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ePortfolios (Student Guide)

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ePortfolios is an online tool for the creation of teaching and learning content, enabling students and staff to publish short posts in chronological order or static webpages. ePortfolios can have one or more authors who can add links, images, videos and podcasts within their posts and pages. It can be set to allow comments on posts from other students and staff. ePortfolios is a tool based on the popular WordPress system but with extra class management features.

 

How to access your ePortfolio

Please view our ePortfolio video induction here

You will be told by your tutors if you need to use the ePortfolios site. Your ePortfolio sites will be set up for you before you start your module and you are likely to receive a training session on the system before you are due to start work on your ePortfolio.

Accessing ePortfolios for the first time;

1. Accessing your ePortfolio account

  • Your account will be set up for you.
  • Open an up-to-date browser and type eportfolios.roehampton.ac.uk
  • Click Log In at the top left of the page
  • The username and password will be the same as your standard Roehampton login, so if you have password problems, contact the IT helpdesk.

2. Where is my ePortfolio site?

  • Once logged in you will be directed to the ePortfolios homepage. Go to the My Sites link at the top of the page and find your named blog. if you are using ePortfolios for more than one module ensure you are selecting the correct ePortfolio for the activity you are about to undertake. Usually the name of your ePortfolio will include your name and your module title. Please note you will also have access to your class ePortfolio site (My Class) – in most cases you will not be able or expected to post on the class site as it will used purely for your lecturers administrative purposes.
  • Your ePortfolios site will be where you will be undertaking the set activity for the module. You will know you are on this site because it will show the title of your site at the top of the page.

3. Please do not rename your ePortfolio site title

Please avoid renaming your site title as it has been labelled in order to ensure clarity for both your lecturers and you and to differentiate from other sites that you may have access to.

4. Join your module’s class

In some cases you may be asked to join your modules class. In most cases this will already be done for you. The purpose of this action is to enable your lecturer to be able to grade and provide feedback for your work you will need to link your ePortfolios site to the class for the module.

  • Open up your blog dashboard under the My Sites menu at the top of the screen
  • Click My Class > Join a class
  • Search for your class. Your tutor will need to tell you the name to search for e.g law020n123a201617.
  • Click the link Send a request to join
  • When your tutor has approved your membership, you’ll get an email and a link to the class blog in your Dashboard. The class will display in the side column. You will only be able to see your peers work if your lecturer has decided to apply this setting.

How to build your ePortfolio

You may want to write a blog, create a website, or build an ePortfolio. These guides will help you to get started:
Please keep in mind that you will likely be editing using the Class Editor guide so you may need to scroll down for guidance on this once you click on some the links below for help.
  1. Difference between posts and pages
  2. Writing your first post (scroll down the page for the Classic Editor guide)
  3. Editing a published post
  4. Writing pages (scroll down the page for the Classic Editor guide)
  5. Editing a published page
  6. Publish an About page
  7. Restoring an earlier version of a page

Changing the appearance

When you’re happy with your content, you may want to consider redesigning the appearance:

  1. Overview of themes
  2. Changing ePortfolio themes – If you decide to use a different theme ensure you give yourself plenty of time before submission to make sure you make the most of the theme and that readers can easily navigate to all the content published on your site.
  3. Add a custom header image
  4. Creating a custom menu

Besides text and images, you can embed all kinds of media on your page. The most common kinds of media are:

  1. Add an image to your page or post (scroll down the page for the Classic Editor guide)
  2. Set up an image gallery (scroll down the page for the Classic Editor guide)
  3. Upload a file to your page or post
  4. Upload a video to your page or post (scroll down the page for the Class Editor guide) (only suitable for short videos, with file sizes under 50MB)
  5. Using a URL to embed content from Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter and more
    1. Creating a Youtube channel
    2. Uploading a video to Youtube
    3. Uploading audio to Soundcloud and adding to a playlist
  6. Embed audio from audio hosting websites
  7. Embed videos from video sharing websites
  8. Add widgets to your ePortfolio
  9. Add a slideshow to your ePortfolio

Save audio files into a smaller MP3 format in Audacity to add to your ePortfolio

Audacity is available on any student computer on campus. ePortfolios (CampusPress) will only allow you to upload 50MB files to your site. Following creation of audio files in Audacity, it’s likely your file will be too large so in order to be able to upload it to your ePortfolio you will need to reduce the file size by exporting the file as an MP3 instead of a WAV.  Alternatively, you can upload it to a free sharing platform and then embed it into your site – see guidance below for embedding videos.

Importing an audio file into Audacity

No matter which method you use to bring an audio file into Audacity, the file is always imported into a saved or unsaved Audacity project. The imported file always appears in a new track in that project. You can use one of the following methods –

Select File

  1. Select the File > Import > Audio… command
  2. Choose one or more audio files, Audacity will import the selected file(s) into the existing project. This is useful to bring the content of one or more audio files into a project that already contains audio (for example, to mix several audio files together).

Or Drag and Drop File

Please note –  you cannot use drag and drop an AUP3 project into an open Audacity Project window. To open Audacity projects – use File > Open… to open projects.

On Windows and Mac:
Drag and drop one or more audio files into an open Audacity project window

On Linux:
Drag and drop files into an open Audacity Project window: this is equivalent to File > Import > Audio….

For guidance on editing your audio or any other Audacity support please see the Audacity guides

Exporting an MP3 File in Audacity

  1. In Audacity, click File
  2. Select Export
  3. Give the file a meaningful name
  4. In Save as Type select MP3 as the file type
  5. If you get a message saying you need the Lame encoder view the information below
  6. Click Save
  7. A table will appear but you don’t need to add in any data here if you prefer not to
  8. Click OK
  9. You should then find your file in the location you saved it to

Adding the LAME MP3 Encoder

When you use the File > Export option to attempt to save your track as MP3, you may get to a point at which the software informs you that it needs lame_enc.dll. In order to create MP3 files with Audacity, you will need to add the LAME encoder to your personal computer.

  1. When you get the message shown in the image below click Download
  2. On the download page – directly underneath “For FFMpeg/LAME on Windows”, left-click the link Lame v3.99.3 for Windows.exe and save the file anywhere on your computer
  3. Double click on the file Lame v3.99.3 for Windows.exe to launch it
  4. Follow the set up instructions to install it. Make sure not to change the offered install location – it should be C:\Program Files\LAME for Audacity
  5. Return to Audacity and use the Export option (see steps above) to create a new MP3

Guidance on embedding audio files into your ePortfolio.

Copyright

Copyright Information

Even though some ePortfolios are not accessible to the public and they are restricted to you and your lecturers only you should ensure you do not infringe the copyright of content you are adding to your site. Simply placing copyrighted materials within a password-protected environment does not make it legal. You must therefore only upload your own content that you have created yourself or material that has been made available under licence.

Images will bring the written content to life. However, if you are posting images that aren’t created by you or the class, be careful about copyright. Post images where you have specific permission, for example, if they are released under a Creative Commons licence. Click on the Search for CC images at the top of the page. A good source of images with this licence is Wikipedia.

It is very tempting to download images from Google, but not all the images on Google are licensed to be reused for your ePortfolio. Below are some tips to help you search for images that you can use for your ePortfolio.

Downloading images from Google with permission to reuse them for ePortfolios

When you do a ‘Google Search’, you can filter your results to find images, videos, or text. However, Google would show you all the results with all licence types. When you search for an image click on the Images tab then click on  ‘Tools’ and then under ‘usage rights’ you can select how you intend to use content (see screenshot below).

What is Royalty-free and what does it mean for you

You have probably seen the term “Royalty-free” before — perhaps on stock photos, background music or other types of intellectual property. But what exactly does it mean?

Normally, copyrighted material is protected and cannot be used without permission or payment. Royalty-free is a term that is used to describe certain types of intellectual property that you are allowed to use without having to pay royalties or take permission. The intellectual property owner must specifically put this label on their content in order for anyone to use it in this way.

Examples of Royalty-free websites:

Exporting your portfolio before leaving the University

If you wish to make a copy of your blog you can do so by exporting the contents from your blog into a free WordPress site.

  1. You will need to set up the WordPress site first so go to https://wordpress.com/
  2. Go to Get Started in the top right corner of the page.
  3. Select the options based on your preference. You should then be able to select a free option to set up your blog.
  4. If you want your WordPress account to use the default theme that is given to you on your ePortfolio account I would recommend clicking on Themes in the side menu > search for the theme ‘Academica’. You can then click on the theme and choose to activate the design (it’s free). This is the design that is closest to the one used by us as a default in ePortfolios.
  5. Log into your original ePortfolio dashboard.
  6. Go to Tools > Export.
  7. Select All Content or just the Pages or Posts you want to move over and then click on Download Export file and save the XML (WXR) file onto your computer.
  8. Go back to your new WordPress dashboard.
  9. Click on Tools and choose the Import option
  10. Click to import content from WordPress
  11. On the page that appears click the link to Upload it to import content (see image below)
  13. Drag and drop the export file and let it upload.
  14. Click Start import
  15. The import may take a while if there is a lot to transfer over. Once it has been imported click Done.

ePortfolio FAQ's

This section will give information on how to read and comment on your classmates posts, late submissions, and obtaining grades and feedback.

Reading others posts, commenting on posts and viewing comments added to your posts

Your lecturer may have set up your ePortfolio to allow you to view the blog posts of others in your class, so you can comment on each others work. In order to do this please see the guidance below:

Reading others posts, commenting on posts and viewing comments added to your posts

What if I have mitigating circumstances?

If you have mitigating circumstances approved then your lecturer can change your settings so that you can still publish your work up until your new deadline. If you are not able to publish your work please contact your lecturer.

Once the deadline has been reached, ensure all of your work is published – all the posts and any pages and check that you can see all of the work you wish to submit is on your published/live site (e.g. eportfolios.roehampton.ac.uk/smitha). Contact your lecturer to let them know you have published the work.

What if I am submitting late?

If you are submitting late and you find that you cannot publish your work then you will need to ask your lecturer if they will change your settings so that you can publish your work at a later date. Please be aware of the penalties for late submission of assignments, detailed information can be found here.

Once you are ready to submit, ensure all of your work is published – all the posts and any pages and check that you can see all of the work you wish to submit is on your published/live site (e.g. eportfolios.roehampton.ac.uk/smitha). Contact your lecturer to let them know you have published the work.

Grades and Feedback

There are several ways in which the lecturer may provide you with grades and feedback and this will normally be via a link on your Moodle module page.

Accessibility

This guide has information on making sure that your blogs are accessible for all users, and will show you how to add alt text to enable screen readers to describe images, and using accessibility ready themes in your ePortfolio posts.