ePortfolios- Collecting, Selecting, & Using Artifacts

As you work towards your degree, you'll want to collect artifacts for your portfolio as you create them. It's much easier to gather your photos, videos, URLs, etc. when they're created rather than trying to locate them later.

Your organizational system can be as simple as a spreadsheet with an item title, description that includes why you're considering the file as an artifact for your ePortfolio, date, and location information (where it's saved on your computer) or you can used web-based tools such as Evernote and Google Drive.

Evernote & Google Drive

Evernote is a cloud-based notes system that helps you keep track of pretty much anything you can put in a digital format. Basic accounts are free and paid upgrades are available. You can upload files directly to Evernote and attach them to individual notes as long as the individual files are under the maximum file size. For anything bigger than the maximum size, use Google Drive.

Below is an example of using Evernote to store artifacts for later ePortfolio use.

You can see that I:

• created an individual notebook for Knights of Distinction
• used tags to identify that this note was specifically for the ePortfolio project
• made a note of the title of the presentation, the date, the event and event details 
  • noted why I was considering this a possible ePortfolio artifact
• provided a link to the video I have stored in Google Drive

Once you are ready to start creating your ePortfolio, your artifacts will be located in a single Evernote notebook, searchable by tag.

Google Drive is free up to 15MB at the time of this writing. To stay organized, consider creating a folder in Google Drive for your ePortfolio project by:

1. Logging into Google Drive with an existing Google Account or Create a Google Account
2. Clicking the "My Drive" dropdown and create a new folder for your project
3. Moving files into the folder by dragging and dropping
4. Logging into Evernote and clicking the Note you'd like to edit
5. Clicking the Google Drive logo in the edit menu. Connect your Google Account by entering your Google account information if you have not already done so
6. Locating the file you'd like to link
7. A link with the file will be added to your Evernote

Caption: Screen capture of folders and individual files inside of Google Drive.

Caption: Google Drive Icon for linking larger files.

Once you've gathered your artifacts, it's time to make some decisions about what you'll use and what you'll omit. Quality over quantity is a factor--if you have 20 photos from an event you participated in, pair it down to the most visually appealing photos that support your written narrative.

Questions to ask yourself:

• Does the artifact support or enhance the written text? Remember to only use photos, videos, etc. that support and enhance your story rather than just using visuals for filler.
• If the artifact is an image or video, is the file size/image size usable? If the picture is too small you may have to consider another artifact. If the file is very large, scale it down to a proportion that makes sense in your overall design.
• Is this artifact mine or someone else's? If the video/photo, etc. is not yours, please review the information provided in this guide regarding using another person's work.