http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Portfolios A listing of the most recently indexed works about Portfolios in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Portfolios http://tc.eserver.org/35656.html http://tc.eserver.org/35656.html Not long after I went independent, a friend who works at a well-known global advertising agency asked if I would be interested in helping out on a high-profile Web site redesign project. I was pretty stoked. He suggested I come in to meet his team. After meeting with the lead developer and project manager, I was told they wanted to bring me on. All I had to do was to meet the creative director. “Can I see your portfolio?” I hadn’t brought one. “I can give you the URL,” I said. We weren’t near a computer. His glassy response: “I’m not sure what we have to discuss if I can’t see your work.” http://tc.eserver.org/34314.html http://tc.eserver.org/34314.html In portfolio web pages, especially in the field of design, one of the first things that you will notice is an introductory text consisting of a few words about the company or the designer behind the site. This can be extremely useful for readers, as it provides quick and direct information about the designer, or the company behind the site. These introductions are generally highlighted by the use of large text, positioned at the top of the site, and always catch the visitor’s eye. They give a more personal feeling to the site and tend to replace the traditional taglines under a logo for example. In this article, we list 50 examples of excellent web page introductions used in portfolio websites that you can use as inspiration for your own designs. http://tc.eserver.org/32658.html http://tc.eserver.org/32658.html At its core, building an online portfolio is much the same as any other design brief—the only difference is that you are your own client. So as with any design brief, it’s best to begin by asking yourself, “who is my target audience?” Let’s look at two types of portfolios. http://tc.eserver.org/31967.html http://tc.eserver.org/31967.html I had considered putting my makeshift portfolio on floppy disk. Lack of disk space and a widely-used viewing format made the idea impractical, but technology had moved on in six years, and neither problem existed now. Why not put my portfolio on CD? http://tc.eserver.org/31379.html http://tc.eserver.org/31379.html In the last decade, several groups in the US have also been working toward performance assessment that is tied to the curriculum and assessed by collaboratively by teachers: the New Standards Project, the College Board Pacesetter Project, and several state assessment projects. This paper describes the English system not as a model to be imitated—there are profound differences in the two societies and their education systems—but as a point of reference, a means of seeing the US system and the recent reform efforts in comparative perspective. http://tc.eserver.org/31369.html http://tc.eserver.org/31369.html Electronic portfolios have slipped silently into colleges and universities as effective assessment tools of student work. http://tc.eserver.org/29828.html http://tc.eserver.org/29828.html Over a period of 10 years, we have developed a sustainable process of online portfolio assessment that demonstrates both reliability and validity, using both qualitative and quantitative measures. The sustainable cycle is that, each semester, we assess a random sampling of the students' work that they have posted, as per our instructions, in an online portfolio. During the reading, the faculty score the documents for 11 variables, including writing, content, audience awareness, and document design. We achieved validity by a modified online Delphi that led to a redefinition of the construct of technical communication itself; we achieved reliability by adjudication resulting in adjacent scores. The results of our assessment meet the requirements of ABET and result in a continual cycle of improvement for our technical communication curriculum. Results from three semesters show an improving correlation between the course grade and the overall, holistic portfolio score. http://tc.eserver.org/29769.html http://tc.eserver.org/29769.html A recent article in the Chicago Tribune last year suggests that technology workers need a variety of skills that include soft skills--good communication skills and the ability to work in teams. http://tc.eserver.org/29671.html http://tc.eserver.org/29671.html A portfolio is a technical communicator's most important marketing tool. It showcases talents and abilities while giving prospective employers or clients an opportunity to learn about the candidate's skills and career direction. Often, communicators either do not have a portfolio or have not presented their works in the best possible manner. Professional portfolios are as indispensable as a resume. As the focus of technical communication expands, the need for multiple media to present a communicator's work is inevitable. Rather than a portfolio, multiple portfolios--in hard and electronic--formats are necessary to successfully portray your skills and career direction. http://tc.eserver.org/29582.html http://tc.eserver.org/29582.html When reviewing a job applicant's portfolio, different interviewers have different criteria by which they judge the applicant's previous work. Some interviewers may be looking for very specific applications or specialty skills; others may be looking for evidence of a generalist who can do many types of work; still others may be looking for work that exhibits the company's priorities or goals. Some guidelines to keep in mind when developing a work portfolio include the following. http://tc.eserver.org/29274.html http://tc.eserver.org/29274.html It is a helpful exercise to develop a tagline for yourself, in the same way that professionals in a previous generation were encouraged to develop a mission statement. With shortening attention spans, today's professional needs only a few-word tagline to fit in the sound bite of management's smaller time slots. http://tc.eserver.org/29085.html http://tc.eserver.org/29085.html The antecedents of literary autobiography as we know it today emerged during the 17th century against a backdrop of the rise of empirical science and inductive method. An arguably older form of autobiography--the portfolio-- has, unlike the literary biography, languished on the periphery of academia during our time. While it should not be controversial to say that possession of an heuristic bent is one mark of a successful education (since learning how to think, that is learning how to be open, alert, engaged, is the fundamental mission of the student), the portfolio has been ignored in part because of its modern connotation as a 'marketing' tool but perhaps more significantly because as a heuristic methodology it is a threat to the centrality of the pedagogue. I argue that the portfolio deserves at very least a re-evaluation throughout academic (to say nothing of quotidian) life as an indispensable tool of the spirit of pedagogy. Like the autobiography, it is validated by the belief that gathering data or details about individual lives has to precede drawing general conclusions or seeing any overarching patterns. http://tc.eserver.org/23649.html http://tc.eserver.org/23649.html E-portfolios collect samples of technical communication on a CD or a website. They offer more presentation options than the traditional hardcopy portfolio. While the construction differs from the traditional portfolio, the purpose and principles of design and content remain the same. http://tc.eserver.org/23527.html http://tc.eserver.org/23527.html A competitive market demands job seekers do more than just send out resumes. Portfolios showcasing your work can help sell you to potential employers before, during and after interviews. How many people here have a paper portfolio? How many have an online portfolio? http://tc.eserver.org/22289.html http://tc.eserver.org/22289.html The concept of borders provides a powerful lens for understanding the student experience in technical communication. During the educational process, our students navigate across borders between teaching and research, between theory and practice, and between nations, cultures, disciplines, and professional organizations. Asking students to think about their experiences at such borders can give rise to interesting questions, insights, and concerns. Student portfolios, developed over the course of their academic careers, provide students with a powerful mechanism for reflecting on and integrating their experiences at these borders. http://tc.eserver.org/20494.html http://tc.eserver.org/20494.html The field of technical communication is in many ways inscribed by technology. As a result, technical communication programs not only must provide students with a foundation in the theory and practice of the field, but also must give students some level of proficiency in the technology tools they will need to put that knowledge into service in the workplace. http://tc.eserver.org/20439.html http://tc.eserver.org/20439.html So, you decide that you would like to create a portfolio. What do you do? Where do you start? http://tc.eserver.org/20440.html http://tc.eserver.org/20440.html You have collected the pieces you would like to include in your portfolio. You have sorted through your collection and selected your best work. You have made entry cards for each piece to provide a good introduction for each sample. And you are ready to place your work, introduction page, entry cards, section dividers, and give-aways into your new leather portfolio. Where do you start? http://tc.eserver.org/20436.html http://tc.eserver.org/20436.html A portfolio is a collection of materials you have created. You will present five or six substantial samples of your work, each one prefaced with a statement that explains the circumstances under which you created it, as well as an analysis of its strengths and weaknesses. http://tc.eserver.org/20435.html http://tc.eserver.org/20435.html The Technical Communication Certificate requires you to keep portfolios of your work in TCC communication courses. When completing the TCC, you will then draw from these course portfolios to create a portfolio that represents your work throughout the curriculum. http://tc.eserver.org/20442.html http://tc.eserver.org/20442.html Welcome to The Web Portfolio Handbook. The goal of this book is to help students and professionals envision, plan, design, and create academic or professional portfolios using Web technologies. Web portfolios hold tremendous promise as a pedagogical tool and learning medium. But because web portfolios—for that matter, even portfolios in general—are a relatively recent development, this preface will not only introduce how this book works, but provide a conceptual framework for using web portfolios in the classroom. http://tc.eserver.org/20441.html http://tc.eserver.org/20441.html You have started to save your money to buy what is necessary to put your portfolio together, and now you want to decide what to include in it. http://tc.eserver.org/20438.html http://tc.eserver.org/20438.html Provides a rationale for why a portfolio can be an important component of the job search process. http://tc.eserver.org/20141.html http://tc.eserver.org/20141.html Molisani explains how technical communicators can use their portfolios to take charge of an interview. http://tc.eserver.org/18771.html http://tc.eserver.org/18771.html In the twenty-first century, technical communicators are discovering that portfolios (electronic and/or paper) are indispensable career tools. Portfolios have many uses because they contain a variety of documents that have been developed with the tools and skills claimed on the resume. In addition, portfolios can be instrumental in getting a promotion or winning a contract. http://tc.eserver.org/15056.html http://tc.eserver.org/15056.html When the Kentucky Supreme Court declared the public education system unconstitutional in 1989 and the legislature passed the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA) to revamp the existing system, we Kentucky English teachers became involved in the broadest reform ever attempted by any state in the nation. As part of the reform, a yearly state-wide performance-based assessment of each school was instituted in 1991. Along with other components, the assessment included a writing portfolio, holistically-graded by teachers in each school, that would count 14% in the total assessment. http://tc.eserver.org/14952.html http://tc.eserver.org/14952.html The Contractor SIG's Annual Portfolio Review was held Tuesday, February 19 at the Northwest Neighborhood Cultural Center in Portland with the objective of providing a valuable opportunity to find out how to improve one's portfolio. The focus of the event was balanced not only by a review of winning portfolio characteristics, but also a look at techniques for using the portfolio as a sales tool. Attendees were given the opportunity to show and receive feedback on their own sets of samples. http://tc.eserver.org/14791.html http://tc.eserver.org/14791.html Kendus discusses the benefits of online portfolios for job candidates and offers tips on creating them. http://tc.eserver.org/14622.html http://tc.eserver.org/14622.html Scott describes a professional portfolio and examines common items every portfolio should contain. She clarifies the difference between portfolios for experienced professionals and those for students. The article includes some employers' recommendations for successful portfolios. http://tc.eserver.org/14769.html http://tc.eserver.org/14769.html Offers ten suggestions on how job candidates can assemble a winning portfolio. http://tc.eserver.org/13832.html http://tc.eserver.org/13832.html In The Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology, and the Arts, Richard Lanham suggests that perhaps those most resistant to the 'digital revolution' are members of English departments, those who are often divided between what does and what does not constitute a text. Often at the heart of this debate is the privileging of one literacy paradigm, that of print, and the marginalizing of another, primarily that devoted to the production of electronic discourse. To further complicate the issue, even when we do recognize electronic models of literacy, we tend to shape our experience, as Johnson-Eilola has so eloquently pointed out, through our nostalgia for earlier models of literacy, again, those focused on print and the printed page. It is no doubt important to teach students the ways in which rhetorical and literary texts are produced, distributed, and consumed; however, it is equally important for teachers of writing, primarily members of English departments, to acknowledge the production and consumption processes of texts external to the genres of the academy and to recognize that the essay is a printed form that admittedly for our students has little use outside the academy. http://tc.eserver.org/13717.html http://tc.eserver.org/13717.html In 1998, the English Department at Carnegie Mellon built an Internet server (english.cmu.edu) to offer free lifetime accounts to English majors and graduate students. We did this (in part) because we had found that students in our professional programs underused campus facilities for web portfolios. Interviews revealed that many Web-savvy students felt alienated from campus Internet publishing options--which serve students while they remain students, but eliminate accounts (and remove alumni websites) soon after graduation. CMU students in professional programs are exceptionally career-oriented, and interviews revealed that they instead planned to postpone website production until they had graduated, when they could create (more) permanent websites--which often did not happen. By encouraging our students --while students--to create online portfolios which they could maintain even after graduation, we removed one of the obstacles to experimentation by our more enthusiastic students, and offered them options to integrate such work into their studies of genre,audience and accessibility. This experiment has been more successful than originally expected; students' websites are among the most popular locations on the entire server, and have led to continuing communications between alumni and faculty. This has led some of us who advised students in Carnegie Mellon's MAPW (Masters in Professional Writing) and CPAD (Masters in Communication Planning and Design) to rethink issues which arise in the creation of web portfolios. http://tc.eserver.org/13152.html http://tc.eserver.org/13152.html When asked for my opinion on how to break into the Web world, I usually tell people to volunteer. I was very lucky when beginning my Web career in the early days of the Internet—my Web sites received a lot of good exposure. But when I jumped into self-employment a few years ago, I had to start all over again: I needed to show potential clients what I could do, not what my Web team could do. So I found a poorly designed Web site and offered to redesign it for free (the Oklahoma Indian Times Web site at www.okit.com). OKIT jumped at the offer (to read more about this, see “The Need for Web Site Navigation” in the June 1999 issue of Intercom). A lot of my friends thought I was crazy doing all that work for free. But I needed to build a Web site from scratch so I could give prospective clients an example of my work. Nothing is more convincing than before and after pictures. http://tc.eserver.org/13111.html http://tc.eserver.org/13111.html Online (Web, CD, digital, electronic) portfolios are an important and emerging tool for technical communicators. Creation, design, and distribution, as well as stylistic concerns, are critical issues in the development of an online portfolio. This paper provides suggestions for preparing an online portfolio and is the result of information gained from an online survey of working technical communicators. http://tc.eserver.org/12929.html http://tc.eserver.org/12929.html Maybe you don't have a project that's all your own. Or, maybe you don't have many completed projects to show a prospective employer. But, you do have skills in planning documents, compiling and organizing information, writing, editing, and designing...right? Put those skills to use and create an annotated portfolio of your work that includes excerpts of what you have done, demonstrates your capabilities to develop documents, and makes potential employers look twice. But wait. How can you create a portfolio without actual portfolio pieces? You can, by examining what you have done, examining what skills you've contributed, gathering reader/boss/coworker comments, and developing a cohesive document. http://tc.eserver.org/10246.html http://tc.eserver.org/10246.html Amongst pomp and circumstance, many graduates are hitting the pavement this spring looking for that pie-in-the-sky job at the dot-coms, design studios and graphic arts firms. Each year the Design and Publishing Center get dozens and dozens of phone calls, letters and resumes all touting the awesome talent and experience of each new crop of graduates. We tip our hats to you with a little advice. http://tc.eserver.org/10066.html http://tc.eserver.org/10066.html Technical writing is one of the few careers in which building a portfolio can be almost impossible. A technical writing portfolio is not limited by your experience, but by your imagination. And a good imagination is one of the things employers like to see in a technical writer.