Blackboard Portfolios

Your portfolios are stored in the My Portfolios area of Blackboard. To access your portfolios:

1. Click your name in the upper right of the display to open the Global Navigation menu.
2. Click the Tools link.
3. Select Portfolios.

Artifacts are evidence of learning, frequently accompanied by explanatory text. Artifacts are pieces of content the student can attach to a portfolio and reuse. Course artifacts are graded content from the course and remain available to the student even if they no longer have access to that course. Personal artifacts are any content—text, files, links and multimedia assets—the student creates/uploads. Students can create artifacts in two ways:

• Create artifacts ahead of time in the My Artifacts repository so that they are available to use in future portfolios.
• Create artifacts while authoring a portfolio. These artifacts are still stored automatically in the My Artifacts repository. Students can also reuse them in other portfolios.
   

Creating Personal Artifacts:

1. On the My Artifacts page, click Add Personal Artifact.
2. Provide a title, description, and content for the artifact. The description is visible only to the artifact owner.
3. Click Submit.
    

Converting Assignments to Artifacts:

1. On the My Artifacts page, click Add from Course.
2. Find and select the graded assignments in available courses.
3. Click Submit.

Before you begin creating a portfolio, take some time to set a goal for the portfolio and think about the point you want to make and the story you want to tell. Create an outline of the points to highlight and supporting materials (artifacts) to include. You can create artifacts before or during the portfolio creation process.

Create a shell for the portfolio including a name (required) and description (optional). Then add pages with content.

Create a portfolio:

1. Access your My Portfolios area.
2. Click Create Portfolio.
3. Provide a title and description, click Submit. You will have the option to "Take the Tour" of portfolio features or not.
4. Click the plus (+) icon at the left of the menu to add pages.
5. Click the (+) at the top or bottom of your page, to add another section.
    

Additional Information & Options:

• Use pages to structure the portfolio. Each page must have at least one section. 
• The menu on the left shows all the portfolio's pages and sections, you can click to navigate to them. To delete a page, click the trash can icon to the right of a page.
• Note: Deleting a page also deletes all of the sections and content on that page. Artifacts associated with a section remain in the My Artifacts repository, and you can reuse them.
• Use the drag-and-drop method to rearrange pages and sections in the menu.
• The Settings option allows you to change the portfolio title and description.
• The Preview and Customize option allows you to see how the portfolio will look, and make layout and color palette decisions that affect the final design of the portfolio.
• The Done Editing option allows you to exit the portfolio canvas. If you try to exit without saving new and updated content, you are warned of unsaved changes.

1. On the My Portfolios page, click More following a portfolio's name.
2. Click Share.
3. On the action bar, point to Share a Snapshot with and select one of the user types. Use the following table to determine which sharing option to choose

A template can be created that will provide students with assistance and scaffolding to create a portfolio for your course or program. Contact BCM Educational Technologists at Ed-Tech@bcm.edu if you would like to have a portfolio template created for your course or program. BCM Educational Technologists should be able to have your template created and ready for students within five business days.

1. Access your My Porfolios page.
2. Click the More button for the appropriate portfolio. [View screenshot]
3. Select Download. [View screenshot]
4. A dialog box will appear, click on the link to download the portfolio.
    

Using the Downloaded Portfolio:
The Portfolio is contained in a .zip file. Windows users should double-click the zip file and select Extract. Apple users should double-click the zip file. Open the file named index.html to view. If buttons are used in the Portfolio Menu, they will become text links in the downloaded Portfolio.

1. Access content area in your course.
2. Select Assignment from the Assessment button.
3. On the Create Assignment page, expand Submission Details in the Grading area.
4. Select Portfolio Submission. Optionally, choose a template students should use in their portfolio submissions. [View screenshot]
    

Note: You may want to consider selecting Unlimited Attempts for the Number of Attempts for a Portfolio Assignment. When students submit a portfolio assignment, you will only be viewing a snapshot of the portfolio from the time it is submitted. If you allow for unlimited attempts, students will be able to continue to submit snapshots of the portfolio up until the portfolio is completed. This should make it easier to track the students’ progress on their portfolios.

When a student has submitted a portfolio in response to an assignment, the portfolio is viewable in the assignment grading interface.

1. The portfolio snapshot is not rendered through Crocodoc, so direct annotation of the portfolio pages is not possible.
2. Grading feedback, rubric results, and rubric feedback provided in the grading sidebar are separate from portfolio comments. This information is stored independently as part of the assignment attempt—not as part of the portfolio or portfolio snapshot itself.
3. From the grading sidebar, you can download a portfolio as a ZIP package of HTML files.

• For more information about Portfolios see Blackboard's Portfolios.