Using ePortfolio
An ePortfolio is an 'electronic portfolio,' which is simply a collection of digital artifacts that you pull together and assemble into a format that you can share with others. One of the benefits of using the Brightspace ePortfolio is that it is linked right inside of Brightspace, so it is easy to find and use. Because of that, it will be easy to share items with others and get good feedback and comments on your work.
An ePortfolio is an 'electronic portfolio,' which is simply a collection of digital artifacts that you pull together and assemble into a format that you can share with others. One of the benefits of using the Brightspace ePortfolio is that it is linked right inside of Brightspace, so it is easy to find and use. Because of that, it will be easy to share items with others and get good feedback and comments on your work.
As a finished product, electronic portfolios can be used for a wide variety of reasons: you can use an ePortfolio to demonstrate learning, to put together a sample of work for an application, or to demonstrate your achievements to a potential employer. Your Brightspace ePortfolio will be available to you in all of your Brightspace classrooms throughout your program of study. So, you will have the opportunity to save artifacts along the way to chronicle your learning experience and maintain artifacts from early classes that might be relevant to a better understanding of the material in later classes.
Table of Contents:
What can you put into your ePortfolio?
Artifacts
Artifacts are the building blocks of everything that you can do in the ePortfolio. You use Artifacts to make Collections of your work or Web Presentations of your work. In general, Artifacts can be almost any kind of file, such as Word® documents, PDFs, Powerpoints®, images, or short audio or video clips. The most common way to add an Artifact is to upload a file. You can give basic details to the file, such as a Display Name in the ePortfolio and any descriptions you may wish to leave on it.
Presentations
Presentations are websites that can be exported into HTML format for burning on a CD or saving on a flash drive. You won't need to use any HTML code or have specialized knowledge to build these sites: you'll just need to go through a series of steps to determine what is included and how it will be displayed.
Collections
Collections are folders of items: they are groups of Artifacts, Reflections, and/or Presentations that you can create and use for organizing your ePortfolio items. You can give your collection a name. Collections can be based on work done in a course or semester, for a particular kind of item (essays, images, Internet websites for research, or case studies, for example), or for a long-term project (items to be included in a resume).
Reflections
Reflections are independent items in your ePortfolio that you can associate or link to Artifacts, Collections, or Presentations. In other words, unlike comments, they are not tied to any single file. You can use them to discuss the relationship between items. You can also use Reflections to define long-term goals that are met by the various items. You may add your Reflection to a page within a Presentation. In the Presentation, the Reflection would appear as a text area in the layout of the page of the Presentation.
As with all the tools in the ePortfolio, the actual use of this item is up to you. So, for example, while you can create a Web-based Presentation in your ePortfolio to display a number of different items, you can use a Reflection to discuss the relationship between items.
Where is the ePortfolio?
The ePortfolio is a tool inside of Brightspace course sites. Every user has an ePortfolio space inside of Brightspace: unless something is shared, everything in this space is completely private.
You will access the ePortfolio via the drop-down options under “More Tools” on the course navigation bar.
ePortfolio Home Page
Once inside the ePortfolio space, you will see your Home Page. This area will provide you with the latest activity in your ePortfolio and links to the ePortfolio tools.
Top Navigation
You can use the Top Navigation tabs to access your items, your sharing groups or to Explore items being shared with you. Use ePortfolio to return to the Home page.
My Items
Use the My Items tab to add, review, edit, or share the artifacts and other items such as presentations, collections, and reflections in your ePortfolio.
Selecting the My Items tab will open a page containing all your items and allow you to refine a search to quickly find things you want to review, edit, or share.
You can also select several items and use the More Actions option to delete items, add the items to collections or presentations, or associate your items with Learning Outcomes.
Explore
Use the Explore tab to find and review artifacts and other items such as presentations, collections, and reflections that have been shared with you by others.
Selecting the Explore tab will open a page containing all of the items shared with you and allow you to refine a search to easily find things you may want to review and comment or reflect upon.
Sharing Groups
Sharing groups let you save permissions for groups of users. You can then apply the sharing group to items rather than specifying a group's permissions each time. You can have multiple sharing groups that you apply in different situations or to different types of items. A common example would be setting up a Sharing Group for a class you are taking, and then using it to share a Presentation or other item.
To set up a Sharing Group, select the Sharing Groups tab and then New Sharing Group.
Give your sharing group a name and provide a description and select Save and close. As a note, please make the name of your Sharing Group something you can easily identify later (usually, a course name and term).
Then you can select the Add Users to enter the course(s) that you want in that group.
To add the course(s) of your choice:
(1) Click the Courses tab
(2) Enter the name of the course in the Search field.
(3) Click the name of the course section in the search results.
(4) Verify the permissions you want this sharing group to have, and click Add.
A new window will allow you to confirm the users in your sharing group again, add more members, and/or delete members by selecting the red X, or edit individual user permissions by selecting the pencil edit icon.
Once satisfied with your Sharing Group membership and permissions, select Save and Close.
All of your created sharing groups will be listed when you use the Sharing Groups tab and you will have the option to review the changelog for that group or to delete the entire group.
Create Presentations
To create a new Presentation, select the New Presentation option on the right-hand area of the ePortfolio Home Page.
You'll see a box open below with a series of tabs at the top. As we make the presentation, we'll move across the tabs from left to right.
Give your Presentation a name and select Save.
Adding content (or "Components") to your Presentation
After giving your Presentation a name, you may move to the second tab, Content/Layout, to add content to the Presentation.
To add content to your Presentation, it is essential to know that only items within your ePortfolio can be included in your Presentation.
Why is this the case? There are features in the Presentation tool that allow you to comment on and share your Presentation items, so these items need to be a part of your ePortfolio already.
You may add simple text areas, however, in which you may include links, images, and embedded objects, such as YouTube videos (if you choose).
Step 1: Select the Content/Layout tab, you'll see an area of gray boxes: this is a mock-up of the Web presentation that you are building.
From here, you can:
Add content (or, Components) to one of the two Content Areas
Change the way that the navigation appears or the layout of the page
Add additional pages to your web Presentation
Rearrange the order of pages by selecting the icon that looks like up- and down-arrows
In essence, you are building a website with this tool, and it can have multiple pages. You will be able to tell which page in which you are working because its name will be in black. Other page names will be blue.
Step 2: Select Add Component to search for or add content to one of the areas. Here are the most common components you would add:
You can search and add an Artifact. Remember, you'll need to upload any files, such as images, Word documents or .pdf files, before you can add them to a Presentation layout. Also, only images will appear in-place in a page; Word documents or .pdf files will appear as links that will open outside the Presentation.
You can create a Text Area, which will allow you to type directly into an area of the layout using a standard content editor feature. With a Text Area, you can have text appear directly on the pages of your layout. If you cut and paste text from another location (say, a Word document), just remember that you may need to reformat the text so that it appears as you would like it.
When you select and add components, you will see them appear at the bottom of the area to which they've been added.
Step 3: Once you've added components to a page of your Presentation, you can edit how they appear and where they appear in the page itself. Select the down-arrow in the upper right-hand corner of the box in which your component appears.
You can then choose from among these options:
Edit Display Options, or, the way it appears or is displayed in the page (see below)
Edit or View the artifact itself in a new window
Move the component up or down in the Content Area
Move to a different Content Area
Remove it from the Presentation (if it is an Artifact, this deletes the item from the Presentation, not from your Artifact area; text areas will be permanently deleted)
Step 4: If you select the "Edit Display Options," you can change how an Artifact appears in your Presentation.
For images only, you can display the Artifact in the page so that it appears as the image itself (either re-sized or not).
Other components will appear as links in the page.
Adding Multimedia Content / "Insert Stuff"
The most typical and efficient way to add multimedia content to an ePortfolio Presentation is through embedding. "Embedding" means that you are making a viewable link to a file located or streaming elsewhere.
If you are using YouTube to locate or embed a video, you need to first find the video on YouTube. Then select it so that you see it playing.
Next, select the Share button below the playing video and then Embed. You will see highlighted text appear (frequently with 'iframe' as the first line of code). Copy ALL of that text, as we will need it to embed in the ePortfolio Presentation.
Next, return to your Presentation and the 'Content/Layout' area. Go to the page where you want to add the video and select 'Add Component.' Then, select the add a 'Text Area.'
Next, in the Add Content area, you'll see a basic HTML editor appear. Select the Insert Stuff icon.
In the next window, you will see several options for inserting.
Choose Enter Embed Code. Then, paste the embed code you've copied from YouTube into the available area.
You should then select Next and will see your video image appear.
NOTE: If you see a warning box asking to Allow the browser to display the content, select Allow and check the box below so that you don't have to select this again.
Then, once you see your video image, select "Insert." You'll be taken back to your Add Content screen. Give the Text Area a name, and then Save and Close. Your video should now play.
Once added, you can test it by selecting the View Presentation.
Adding Reflections and Allowing Comments
If you choose to add a "Reflection" to the Presentation, you can allow someone (a classmate, instructor) to comment on that Reflection right in the Presentation.
You can add a reflection to a presentation from the reflection itself.
Under the My Items tab, locate the reflection you want to add to a presentation and select the down arrow to open the reflection options. Select Add to Presentation.
You will be guided to select the desired presentation, the desired page of the presentation, the desired area of the page and then select on the Add.
To add a reflection to a presentation from the presentation itself, select the Add Component, search for and find the Reflection. Select it and then select Add.
Once you see the Reflection in the Presentation, click on the down-arrow to the right of the Reflection and select Edit Display Options.
Once you've entered the display options for the Reflections, select the checkbox to allow comments to be added and displayed. This will allow users with whom you've shared your Presentation to add and view comments.
Presentations: Banner
After adding as many pages and Components as you like, and arranging them, you may now move to the third tab and add a banner to your Presentation.
The banner will appear on every page above the Content areas and navigation area.
Preview how the Banner appears using the View Presentation link at the top of the page.
Choosing Themes
After building your Presentation, you may now move to the fourth tab, Theme.
In this area, you can choose from several already existing themes or templates for your Presentation. To choose a theme that is not the default theme for the Presentation, scroll down and select "Select" for the Theme you wish to use.
You may also edit the current Theme to make it more personalized. To do so, select the paintbrush icon to the right of the Theme you've chosen.
Once you've decided to edit the Theme, you can change a great deal of the Presentation. Select the area you wish to modify in the left-hand menu and begin making changes.
Note: when you make changes here, you are only changing the Theme for this individual Presentation! The Theme will still be available in its default form for other Presentations.
A Note on Customized Themes
You'll note that the Themes available to you in the ePortfolio are not available for customization as Themes: in other words, you can't create your own Theme and then save it for use as a personal template.
However, you can make a copy of previously created presentations in which you have created themes or layouts that you would like to reuse.
Presentations: Permissions
The Brightspace ePortfolio Presentations are in fact websites that can be shared with individuals or groups within Brightspace or outside of Brightspace altogether, making it a public website available to anyone.
To share your Presentation with someone, select share form the down arrow menu.
A window will open up. Select Add Users and Groups and search for or select the persons or groups that you want to share with.
You will also have the option to add an external user by email.
You should now see the users and/or groups listed with the permissions associated with them. You have the option to remove them (X) or edit user or sharing group permissions.
Now, users with whom you are sharing the Presentation should see the Presentation listed under your name in the main left-hand Explore folder.
Settings may be adjusted to allow the presentation to be viewed publicly. If you want to share publicly with others outside of Brightspace, you will need to make note of the share URL. You can now copy the URL (http://...), paste it into an email and send it to whomever you like. It will be viewable outside Brightspace.
You can also specify visibility options and limit access to a specified date/time range.
All of your sharing choices will be displayed within the presentation listing.
Exporting your ePortfolio
As an active Purdue Global student, you will need to upload your files from the ePortfolio in Brightspace into the myDesire2Learn site in order to access your ePortfolio after you graduate. This service is provided by D2L, the creator of Brightspace. After graduation from Purdue Global, you will no longer have access to your Purdue Global ePortfolio in Brightspace. To learn how to use myDesire2Learn, follow the instructional document below.
Please note: Content from the Purdue Global Brightspace environment that is not included in the export package will not be accessible. You will be able to edit the files that you export and add new ones in the future.
1. In the navigation bar, click More Tools and then ePortfolio
2. Click on the My Items tab
3. Click on the More Actions dropdown
4. Select Go to Import/Export page
5. Click the Export button
6. Choose All Items to export all files or Selected Items to create a collection of items to export
7. Check the Automatically include associated items checkbox to include items that are linked to the items you are exporting.
8. Optionally, click Add Items to add additional items
9. Click the Export button
10. Click the View progress of the export package hyperlink to bring up a popup window with the download link
11. When the export package is ready for download click the hyperlink that begins with eP_Export… and ends in .zip
Register for myDesire2Learn
1. Visit https://mydesire2learncc.brightspace.com/register
2. Complete the registration form. Use a personal email address, not your Purdue Global email address.
3. An email will be sent to validate your email address.
4. After validating by clicking the link in the email, visit https://www.mydesire2learn.com/ to login.
Note: The login link present after registration may be inactive. In order to log in, you must visit https://www.mydesire2learn.com/ and log in using the username and password you entered during the registration step.
Importing your ePortfolio to myDesire2Learn
Visit https://www.mydesire2learn.com/ and log in using your username and password. 2. At this point, you will recognize that the interface is familiar. This is essentially a Brightspace course, but it is limited to just the ePortfolio tool and not associated with your Purdue Global courses.
Click the My Items tab
Click on the More Actions dropdown
Select Go to Import/Export page
Click the Import button
Click the Choose File button
Select the export package you downloaded in the Exporting instructions
Click the Next button
You will be presented with a Preview page. To proceed with the process, click the Import button at the bottom of the page. Optionally, you can exclude items from the import process by clicking on the X on the far right of each line item.
Click the Done button
lick the My Items link in the navigation breadcrumbs to return to the My Items tab of the homepage to view the contents of your ePortfolio.
From here, you can interact with the ePortfolio in the same ways you worked with it in Brightspace but note that this system is not connected to Purdue Global’s Brightspace environment.
Note: Content from the Purdue Global Brightspace environment that was not included in the export package will not be accessible.
Graduates
If you have questions, problems to report, or other feedback, visit the D2L community or D2L Ask the Community.