writing

Dr. Noce – MIS387

MIS387 - E-Portfolio Project

Your objective is to develop a personal website that will present information about who you are and will allow you to show potential employers and others what you have accomplished during your time at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College.

The Electronic Portfolio is a culmination of the work produced in this course and other courses and other information about the student’s relevant college experience. It allows the student to demonstrate personal, academic, and professional growth while at Penn State University by providing a yardstick to compare coursework from beginning to end demonstrating academic progress. The electronic portfolio allows the student to identify significant accomplishments, keep track of skills learned, and present interests. The student will view this portfolio as a product, something they would proudly show top a perspective employer. Not only will you communicate your academic and personal progress throughout your college career, you will demonstrate your technical knowledge by the mere existence of the e-portfolio and the ability to electronically demonstrate projects from other courses.

To Begin: Develop your Brand and your goals:

You are your most important product. You should build a brand to showcase who you are, who you want to serve or what you want to do and what gives you a competitive advantage, that is, how are you unique or different from others with a similar brand. In building your own brand you want to answer the following:

1. Why would an employer want your skills?

2. What problems can you solve?

3. What value can you add to an organization?

When your brand is clear to you then you can market and communicate your message to prospective employers with confidence.

The benefits of your personal brand are that you will have a strong identity to communicate to employers to advance your career and it will allow you to build effective strategies in marketing yourself to prospective employers. It will also build your confidence!

So how do you go about building your brand? Following basic marketing concept, you will start with creating a Value proposition of your own. This is a statement that summarizes the value you will add to an organization.

Next, define your mission by creating a mission statement. That is, think about who you are, what you stand for, what you like to do, and why you want to do it. Inventory your skills and determine your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. That is, do you communicate well, do you have strong technical knowledge, are you a leader, do you listen effectively, are you a team player etc….

Come up with a list of keywords that will describe these skills. Write down some adjectives that will describe how you want the user to perceive your site and you.

Define and connect with your target audience:

So you have defined your value proposition, mission and some keywords. Now you will think about how you will present this information to your target audience…employers or graduate schools.

1. Reflect on, and write down the purpose of your site and your target audience. What is your goal for the site? That is, how do you want to present yourself to prospective employers, graduate school or online?

2. How will you use those keywords to showcase your skills in the content and show that you stand above others competing for the same job?

3. How will you structure the information and how is it organized? Look at a company site and how it is organized. How might you do the same for information about you?

Below are some common portfolio goals.

· The Hire Me Portfolio focuses on getting you a job. If you are actively searching for a job then the current goal of your portfolio is to get hired. In this type of portfolio you can target the work you show to the type of company you want to work for. So you can showcase your school project work and team experiences.

· The Graduate School Portfolio focuses on showcasing your academic strengths. If you intend to go to grad school you want to showcase existing school work including research and writing examples.

· The Reputation Building Portfolio focuses on building your name online. This may take the form of an artist’s showcase. Or tie your work together with a blog on your portfolio site.

Below are some questions to ponder when planning your e-portfolio.

· Do you really know who you are and what you most want?

· Do you know what special gifts you bring to the world?

· If there were an image you think might represent you what would it be? Think of this as your own logo and branding.

· What are your strengths?

· What do you want to do when you graduate?

· What impression do you want to provide prospective employers and/or graduate schools?

· What areas of expertise do you have?

· What unique qualities can you bring to an organization?

· What would be your tagline if you had one?

· What makes you as a person special or interesting?

· What kind of effect have you had on the world? other people?

· What are the adjectives you would most use to describe yourself as a person?

· What examples from your business or personal life illustrate those qualities?

· What events shaped or changed your life?

· Have you overcome obstacles? Taken risks? Gotten lucky?

Once you have defined your goals, your target audience and how you want to present yourself, the key is to pull it together into a web presentation. How do you want your site to look and how will you use social media to support your goals? Go through the process below and answer the questions.

The Process:

1. Planning – View yourself as the client as well as the developer. Think about the purpose and audience and ask yourself what information you want presented. Will you develop the portfolio for job searches, graduate school applications, or award nominations? Reflect on, and write down the purpose of your site and your target audience.

2. Perception – Once you determine your purpose and audience think about perception. Write down some adjectives that will describe how you want the user to perceive your site. How can you stand above others competing for the same job? Look at other portfolios and determine how yours can be unique.

3. Content – Gather the information you want as site content. How will you structure the information and how is it organized? This is the most important step. This portfolio is the claim you wish to make about yourself as a professional in your field and about your capabilities. It is a living document you will continue to build upon and grow.

4. Visual – What colors and graphics will effectively represent you? Will you create a template look? Do you want to present professional visuals of you, your work and your capabilities, or do you want to show family, friends, fun? Hopefully the prior is your objective for that is how you will be evaluated…as a prospective employee. Please keep that in mind.

5. Technology – What is your target platform and browser? In this case you will for the immediate term publish your website to your personal web space on the Penn State University web server called SAMBA. Please ensure you have registered for that space it is required for the course. What development tools will you use? Where will you host your site after graduation?

6. Marketing and updating – How do you want people to find out about you? What don’t you want them to find out? What is out there about you? How can you push what you do not want down in the search engine rankings and bring what you want to the top? Do you intend to keep the site updated? What will you do to show people who you are and what you can provide them as an organization.

Remember, the development of an e-portfolio is an evolutionary process and will change continually throughout the semester as your learn new tools and concepts. So nothing is carved in stone.

Assignment Timeline:
	Due
Think about you as a brand. Develop a Value Proposition, your Mission statement, and a list of keywords. Your target audience will be prospective employers.	1/18
Written Personal Web Plan through the process:
· Reflect on, and write down the purpose of your site and your target audience. What is your goal for the site? That is, how do you want to present yourself to prospective employers, graduate school or online? · Write down some adjectives that will describe how you want the user to perceive your site and you. How can you stand above others competing for the same job? · How will you structure the information and how is it organized? Look at a company site and how it is organized. How might you do the same for information about you? · What colors and graphics will effectively represent you? You may not know right now but think about hobbies, and look at logos for some organizations. How can you adapt something similar to represent you?	1/24
Other Sites you like and may represent how you want to portray yourself and why. What do you like about them? What message do you think they send? Look at a company site and how it is organized. How might you do the same for information about you? How will you best market your site and draw your target audience?	1/24
Personal Logo Create a logo in Photoshop to represent you. It must be professional and utilize the colors of your planned website. Remember. In case you want to change your color theme make sure you save your logo as a psd as well as proper graphic format for the web.	2/16
Eportfolio Draft 1 CSS Style Sheet: This is the style sheet with all the predefined styles for your portfolio .	2/29
Eportfolio Draft 2 Uploaded draft The graphical layout and look of your portfolio using the colors defined in the plan, graphics and evidence of your purpose and your style sheet. This will be the first online version of your eportfolio. Suggested revisions will be offered at this time.	3/29
Final Eportfolio Final prototype of web with revisions	4/12
Final Submission The portfolio must be posted and working on your web space with any revision requested. All requirements will be evaluated for your site. I will review the site as your professor evaluating the tools utilized and skills gained as well as a potential employer	4/26

The Portfolio should contain most of the information below. Content Requirements:

· Professional Resume

· Personal Information – what are your strengths, description of yourself

· Hobbies

· Areas of Expertise

· College Committees/Clubs

· Significant Accomplishments

· Community Service

· Sample projects/assignments

Career/Educational Goals for the future

1. Immediate (next 12 months)

2. Short term (next 2-4 years)

3. Long term (after graduating)

Courses taken

Statement of how courses applied to career goals Sample work (papers, projects, graphics) Advice to incoming freshmen

Technological Requirements:

· Use of technology – Flash, DreamWeaver, CSS, HTML, JavaScript

· Use of covered web concepts

· Usability

· Navigation

· Information and Content

· Content is well organized and relevant

· Organization appropriately represented

· Visual Design

Functionality

Feedback/interaction with visitor

Overall experience

Overall, does your Electronic Portfolio site do a good job of integrating content with the right layout and design? Is its use of font and graphics pleasing? Does it cover all relevant areas in terms of marketing you?