This is a document on how to use ePortfolio feature in Blackboard Learn.

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Blackboard ePortfolios
On Friday, May 23rd
, Montgomery College upgraded to Bb 9.1 SP 14. In addition, we received the
following new Blackboard Enhancements:
 Blackboard Communities
 Blackboard Content Collection
 Blackboard xPlor
This article will focus on one of the new features for Montgomery College faculty, the ePortfolios Tool
Why use Portfolios?
Portfolios are a tool that can help students:
 Think critically as they document their learning.
 Reflect on what they have mastered and areas where growth is necessary.
 Demonstrate learning of the curriculum in a way that takes into account their unique
experiences.
 Organize and manage knowledge that they are gaining in the classroom and/or the professional
workspace, making connections among their varied learning experiences.
Portfolios are a tool that can help faculty:
 Make course content connections with learning that students have demonstrated in prior
courses or in the professional setting. This makes the knowledge framework stronger so that it
is easier for students to apply and practice what they are learning in the current course.
 Teach students to become responsible for their own learning and progress and develop
strategies and action plans to improve academically and professionally.
 Create an individual assignment or course capstone piece that increases student engagement
and critical thinking.
 Obtain a benchmark to see how students are applying their learning across the curriculum,
especially when the requirement is expanded to include the curricula of several courses or an
entire department.
How do ePortfolios provide value over traditional portfolios?
ePortfolios provide more value than a traditional based paper portfolio because the use of the digital
medium allows these portfolios to be easily shared with diverse groups of people, allowing students to
benefit from the comments and insights of others. With the click of a mouse, students can receive
feedback from their peers in the classroom and professional community, college professors, and other
leaders who may choose to provide feedback to a group of students.

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The convenient digital format allows students to easily create and update materials so that the portfolio
becomes a living showcase for their achievements, in contrast to paper based portfolios which are often
unwieldy and difficulty to update. ePortfolios give students a powerful tool to document their learning,
and to utilize the digital tools they will be expected to learn as they continue their education and to use
with future employers. Further, the inclusion of digital ePortfolio tools allow students to show
multidimensional aspects of learning because they can include video, audio, graphics, and traditional
text, which is superior to the types of artifacts that can be included in a traditional portfolio.
Watch this video for some Portfolio Project ideas
How can I use Portfolios effectively with my students?
The most critical piece of using portfolios effectively with your students is figuring out the goal that you
are trying to accomplish with the portfolio. In addition, what types of learning do you want to capture,
and document? If your students had to demonstrate your portfolio to a potential employer, or to a
future graduate school professor, what particular work artifacts (assignments, papers, projects) would
you like for them to showcase?
Use a Rubric
You may consider using a rubric in conjunction with portfolio development. Using the rubric will help
your students figure out what portfolio pieces they have that can document their learning. In addition,
it can help you figure out how the competencies you require students to demonstrate align with the
student learning outcomes for the course.
Encourage Integrative Learning (9 tips to work portfolio based learning into
your curriculum)
In encouraging Integrative thinking, you are designing the portfolio assignment so that your students
can make connections among the learning that they are doing throughout your course, in other courses,
and within the community at large. To help you think about how you might work an ePortfolio into your
existing course curriculum, here are some questions to consider:
1. Who are your students? Think about their comfort level with technology, social media, and
other aspects of ePortfolios, as that will guide the parameters of your portfolio assignment. Are
your students new to your subject matter or discipline, or are they advanced students?
2. What are the ultimate outcomes, or goals of your course? Design your portfolio assignments
and other aspects to help students reflect on the learning of the course, and whether they are
meeting your course outcomes.
3. Think about what you want students to “get” out of using the portfolio. Are your students the
type of learners who automatically make connections among the learning that is occurring in the
various aspects of their lives (i.e., on their job, in their community, in other courses), or will you
have to build activities to help them think through the process?

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4. Clearly communicate to your students “why” they are creating a portfolio. Keep the dialogue
open about how they can continue to document their learning in the portfolio throughout the
semester.
5. Can you develop prompts to help students reflect on particular focused learning topics in the
beginning, middle, and the end of the term? In this way, students can see how their learning has
changed over time, and include this thinking in the development of their portfolio. (For
example: How do you feel about “subject x”? How do you feel about “subject x” now that you
have completed “assignment x”? How has your thinking about “subject x” changed at the
conclusion of the course?)
6. How will you encourage the student to “curate” their portfolio, picking best examples that tie in
with your learning objectives, and not simply provide an archive of all of their work? It’s
important for the portfolio artifacts to be a focused collection of best examples, not a repository
for all work produced in the course.
7. Encourage students to provide “multiple form forms of evidence” to document their experience,
including written documents, video, audio, photos, etc.
8. What would an “A” portfolio look like? What do you want your students to be able to know,
understand or produce at the end of the course?
9. How will you evaluate the portfolio? Develop a rubric or other grading criteria so that you have
a benchmark to evaluate student learning and success in developing the portfolio. This also
provides you with defensible criteria when providing student grades. By giving students the
rubric from the outset when developing the portfolio students will develop a sense of the
artifacts (examples) to include in the portfolio, as they complete your course.
Content Adapted from: Light, T. P., Chen, H. L., & Ittelson, J. C. (2012). Documenting learning with
eportfolios: A guide for college instructors. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Creating a Personal Portfolio includes the following steps:
1. Create a portfolio.
2. Design the appearance.
3. Add pages and Artifacts.
4. Determine the settings for the portfolio, or how it will be shared with others.

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Creating a Personal Portfolio
1. Enter any course
2. Click the Tools area
3. Click Portfolios Homepage
4. On the Portfolios
Homepage, click My Portfolios.
Or, watch the video to learn to create a Portfolio
How to Design the Appearance of the Portfolio
If the portfolio is created based on a template, it has a defined style, and some editing features may not
be available. Templates are created at a system administrator level. Most portfolios will not have a
defined template.
Here is how to Design the appearance of a portfolio that does not have a defined template.
Style options available are Layout, Background, Fonts, and Navigation Menu.
1. To edit the style for a new portfolio you are creating, click the style button in the row of
options listed under Create Personal Portfolio
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2. If you are editing the style of a portfolio you have already
created, click the Edit Button. On the Edit Portfolio page,
select the Edit Styles feature.
3. Select the Layout Theme. The layout determines the position
of the navigation menu.
4. Select the Design Background. Select a color or an optional image for the background of the
portfolio.
5. Select the Font Settings. Options are available to set a default font, page title font, and page
heading font. Customizations are available for font type, size, and color.

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6. Select the Style Navigation Menu. Please note: Students and Faculty currently using the
ePortfolio tool will be unable to change the color of text buttons. Blackboard is aware of the bug,
and there is no current fix in place. Thus it is recommended to use text for the menu links so that
students and faculty may change the colors.
Select Text for the menu links. The text can be customized by font and color. Please note: While
you can initially select whatever color you want for both the font and menu, once the Portfolio is
saved, you will only be able to make changes to the background color of the menu. Blackboard is
aware of the bug, and there is no current fix in place. This is a glitch, but choose your menu colors
carefully.
7. After the style has been customized, designate a status by selecting Mark step as in
progress or Mark step as complete. Then click Save and Continue. Click Submit to return to the Edit
Personal Portfolio page.
Or, Watch the Video to design the appearance of the Portfolio

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How to Build the Portfolio
Pages within Personal Portfolios are made up of Artifacts, text, and images. Follow these steps to add a
page to a portfolio and add Artifacts to a page.
1. From within the Build tab on the Edit Personal Portfolio page, click Create Page.
2. Provide a Title and Description for the page. The title will become the link to the Portfolio Page
on the left hand menu. The description is available to the user to organize all the portfolio
pages. The description of the page will NOT display in the portfolio.
3. Click Browse to search for an existing Artifact, or
4. Click Create New Artifact to create an Artifact and add it to the page.
Please Note: You may attach multiple artifacts to a single Portfolio Page if desired.
5. After browsing or creating a new artifact, click the checkbox to the right of the artifact
click Submit.

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6. Create as many pages and Artifacts to build out your portfolio. The drag-and-drop function is
available to reorder pages after they are created.
7. Access the contextual menu for the Header or Footer to add an image or text in these fields.
8. After all the pages are complete, designate a status by selecting Mark step as in
progress or Mark step as complete.
9. Click Save and Continue or click Submit to return to the Edit Personal Portfolio page.
Or, watch the video to learn how to create a portfolio

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Artifacts
Artifacts are pieces of content that can be uploaded to
a Personal Portfolio. Using artifacts allows you to
reuse content within Blackboard Learn.
Artifacts are accessed from the Portfolios Homepage.
Depending on the goal of the portfolio, examples of
artifacts can include resumes, awards, writing samples
or other pieces of work.
Artifacts can include files uploaded from your
computer.
Text and images can be entered as artifacts, or used to
introduce and support an attached file.
This text can supplement the information provided in
the description.
Using text and images helps transition between
portfolio items and describe the attached files or
items.
Students may add one artifact to an individual page, or
they may combine multiple, related artifacts on a
single page.
Creating an Artifact
Note: The Portfolios Homepage will need
to be enabled in a course in order for
students to use Portfolio features
1. Click the Portfolios
Homepage.
2. On the Portfolio’s
Homepage, click
the Personal
Artifacts Link

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3. Click Create
Personal Artifact
4. Provide a name
and description for
the artifact.
The description appears in
the list of artifacts to help
identify it.
Note: The description will
not appear when the
artifact is used in a
portfolio.
5. Create your artifact
Content in the
Content Editor.
Click Here for a video
that shows you how to
use the Content Editor if
you need assistance
with this feature.
Note: If you need to attach a file, you may do so by clicking the
Paper Clip icon on the text editor toolbar. Do Not allow
students to Browse the Content collection to upload files.
Due to a glitch in Blackboard, students are unable to
remove any files that they upload to the Content Collection,
because the Content Collection tab is not enabled.
Additional Note: When copying and pasting text from Microsoft Word
to Blackboard, students may find that their headings are “cut off”.
To work around this issue, students should delete heading text from the
text editor, and reapply the appropriate font sizes and styles using the
build in Blackboard text editor toolbar.
6. Click Submit.

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7. Your Artifact will
be stored in the
Personal Artifacts
area, and is ready
to be used in any
portfolio that you
create.
Or, watch the video to learn how to create an artifact

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Editing Portfolio Settings
1. From the Settings tab on the Edit Portfolio page, select a Status for the portfolio.
Select Complete if the portfolio is finished and ready to display to reviewers.
2. Select the Share Portfolio Settings. You must select Available if you want to share the portfolio
with others. If a portfolio is marked as Available, users can find your portfolio in the Portfolio
Search.
3. Select Comments are Private to hide comments from users who can view the portfolio.
4. Designate a status for the settings by selecting Mark step as in progress or Mark step as
complete.
5. Click Submit to return to the Edit Personal Portfolio page. Clicking Submit will not automatically
make your portfolio available to be shared with others unless you have selected this option.
Or, watch the video to set ePortfolio Settings

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EPortfolios Training
The aforementioned tips are just a taste of the wonderful features of this tool. To learn more, sign up
for an ePortfolios workshop.
We will be offering several workshops in using the ePortfolios during the Fall Semester.
To Register for Training:
1. Login to My MC.
2. Click on the Training and Dev tab.
3. In the center of the Training and Dev page, click the link to “Visit MC Learns.”
4. All ELITE offerings are listed under the
3 rd
column, Pedagogy/Instruction . Click on the link to Teaching
Technologies to see the ELITE offerings.