BMKT 405 e-Portfolio Assignment

Before you start creating your e-portfolio, it is critical to consider the privacy and safety issues related to sharing your e-portfolio on the World Wide Web. The challenge is to create an e-portfolio that is useful and accessible to employers but that does not put you at any risk from dangerous predators / fraudsters on the Internet.

Professionalism

Your e-portfolio should display professionalism... it will backfire if an employee types your name into Google, finds your e-portfolio (or is invited to your e-portfolio by yourself) and then sees postings about your wild partying, bad-mouthing former employers, swearing, typos / spelling mistakes, etc.

Some students when they first get started with their blog may start fooling around with inappropriate remarks, swearing, etc... Don't do this! Although you can delete postings, once they have been published some search engines will archive your original postings and you may find that you can't erase your unprofessional postings!

Safety considerations

The e-portfolio that you set up for this assignment is set up with the full privacy and security functionality available so that only the people that you invite will be able to view your e-portfolio. Despite this, you should still be careful to only post information that you feel comfortable with -- information that you feel okay viewed by the public (even if you give permission to an employer to view your e-portfolio, you may not want to disclose anything too personal that may put your potential employment at risk). For example, the resume you post to your e-portfolio should be a modified version of your full resume -- your Web version of your resume shouldn't have your home address or home phone number...

Privacy

You also want to make sure you aren't giving away any information that you wouldn't normally provide... e.g. IDs, passwords, banking info, too much details about your contact information, etc... you don't want people signing up for credit cards or applying for student loans in your name!

Some of the above items may be common sense but they can not be stressed enough and should not be taken lightly. Investigators of the recent murder suicide in a school in Colorado are looking at the possibility that the killer researched MySpace to learn about the kids attending the school (Sheriff: School shooter sent letter to say sorry).



This may be the extreme case and involve younger, more vulnerable kids... it is equally important for college students to safeguard their privacy, safety and online professional reputation.

Here are some articles on the blog privacy, safety, and professionalism theme:
Blog it now, regret it later
MySpace makes new online safety push
MySpace Invader

The World Wide Web and e-portfolios are here to stay... the above considerations aren't intended to scare you from developing an e-portfolio... You just have to be smart about how you do it so that you can leverage the power of the Internet to help you secure employment and manage your career and be safe and secure while doing it.

Approximate time: 5 minutes

a) Go to www.blogger.com and begin to create your blog (website) by clicking on the "Create Your Blog Now" orange arrow.




b) Fill in the "Create a Google Account" form . If you already have a Google account (e.g. Gmail, Google Groups, etc.) then click on the "sign in first" link.

Your username will have to be quite unique as there are already millions of Blogger users. Your display name will be what is used to sign your website postings.



Be sure to use a strong password (click on the "Password strength" link for more information).

For the "Word Verification" field, just type the word that you see on your screen. This step is to ensure that you are a real human being, and not an automated robot trying to automatically create hundreds or thousands of accounts.

Once you have completed the form, click on the box next to "I accept the Terms of Service" and then click on the orange continue arrow on the bottom right hand side.

c) Name your blog.

For the "Blog title" field, enter a display name for your e-portfolio website... this display name will appear in the masthead (main area on the top) of your website. It's usually best to name this something descriptive and it's good to include at least your first name (you may not want to put your full name for privacy considerations). For example, if your name was Maria Gonzales you might want to call the blog title, "Maria Gonzales' e-Portfolio". You can change the blog title quite easily later if you wish.



For the "Blog address (URL)" field, enter the name that you would like to use for your location (URL). You can change this URL later if you wish...

It is recommended that you use a descriptive address that also includes the word eportfolio. It's best to separate any names that you use with dashes. For example if your name was Maria Gonzales, you might want to use a URL like maria-gonzales-eportfolio (Blogger will add the blogspot.com after the blog name you come up with so the full URL would end up being: http://maria-gonzales-eportfolio.blogspot.com).

d) Choose template

The next and final step in creating your blog is to select a template -- i.e. your blogs' "look and feel". You can easily change or modify your template later on so don't spend too long choosing!



Blogger will now start creating your blog. This usually only takes a minute or two.



When you see this "blog created" screen, you are ready for Step 2, creating your first blog posting...

Approximate time: 10 minutes to create first posting, 15 minutes to explore Blogger posting functionality

a) Enter Title field and main paragraph field
You are now ready to create your first posting to your e-portfolio website.

First, here is some basic information on Blogger's post editor and making a blog posting:

Blogger's post editor
Making a blog posting

In the Title field, type a welcoming title such as "Welcome to my e-Portfolio".

In the main field (under the "Recover post" link and on top of the "Post and Comment Options" link), type a brief welcoming paragraph... don't worry if it's not perfect, you can always edit it later.



b) Apply basic formatting

The blogger create posting window contains a "mini-HTML editor" where you can do basic formatting (bold text, italicize text, create "blockquotes"), add hyperlinks, spellcheck and add images to your postings.

Here are some links to the Blogger help section that provide instructions on formatting your posting:

Making text bold or italicized

Using Keyboard shortcuts when posting

Spell check a post

Since you want potential employers to be impressed with your e-portfolio, you should always spell check your postings... your e-portfolio will backfire if it doesn't look professional and spelling mistakes quickly lead to reduced credibility.

c) Create a hyperlink

Here is a link to the Blogger help section with an overview of creating a link to another website:

Linking to other websites

When you click this, a new window will pop-up where you should enter the URL of your link (the website address that you want your text to link to). For example, to create a hyperlink from the BCIT word in your welcome sentence, you would first highlight "BCIT" and then click on the "insert hyperlink" icon. You would then enter www.bcit.ca (after the http:// that appears in the field).

d) Miscellaneous information about posting (reading this step is optional... you can always check these links out later...)

Here are some links to Blogger's help section with instructions no editing posts, saving as drafts, changing the post date/time, etc.

Saving a post as a draft

Difference between "draft" and "publish"

Editing a post

Changing the date/time of a post

Deleting a post:

Here is some optional information you may want to look at if you run into troubles with posting:

Trouble posting pictures:
Recovering lost posts

If you run into other problems with using Blogger, go to the Blogger Help section:

Okay, now you are a guru on making postings to your e-portfolio! The next step is to take a close look at Blogger settings that can improve your privacy.

Approximate time: 10 - 15 minutes

As mentioned in a previous section, it's important that you consider privacy and safety when developing your e-portfolio. The trick is to make your e-portfolio conveniently accessible to the right people (e.g. employers) and inaccessible to those that would use the information to harm or defraud you.

The following steps will help secure your e-portfolio site.

a) Turn off the public listings



From the Settings | Basic tab, change the "Add your Blog to our listings?" setting to "No".

b) Limit comment posting to blog members (people you have invited to your blog)



c) Set Blog Permissions

Now the most important privacy setting... Go to Settings | Permissions and under Blog Readers "Who can view this blog?" select "Only People I Choose". To invite potential employers to view your e-portfolio, you type their email address(es) into the "Invite some people to read your blog".



If you send a cover letter out to an employer prospect, you could mention your e-portfolio and that it is available upon request (they would just need to send you an email and then you would paste their email into the "Invite some people to read your blog" section).

You should add cyrijones2@gmail.com to your permissions list so that I can grade your e-portfolio.

From the Settings | Comments tab, change the "Who Can Comment?" setting to "Only Members of this Blog".

d) Turn profile sharing off

The last setting to change for improved privacy is the profile sharing. Go to the Dashboard and select Edit Profile. Uncheck the "Share my profile" section.



Now it's time to collect and host files...

Estimated time: approximately 30 - 60 min.

Having a repository to store your assignment and other files (e.g. resume, your photo, etc.) will be an important part of your e-portfolio. Having this repository accessible from the Web will enable any visitor to your site to have access to files you want to share.

a) Select file storage approach
To store and host your files, you can use the free storage service, MediaMax. This is the service we recommend you use (based on 25 GB storage amounts, fact that it is free and one of the leading services, extensive functionality, and good help menus / support).



Other possible storage locations include:
- other third party free storage services (e.g. XDrive, Box.net, Wikispaces) or fee-based storage services (e.g. Strong Space, XDrive). This article by Michael Arrington at TechCrunch.com provides a good overview of some of the file storage options available. Note: it's from January, 2006... some of the services have changed since then but most of the information is current.

b) Register for File Storage Service
Click here to register for MediaMax. The registration process is straightforward...

c) Collect files that will be used in your e-portfolio
Here are the files that should be part of your e-portfolio:

• Resume (best to use a modified version of your resume that doesn't include all of your personal contact details, especially if you do not make your e-portfolio private)
• At least two BSYS 1000 group assignments (e.g. PPT assignment, Word assignment, Excel assignment)
• At least three other group or individual assignments from some of your other courses


Here are the optional files that you may want to be part of your e-portfolio:

• Photo of yourself (optional, for privacy reasons, you may decide not to use a photo)
• Asssignments from other courses/projects you are doing
• Files of previous work you have done outside of BCIT

d) Upload files to your File Storage Space
Gather the required files as listed above and any optional files and then upload them to your file storage space.

For MediaMax, you upload to your MyFiles folder. You can use MediaMax's Web-based file upload interface or you can download and install a program on your home PC to speed up the file management process.

Here are instructions for MediaMax's file uploading.

If you want your files to be accessible from the Internet, you need to move the files to the Hosted folder.

Here are the instructions for MediaMax's web hosting. This includes information on how to find the URL of your hosted files (so you can insert this URL into your e-portfolio later).

One of the side benefits of using MediaMax is you can also email the files you have stored to others, something that is prevented with other services (e.g. maximum 10 megabyte file via MyBCIT email). You can set it up so that the file is attached with the email or it's accessed via a link to MediaMax (can be password protected too).

Here are the instructions for sharing your MediaMax stored files with others.

e) Backup your files
You should always have a backup of all your files that you have stored at a storage service like MediaMax or your BCIT storage options. In the event there are any problems at MediaMax you could then host your files at another source. BCIT Personal Files are also deleted every summer so you can't rely on your PersonalFiles as a long-term file storage solution. If your original storage location changes, you would have to update your links in your blog template and postings so they point to your new file storage location.

Your back up files could be located on your home PC, a portable storage drive, CD-ROM, etc. You may even want to keep three copies of everything in case your primary and secondary storage options have problems at the same time (not a far-fetched scenario!).

Here are the instructions for downloading a backup file of batch of files to your home computer using MediaMax.

Approximate time: 30 minutes

In this step, you will change the "look and feel" of your Blog. You will also add links of interest to your blog sidebar (left hand column of your blog). Finally, you will add an RSS feed (information from another website that will automatically be updated on your e-portfolio blog).

Copy the URL of your selected feed to the "Feed URL" box (you get here by clicking on the Feed page element.

To modify the look of your blog, go to the template tab.



a) Changing Look and feel of your blog

Click on the Fonts and Colors tab from the main Template tab. On the left hand side, a drop down menu shows the different components of your blog that can be changed (e.g. Text Color, Blog Title Color). Simply click on your preferred color for the different components. You can even select a "shuffle blog colors" to get a random selection of colours.



If you don't like the changes you made, you can always revert to the original template by selecting "Revert to template default".

b) Pick a new template (optional step)

If you like, you can pick a new template from the "Pick New Template" tab within the Template section. There are more templates to choose from than when you first set up your blog (mostly variations on the main templates)



Remember that changing your template will discard any changes you made in Fonts & Colors.

c) Adding page elements

Now it's time to customize the components that will be included in your blog by adding page elements. To start, click on the Page Elements tab within the Template section.



Click on the "Add a page element" link. From here, you can add a lot of content and functionality to your blog including adding links from your sidebar to your hosted assignment files, adding a RSS feed to automatically get news feeds updated on your website, adding Google's AdSense text ads, adding a picture, adding a text welcome message, configuring labels.



Here are the different page elements and which ones are required for inclusion or optional for this assignment.

List (optional)
Picture (optional)
HTML / Javascript (we will be looking at this later in Step 9)
Feed (required)
Logo (optional)
Link List (required)
Text (optional but strongly recommended)
AdSense (optional)
Labels configuration (optional)
Profile (optional)

A few extra notes about the Link List and the Feed...

Feed

The feed page elements lets you conveniently add a news or other feed to your blog. The technology behind the scenes for this is RSS (stands for really simply syndication or rich text summary). According to the Wikipedia, RSS is:

"a simple XML-based system that allows users to subscribe to their favorite websites. Using RSS, webmasters can put their content into a standardized format, which can be viewed and organized through RSS-aware software or automatically conveyed as new content on another website."

The first step in getting your feed set up is finding a feed with useful information for your website. You can search for a topic and include "RSS" in the search term at a search engine like Google.com or you could go to a RSS directory such as Chordata:



You can select a related feed such as from the business list... for example, you could select the CRM (customer relationship management) feed.



Adding links on your sidebar

The other important page element is the "Link List" page element. You can add links to e-portfolio related sites such as associations you belong to, companies you are working for. You should also set up a link to a Web-version of your resume. Finally, it's good to set up links to the assignment files you are showcasing in your e-portfolio.

d) Edit HTML (optional step)

You don't need to learn HTML for this assignment but if you already know HTML or would like to learn HTML, you can make more customized modifications to your Blog template. An excellent site with free tutorials on learning HTML is W3Schools If you do decide to fiddle with the HTML in your template, make sure you do the next step -- template backup!

e) Backup / Restore Template

It's a very good idea to save a copy of your template, especially if you have modified it... just in case you accidently delete it or modify it in a way that you don't like and you have a hard time reverting back to the original format.

To backup, just click on the "Download Full Template" link and then save your template file to your computer or removable storage (e.g. USB).

In the event that you want to start again with your saved template, you can upload your saved template.

Now that you have your blog modified to look like you want, it's time to make the postings showcasing your work.

Approximate time: 2-4 hours

The most time on your e-portfolio should be spent on writing your posts that showcase the work that you have done at Capilano College. You should have at least six postings including one that summarizes the marketing event you attended and one that describes and links to your wikipedia-style article.

Note: you can have more than six postings but make sure you have at least six.

A good posting should contain the following:
- clear, short, title of project or experience you are showcasing
- well-written, concise paragraph or two describing the project
- picture of some aspect of the project (e.g. you could show an image of the first page of a marketing report or communications MS PowerPoint presentation)
- link to a portion or the full project (e.g. link to a Word file containing your report).
- In some cases you may want to contain other related hyperlinks (e.g. links to companies that you mention in your posts).

You will also need to be comfortable with finding or creating images that you can use in your posting.

The following section provides some tips on adding images...

Adding images

You can add an image to your posting using the "Add Image" icon (picture of mountains and sky).

Here is a link to Blogger's Help section with instructions on posting pictures.

Before adding an image though, you will first need to have an image saved that you can upload or be able to link to an existing image already on a website (you would normally need to get permission to link to an existing image on another website though so you should stick to using your own images that you have saved to your computer).

You can find photos on the Internet or use your own photos. Here are three sites that offer different forms of "creative commons" copyright where you can get images for free and legally... more details on the licensing is available on the sites.

Flickr Creative Commons

Open Photo

Creative Commons Search

You can also create your own images by using the Print Screen (PrtScr) key... this will take a picture or screen shot of whatever you see on your monitor.

You can then open up MS PowerPoint, click on the opening slide, and then select paste. This will paste the screen shot image into the MS PowerPoint slide.

Adjust image if necessary

You can use MS PowerPoint as a mini-graphics editor by using the Picture toolbar. If you don't see this toolbar, from the main menu options in MS PowerPoint, go to View | Toolbars | and then select Picture (if you see a check mark next to Picture, this means you already have the Picture toolbar opened).

One of the most useful tools on the Picture toolbar is the cropping tool. You can use this cropping tool to cut parts of your image that you don't want. This is different than resizing your image since cropping cuts part of your image off as selected rather than just changing the size but maintaining an image when you resize.

Saving images

Now that you have tidied up your image, you can save the image by right-clicking on the image within the MS PowerPoint slide and select "Save as Picture".



Enter a descriptive file name and then select the down arrow for the Save as Type field so that the GIF or JPEG format is selected.

Upload image to posting

Now that you have saved the image, it is now time to upload to your posting. Select the "Add Image" icon (the mountain and blue sky icon)... when you click this icon, the "Upload Images" window pops up where you can browse to the location of your image, choose a layout (left, center or right) and the image size



Once you have made at least six postings, you can move on to Step 7 -- making an HTML version of your resume.

Approximate time: 30 min. - 1.5 hour

a) Retrieve or create your resume

If you already have a resume (hopefully, most of you do!), you just need to find your file and move to the next steps where you will modify your regular resume to create a "Web-friendly resume".

If you have a resume but it is not in MS Word (e.g. if it's in a different program like Corel WordPerfect, MS Publisher, etc.), you will need to save / export to a MS Word compatible format in order to complete the following steps.

Here are a few resources that might help if you need to convert your resume to MS Word format from another application:

WordPerfect to MS Word

Opening various file formats in MS Word

If you don't already have a resume, you will need to create a resume using MS Word.

Here are some resources to help you create or improve your resume.

Resume tutorial from workopolis.ca

Other resume resources from workopolis.ca

Here are some samples of different types of resumes (e.g. functional, chronological, etc.).

Sample finance related resumes

Sample marketing related resumes

b) Ensure personal privacy

While your usual print-based resume would normally contain your full contact details like phone number, home address, it's better to modify your contact details for your web-based resume. The previous steps where we changed the privacy settings so only those who you invite will be able to see your e-portfolio provide a lot of privacy protection but it's still a good idea to keep your contact details to a minimum.

Of course, you need some contact info for potential employers to be able to reach you. You may want to just list your email address and telephone number and leave out your home address.

If there is anything else in your resume that you feel is particulary sensitive, you can take that material out as well.

c) Create keyword list

The next step is to use MS Word's indexing functionality to create a Keywords List section at the end of your resume. Approximately 50% of employers use electronic keyword searching of resumes to find or shortlist their potential employees (i.e instead of reading and sorting through a big pile of print-based resumes, they often require job seekers to submit an electronic copy of their resume... they then search all their electronic copies of the resumes to find keywords of specific skills or designations they are looking for).

If there are important skills that you have that you think employers might search for, make sure those words are included on your resume since the computer program that automatically searches for keywords normally can't read "between the lines". If there are some keywords that you think are especially important to employers you may want to include those words in your resume several times. This will increase your "keyword density". Of course, you want to still make your resume readable and not overdue it with repeating the same words.

Another benefit of adding a keywords list and considering your resume's keyword density is that it will make it easier for search engine "robots" to search your site and appropriately index your website, increasing your chances of someone finding your e-portfolio when typing your name in a search engine (because we have set up the privacy settings so people must be invited before being able to access your e-portfolio, this benefit will be reduced however).

Here are some examples of keywords you may want to have on your resume (by sector, e.g. marketing, finance) provided by workopolis.ca.


The first step of creating an index in MS Word is to "mark" all the words that you want included in your keyword list. If you forget how to mark up words for an index, use the MS Word help menus to guide you (hint: you access the index dialogue box from Insert Reference Tables and Index).

At the end of your resume, you should then create a heading that says "Keyword List" or something similar (e.g. "Keywords", "Skills summary" etc.).

Below this heading, you can then create your index. Again, if you forget how to create an index, use the MS Word help menus for guidance.

Here is an example of a keyword section at the end of a resume...



Here is the MS Word file of the sample above. Notice how the words in the index (keywords list) have been "marked up".

Resume sample with keywords section

d) Add your e-portfolio URL to your resume

It's a good idea to add the URL of your e-portfolio to a prominent place on your resume. A good place is with your contact info on your first page. Alternatively, you could add something like: "to view my e-portfolio, please contact me at name@email-address.com". You can then send that person an invitation to access your e-portfolio (since the privacy settings are set up to only allow people to view your e-portfolio by invitation only).



e) Spellcheck your resume

There is nothing worse than having spelling errors on your resume! Before we create an HTML version (Web version) of your resume, you should use MS Word's spellcheck functionality to ensure you don't have any spelling mistakes. You may also want to use the grammar check.

f) Save your resume to HTML format

Now that you have finished modifying your resume, you should save to HTML format. To do this, go to File Save as Web Page. Make sure that the extension being used for your file saving is htm or html (either will work in a Web browser).

g) Upload your HTML format resume to your file hosting space
h) Create a page element link to your resume from your e-portfolio by modifying your template and adding a list that includes your resume (you can do this from the Template Page Element screen).

You now have a Web friendly version of your resume on your e-portfolio adding value to your e-portfolio and increasing the chances that search engines will find your important keywords and index you on their search engines accordingly.

Approximate time: 15 - 60 minutes

The final step before submitting your e-portfolio to your instructor is to add some third party applications to your blog. This integration to other applications like site visitor counters, guest books, polls, tagboards, quizzes, stock charts, weather reports, etc. in most cases only requires knowing how to cut and paste code! You don't need to understand the code, you just need to paste to your blog.

Here is a good source for third party applications you can add to your e-portfolio.

Blogger list of add-ins.

A few other ones you might want to try:
Amazon Associates program (create banner ads with your favorite books and get commissions when you sell the books, don't worry about the fulfillment... Amazon takes care of that)

PayPal (process credit cards through your site... start selling some of your great work!)

If you add PayPal to your site, you can also refer other people to become PayPal merchants through their "affiliate program" by putting up an ad like this one (you sign up for a Pay Pal account and they will give you custom code to paste into your website). You receive 0.5% of the new merchants e-commerce revenues up to a maximum of $1500 Canadian.



CafePress (sell personalized items like mugs, T-shirts, etc.)

With Cafe Press, you could add an ad like the one below to your website... if a visitor clicks on the ad and ends up buying something from Cafe Press, you get a percentage of the sales revenue...



FeedBlitz -- free service that enables visitors to "sign-up" for your e-portfolio by putting in their email address. Whenever you publish a new posting, the subscriber receives an email with the posting and link to your site. This information push based approach makes it convenient for people interested in keeping up with the latest on your e-portfolio to stay informed without having to frequently check back.




-- new content --
Here are some instructions for integrating FeedBlitz to your e-portfolio blog.


You can also add some of the Google services on your website and earn referal revenue (see examples on left sidebar).

It's easy to integrate the applications. The first step is to go the website of the third party application... in most cases you will need to register and then the site will provide you with some html code.

You then go to your Blogger template tab and click on the "Add a page element link". From here, one of the options is titled HTML / Javascript and followed by "Add third-party functionality or other code to your blog".

Simply click the Add to Blog button and from within the dialogue box that opens, paste the code you copied from the third party application website.

This step is optional but you may find it beneficial for finding employment during or more likely, after graduating from your program at Capilano College.

It involves "registering" your e-portfolio to an e-portfolio directory website, ZENPortfolios.com. The service is free and protects your privacy.

You select which region you are interested in working in, which sectors you wish to work in, and you include information about your skills and credentials. Employers looking for grads can go to the ZENPortfolios.com website and can fill out a form listing their criteria for potential employees. The ZENPortfolios application searches for matches... if your skills and interests match what an employer is looking for, you would then receive an email from ZENPortfolios letting you know that an employer is interested in viewing your e-portfolio and you would be provided the employer's contact email address.

If you would like to permit the matching employer to look at your e-portfolio and consider contacting you for a job opening, you just add their email address to your list of allowed viewers (see the privacy step).

Here is the link to ZENPortfolios.com