Career Services supports resume and job search aspects of Optimal Resume  Western’s Leadership Advantage staff provide individual coaching for a

leadership e-portfolio

See actual WWU student e-portfolios:

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What are the components of an e-portfolio? REFLECTION—

 Where do you spend your time?

 What types of work, activities, service, and research are you involved in?  Why do you want someone to know about this event and your involvement?  What are your skills that are evident from your activities?

THEMES (Optimal language = project or portfolio if using multiple portfolios)

 How would you describe or categorize your skills or involvement in general?  What categories would you use on a functional resume?

o Leadership & Collaboration

o Campus Involvement/Community Service

TOPIC HEADINGS (Optimal language = projects)

 What are specific activities, projects, programs you have been or currently are involved in?

o Committees or organizations o Research project, publication o Paraprofessional roles

 Why are you involved? A strong description explains your commitment and skills and engages your audience.

EVIDENCE/ARTIFACT (Optimal language = file)

 Selected actual documentation of your involvement and skills.

o Papers, program you organized, pictures and/or a link to press coverage of an event, scan a certificate you have received for hours of service  Variety in media: word document, PowerPoint, PDF, photo, video, hyperlink  The file description is key to demonstrating how you acknowledge and apply

your skills.

The POWER of DESCRIPTIONS for your topics & evidence: It’s the so what and now what? Create clear concise descriptions and use active verbs.

 Describe how your topic connects to your theme

 Describe your topic headings briefly so a viewer knows what it is and why it is important to you

 Describe your artifact: How it is an example of your skill? Why it this is meaningful to you, & how this is relevant to an employer?

What makes an e-portfolio good? A strong portfolio will typically incorporate:

 3+ themes

 2+ topics that exemplify the themes  2+ pieces of evidence

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Organizational Layers of an e-portolio in Optimal Resume

The example below used one portfolio in Optimal. As a result, the project names are at the top. The use of numbers designates the order projects appear.

Name of portfolio

Project names (1 portfolio) or portfolio names (multiple portfolios) appear at top of portfolio webpage Names of projects (your themes)

Name of project Project description 

= quote, in this example or your own words

File Name  = evidence or artifact File description = where you explain what the artifact is & how it is relevant to you & someone else E‐Portfolio (Website) Portfolio A Project 1 File File Project 2 File File Portfolio B Project 1 File File Project 2 File File

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Creating a portfolio in Optimal Resume

 Sign in or create your Optimal Resume account

o You are required to use your WWU email account the first time you create an account. You can change this later.

 Select portfolio builder; then select create a new portfolio.

 Your website makes your portfolios viewable, you can show either one or multiple portfolios. If you choose to post multiple portfolios the title of each portfolio will be visible on the website page.

In the Optimal Resume Document Center:

Step 1—Name your portfolio. “Handout” (top left corner) is the name of this

portfolio. Below is a screen shot of naming a new portfolio.

Step 2—Add Projects. In this step, you will type in your ideas about topics or

organizations where you lead. You will also type the description of this topic area.

Step 3—Add files. In this step you will upload your evidence or artifact. You will also

have the chance to write the descriptions.

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Go ahead and get started. Write your ideas below. You can always go back and edit!

Ideas of themes (portfolio names or project names in Optimal)

Ideas of topics (project names in Optimal)

Ideas of artifacts/evidence (file name) & why I am using them (file description)

Stylistic Considerations

 Adding a photo  Choice of template

 Use numbers to organize projects from top to bottom of the page  Use numbers to organize portfolios from left to right on your website

Privacy Considerations—remember your e-portfolio is a website that is accessible and searchable on the Internet.

 Consider what personal information you share (i.e. address and phone number)  Do you want to link this professional tool to your LinkedIn or Facebook?

 Consider the name of your website—you can edit the URL before you activate it  Assign a passkey to control access to your website/e-portfolio

How can I preview what my e-portfolio will look like and activate it?

1. From the Document Center choose “Create a new website.”

2. On top left of this page, select the “Rename” tab in to modify the URL

3. Whatever you name the website will become searchable from Google and other internet search engines. For greater privacy do not use your full name.

4. Under portfolio choose “enable” then select the particular portfolio(s) you want to preview.

5. From here you can select the template/background.