Stefani, Mason, and Pegler define the e-portfolio and explore its role in one’s educational and eventual professional development. Although the book’s primary audience is those in academia looking to establish the use of e-portfolios in an institute of higher education, everyone who engages in personal development and practices reflective learning will benefit from reading it.

Stefani and her coauthors feel that “E-portfolios may well be the tipping point that e-learning really needs to be a fully functioning approach to learning without the ‘e’!” (16) Supporting their claim with examples from successful programs from all over the world, the book describes how to use e-portfolios as a tool across the curriculum rather than a project of any particular course. Their goal is to help you be a part of creating a system-wide approach by which students take control of their own learning through system-wide portfolios.

The authors describe the particulars of integrating e-portfolios into the curriculum and ensuring technological support. Their chapters guide you through each step of the process:

• Getting started with e-portfolios
• Course design using e-portfolios
• E-portfolios and assessment of student learning
• The e-portfolio as a tool for professional development
• E-portfolios and inclusive learning
• Software solutions for a complex concept
• Relating other new technologies to the e-portfolio
• E-portfolio futures

As a small business owner, occasional college instructor, and lifelong learner, I was concerned that this book would be too specialized for me to apply much of it to my business or personal development. The authors quickly allayed that fear. I discovered methods to adapt my eportfolio to make it more than just a showcase of my work and skills. I learned how to use an e-portfolio as a tool rather than an outcome in both my students’ development in the classroom and my personal development in my workplace.

The book’s content, organization, and accessibility make it a must-read for any instructor, manager, or individual interested in using e-portfolios as a tool for personal development and reflective learning.

For Amazon Kindle owners, this book is available for immediate download.

The Educational Potential of e-Portfolios: Supporting Personal Development and Reflective Learning (Connecting With E-Learning). Lorraine Stefani, Robin Mason, and Chris Pegler. 2007. Abingdon, UK; New York, NY: Routledge. [ISBN 978-0-415-41214-8. 186 pages, including index. $35.98 USD (softcover).]

This book review first appeared in TechnicalCOMMUNICATION, Volume 55, Number 3, August 2008, p. 295. TechnicalCOMMUNICATION is the journal of the Society for Technical Communication.

How do I showcase my skills when much of my work has been on proprietary projects?

Here is my standard advice:

• Don’t! If the projects you’re working on are restricted by proprietary agreements, you really can’t show them.
• Volunteer! Countless professional organizations and nonprofits desperately need your skills. Ask around to see if anyone needs a little help in areas you want to showcase in your portfolio. It’s a win-win situation.
• Negotiate! During the hiring process, talk about what you will and will not be able to include in your portfolio.
• Ask! Ask your employer if you can use particular parts of projects and how you can use them.
• Get it in Writing! People and companies can be litigious. It’s always a good idea to cover your assets!
• Be transparent! Be open with your employer about what you’re putting in your portfolio fodder file. Collect your pieces regularly and from the beginning of your employment. Trust me, we know when you’re getting ready to change jobs and you making a mad dash of copying files is just one of many indicators.
• Redact! Often you can sanitize a document and make it perfect fodder for your portfolio by taking out all identifying information.
• Rework! Redo elements of the projects that show your skills for company X.

I posted this question in several different venues and this is what other professionals from both sides of the table had to say.

From Aaron Bowdoin, Executive Producer at Indigo Studios:

If it is a proprietary project…there are often components that most can access via the Internet… or what the companies PR/sales would say about the product offering. These are perfectly acceptable to show and discuss as long as the product/service is currently in the market. Would never show a project in development. If it is design + backend development it is acceptable to talk about the functionality as long as it is something anyone could access…e.g. A B2B service offering.

Always have who you are presenting to sign an NDA also. Never leave behind sensitive material…and always explain why you can show certain elements of the project and not others.

People tend to respect that you are responsible with their Intellectual Property and proprietary models.

From Guy Ball, Senior Technical Writer at EADS North America Test & Services:

I’ve had several interviews where I showcased “non-public” or secure projects but I first “sanitized” the information by changing critical information, deleting certain sensitive content, and revising names and part numbers. I even had to PhotoShop out some numeric data in drawings and screen captures. By the time I was through, the original source material was pretty hidden – but I was able to show how I handled certain types of documentation. Also in many cases, I only showed a chapter or two of the full manual.

In those cases, I was very clear to the interviewers that the materials I was showing had sensitive material removed. I’ve been in interviews where prospective contractors bring in original manuals that are definitely either proprietary or government sensitive. I feel very uncomfortable in these situations even when they tell me their former bosses are okay with it.

One of the tricky areas though is some of the video training and documentation I’ve done. In these areas, I try to make sure there is nothing sensitive that a competitor couldn’t get in some easy fashion (via website or through a sales rep). Sometimes, I’ve just provided screen captures when the materials could not be cleaned up enough.

From Marc Yellin, Technical Communicator:

My personal advice is to be very, very cautious about presenting (even for just a “quick look”) any document labelled Proprietary or Confidential, and to be just as cautious about presenting any document with a logo or other identifiable information.

As a hiring manager, I would see red flags when a prospective hire showcased such material at an interview: If this is how the candidate treats others’ intellectual property, how will s/he treat mine?

It’s much better to take the time to “sanitize” any portfolio material. Presumably (although not always), if you wrote it, you have access to the source code and can modify it.

One practical example: I have done consulting gigs for different business units within the same Big Company. For my portfolio, I strip out all identifying and / or proprietary material, but preserve the documents’ format. At interviews, other companies see only that I can write clearly and understandably; Big Company interviewers recognize their format and know that I have done work for them before and have a track record.

Furthermore — call me crazy, but I would not rely on anything less than written permission from a former client’s Legal Department to authorize any display of company information.

From John Blake, Principal, End User Documents, Inc.:

My advice is to first get client approval. That said, realize that many times when you ask (especially with larger companies), you are likely to get ‘no’ as an answer because it is the easiest way for your clients to protect themselves and their company (it’s also easier than actually tracking down the ‘right’ person, if one even exists, within the corporate structure to get that answer).

Use common sense and good judgment to protect your clients (and yourself, legally) in terms of what type of content you show, leaning towards more general subject matter (e.g. policies and procedures or business processes that are common to the industry and not your particular client). Remove logos and redact company, individual client, and client facility location names. Don’t forget that many times screenshots may contain corporate names or sensitive client data.

You should be able to offset these limitations by the way that the documents are structured and formatted, as well as via your resume and references.

From Patricia Overbo, Technical Writer – Online Help/eLearning Developer:

Yes, portfolios are difficult enough to update and maintain and then you have to worry about giving away company secrets. Here’s my 2 pesos:

1. Ask permission from your employer/client to use proprietary info including specifically what you CAN use. Indicate that you will not leave the content with a prospective employer/client but showcase it in your portfolio leaving out or replacing info as needed.
2. Only show portions needed to get your point across… i.e., you don’t need to show an entire user manual you wrote; just the a page of the TOC, a page of the Index, a Title page, a few content pages… just to give an example.

From Deanne Levander, Technical Writer at TCF National Bank; Associate Fellow, STC:

My 2 cents echo Pat’s (above): In the past I have used title pages, tables of contents, indexes, and sometimes glossaries to illustrate my skills and abilities when it comes to proprietary content. My portfolio does not contain the entire contents of anything (except for very short pieces).

One other thing I do is keep a list of clients with one-liner client descriptions, as well as a list of publications that I wrote or edited. These are part of my portfolio also, and information that I can leave with the prospective client.

From Tony Chung, Creative Communications; Technical Communicator; Web Developer; Multimedia Production:

Regarding confidential/proprietary work, it all depends on whether the secret sauce is necessary to showcase your ability, or whether you are using the corporate branding to give yourself some status by association. My thoughts are to strip out all logos and secret sauce, rebrand the work under a fictitious company name, and voila! Problem solved.

What are your experiences in dealing with content that is protected by proprietary agreements? Let us know in the comments.

Features

• Captivating design to display your works
• Automatically resize image for Thumbnail and preview
• Jquery Integrated for Featured Photos and Previews
• Theme Options for easy configure

About the Theme: Fotofolio

Fotofolio is a free wordpress template designed for easy creation online portfolio for Visual Workers; Photography, Graphic Design, Manga, Architect, etc. Fotofolio is very simple and easy to use, please read the installation and usage for details. Fotofolio is created by Pupung Budi Purnama. Fotofolio is released under Creative Common License.

Special thanks to Lyndi from South Africa for spreading the news on Twitter.

Can you recommend other Wordpress or Blogger themes? Let us know in the comments.

Here are the things that have been requested. Don’t worry if you can’t make it to Atlanta in a few weeks, I’ll answer the questions here, too.

• What is the best way to showcase your skills through online items?
• How large should a document be? How many pages of a book should be in your portfolio?
• What kind of samples should you include?
• Should you include awards in your portfolio?
• Should you include recommendations in your portfolio?
• How should you organize your portfolio?
• How much of any one thing should you include in your portfolio?

While I’ve alluded to several of these questions already, I’ll be sure to address them one at a time in upcoming posts.

What other questions do you have? Let us know in the comments. Inquiring minds want to know!

What type of portfolio do I need?

• Archive – a physical collection of every project in your arsenal
• Presentation – a collection of the projects you feel best represent your work abilities
• Electronic – your best projects viewable via the internet or CD/DVD
• Sample – a scaled down version of your best projects that you are willing to “leave behind”

How do I develop my archive portfolio?

Your archival portfolio is for you and you alone (see my previous post about this subject) so that you have a pool of samples from which to choose when you need to show your skills. You develop your portfolio by

• Collecting copies of your projects.
• Reproducing any projects of which you do not have a hard copy.
• Organizing your projects in an archival portfolio
• Determining which projects best represent your skills for the position/project you are seeking.

What do I include in my archive portfolio?

Include the following in your archival portfolio:

• Artifacts created for volunteer organizations
• Artifacts created specifically for your portfolio
• Artifacts created through your job
• Artifacts you created for fun
• EVERYTHING and ANYTHING

I’ve got my Archive portfolio, now what? Create your presentation portfolio.

Once you have your archive portfolio, the next step is to create your presentation portfolio. To achieve that goal,

• Select the artifacts that best represent your goals
• Determine a presentation method
• Determine a presentation theme
• Organize your works in a logical and consistent manner

What do I include in my presentation portfolio?

To create your presentation portfolio, gather the following:

• Cover Page – must have name; may have your mission statement, short introduction, or bio
• Resume
• Table of Contents – optional
• Navigation – some method to guide areviewer through your artifacts
• Project samples – your best
• Reflection – optional

They’ve asked for samples, do I loan them my presentation portfolio…?

Absolutely not. You’ve more than likely spent a great deal of time assembling your portfolio and in some cases, you may not have additional copies of the artifacts that are contained in it. This is when you’ll want a sample/leave behind/electronic portfolio.

• Make copies of portions of the artifacts in your presentation portfolio
• Organize your artifacts in a less expensive presentation folder
• Consider including a CD with “soft copies” of included and/or larger works
• Maintain consistency when possible

What do I include in my sample/leave behind/electronic portfolio?

• Cover Page/Letter – must have name, contact information and what’s inside; may have a short introduction, or bio
• Resume
• Artifacts – portions of your best printed on nice paper and/or burned to a disk
• Reflection – optional

On April 6, 2006, Problogger, Darren Rowse, is kicking off his free program 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. This is a great opportunity to flesh out your own answers to the top questions marketers ask about social media I discussed over at the STC Marketing Communications Blog.

If you’re just getting started in blogging or are hoping to fine-tune an established blog, I’m sure you’ll get some value out of this free training. I’ve been following Problogger for a while, and have found both the website and Darren’s book to be a wonderful resource as I’ve ventured into the blogosphere.

I’m excited to be a part of the challenge. Worst case scenario, I unsubscribe after a couple of days with a start. Here are a few details from the instructor:

1. It is free and kicks off on 6 April.
2. Each day over the challenge period (31 Days) you’ll receive an email notifying you of a new post that contains teaching and practical tasks to help you improve your blog.
3. Tasks will be small enough to do in 10-15 minutes
4. You may unsubscribe at any point if the challenge doesn’t fit with your needs or situation.

New to blogging? Come on in, the water’s fine. And stay tuned to see what hppens with this blog in the next 31 days.

• what skills you have
• if your experience complements the skills already present in my business
• if you’re starting out in your career, it tells me how much mentoring I’ll be doing
• your potential
• if you’re able to follow instructions
• how I can expect you to  treat my projects if you become a part of our team.

If you don’t want to come to work for me (or for anyone else), here are five sure-fire ways to blow it.

1. Your portfolio is the box you pulled out of the attic

I definitely want to see things you’ve done. I don’t want to have to help you carry a box of “stuff” up the stairs. I don’t want your portfolio’s cart to roll over my foot as we make our way to the interview room. Nor do I want sneeze over the billowing dust when you start digging things out.

Your portfolio is a representation, not an encyclopedia. Pull out the best pieces that show what you can do. If you have a manual, pull 4-6 representative pages out that will tell me how you handle different formatting issues, writing/editing, and that could possibly be a talking point about how you play well with others. If you can’t manage to carry your samples in the crook of your arm in a tasteful binder (that you can manage effortlessly and still shake my hand), you’re bringing too much!

2. Your portfolio is a bunch of loose pages thrown into a manila folder

Every time I see this happen (and I see it more often than you’d think!), I cringe. I mean, REALLY! If you don’t care enough about your work to doll it up a bit, do you really expect an employer to bring you into the fold? I’m not saying you need to go out and spend tons of money on a portfolio. There are inexpensive ways and professional ways to present your work (stay tuned for posts about how to present your work).

Employers are looking for organization and a presentation that is easy to pass around as we’re talking. I’ve been a part of interviews (on both sides of the table) that have had up to 10 people in them. Loose pages are worthless in this situation.

3. Your portfolio is filled with stuff that is CRAZY old

I recently  had a talented candidate bring in work that had been done 25 years ago. Yes, you read that correctly, 25 years ago. A victim of a layoff from a company who had contributed to proprietary projects for 20 years, this candidate didn’t have anything else. Or at least that was the perception.

Potential employers understand holes and even appreciate your ethics in not sharing proprietary information. In fact, if you show something in your portfolio that you shouldn’t the interview is usually over. You’ve just given a very strong representation that you can’t be trusted.

If all you have is something that you did eons ago. No worries, you CAN use it. You simply need to revitalize it. Take a bit of time and redo the piece the way you would do it today. It’s a great before and after opportunity. This simple exercise will show how you’ve grown (or not grown) and adapted to changes in technology over the years. It sets the stage to allow a conversation about special skills or training you’ve had.

4. You have no idea what is actually in your portfolio

It kills me when I sit across from someone who fumbles through their portfolio for something that may or may not be there! Your portfolio is a tool that you use to represent yourself. If you don’t know what is in there and can’t turn quickly to something that supports the conversation, you’re literally throwing red flags at your potential employer’s head. And, quite likely hitting them square between the eyes.

A potential employer wants to see you have a command of what is in the portfolio. If you are one with your portfolio and can use it as a tool to show how your skills you’re discussing, you’re not only displaying your skill set, you’re giving a VERY strong indication of how organized you’re going to be as an employee.

Not only do you look silly and incredibly disorganized, you’re taking up valuable time that can be better spent in other ways.

5. Your portfolio doesn’t leave your hands during the interview

Your portfolio is supposed to show off your skills. Let it out of your hands and let your potential employers actually SEE what you’ve got to show. I can’t see how your sentences are constructed or the fine details of that form you made across the table or room.

When a potential employer says they want to see your portfolio. They literally want to see it. They want to be able to look at the pieces and ask questions about it. They don’t want to sit there and watch you turn the pages and listen to you tell them what you think they want to hear about a project.

When you sit across the table from someone and go from page to page or project to project, you’ve quite likely lost your audience. Instead of wanting to get to know you better and learning how your unique skills will benefit the company, your potential employer is quite likely trying to figure out how to get a word in edgewise and end the interview and get back to the large pile of work sitting in queue and is quite likely the reason why you’re there in the first place.

Don’t want to blow the interview? The basic thing you need to remember that your portfolio’s purpose is to reperesent you and give you a common area around which you and potential employers can have  a conversation about how you are the perfect person to be a part of company or project.

No portfolio, low potential of getting hired. If I’ve asked you to come in for an interview, it’s highly likely I’ve projects for which I need immediate assistance. (Immediate as defined by most of my clients means due last week.) If you come to work for me, you’ll be hitting the ground running, so seeing what you’ve already done is important. What I see in that portfolio and how you handle it during the interview process will determine your likelihood of becoming a part of my team.

As a potential employer, your portfolio is very important to me because it allows me to determine

• what skills you have
• if your experience complements the skills already present in my business
• if you’re starting out in your career, it tells me how much mentoring I’ll be doing
• your potential
• if you’re able to follow instructions
• how I can expect you to  treat my projects if you become a part of our team.

While I am looking at the content in your portfolio, I’m looking at much more than just the pieces. In fact, I’ve hired some very amazing people who had only one or two relevant things in their portfolio because they nailed all the criteria I listed above.

To stress this point even further, my first job in this industry was due to the potential my new boss saw in my portfolio. As I made the transition from being a high school English teacher to  a writer, editor, graphics artist, and web designer, my first portfolio was a paltry presentation with few pieces that I had pulled together in an afternoon. (I happened to have bumped into the hiring manager as I was dropping off an application for a different position mid-afternoon and as we set the interview for 8:00 am the next morning she said, “Oh yeah, be sure to bring your portfolio with you tomorrow.”) Literally, my portfolio was a small report cover with a few “projects” tucked into clear page protectors. These projects were

• three mini posters I had made to support a poetry unit for my classroom bulletin boards
• worksheets I had made
• a one-page news brief I had done for my department
• a copy of a wine label I had made for a recent batch of home made wine my husband and I had bottled the night before.

The day I started, I asked my manager why she chose me over all the other candidates. (I wanted to know what I did right so I could be sure to do that the next time I was looking for a job!) And she responded, “The content and packaging weren’t the best we saw. We hired you because it told us where you are right now  your career, your potential, your personality, and how you would fit into our department.”

Now that the roles have been reversed and I find myself bringing people to work for me, her words ring true. I’ve been able to say much the same thing about some people who have become indispensible in my company.

If you’re a creative professional looking to get a job or contract, your portfolio is vital and needs to represent where you are right now.

What are some of your experiences in using portfolios. The comment box is open. If you’re a manager, what are you looking for when you look at a candidate’s portfolio? Job seekers, let us know some of the things that you’ve seen hiring managers look for.

What are your buring questions about your assets, or rather the content for your portfolio? We’re here to help you figure out what you’ll include in your portfolio! Let us know in the comments.

What are your burning questions about legal-type stuff? We’re here to help you figure out how to C-Y-Assets! Let us know in the comments.