Portfolio Project: Articulating Institutional and Program Outcomes

Completing this Assessment will help you to meet the following:

• Revise and present a professional portfolio to an employer to reflect evidence of program competency, work experiences, and workplace capabilities.
• Execute a discipline specific project evidencing that degree outcomes were achieved.

• Relational Learning- Transfer knowledge, skills, and behaviors acquired through formal and informal learning and life experiences to new situations.

Congratulations!  You have worked hard to complete your degree and you are almost there.  This is the final stage as you prepare for a career after graduation.  Think about the journey you have taken in completing your degree and the platform you will use to showcase your skills.  As you may have learned in previous courses, an online portfolio and a face to face or phone interview are great ways to showcase your knowledge, skills, and behaviors to potential employers.

For this Portfolio Project, you will finalize your online MyCred profile to ensure it shows evidence of your attainment of each Bryant & Stratton College institutional outcome and the outcomes associated with your degree program.  You will also record a video in which you articulate, or speak to, these outcomes and the contents of your MyCred profile.  This is meant to simulate and help you to prepare for an online, phone, or face to face job interview.

Click the weblink below to watch a 5-minute video offering tips for articulating your skills.  This will help to get you thinking about what you want to accomplish with this project.

In most of your Bryant & Stratton College courses, you have completed a Portfolio Project to demonstrate your attainment of one or more institutional or degree program outcomes.  The ePortfolio where you upload each of these projects is a repository for your growing collection of exhibits that provide evidence you have achieved all the academic outcomes in your program. Your ePortfolio also validates your workplace readiness because your Portfolio Projects require you to use the same competencies, knowledge, skills, and attitudes you would apply to a situation in your career.

By the time you finish this course, you will want to have at least one project attached to each program and institutional outcome for your degree program.  As you work towards this goal, note that it is possible for one project to meet multiple program and/or institutional outcomes.  Your ePortfolio serves as an academic repository of work, but it is not something you would want to share with a prospective employer.  The online portfolio you share with employers should have a variety of information in addition to evidence of school work and skills.  For example, you also want your online portfolio to contain a biography, copy of your resume, cover letter, awards and recognitions, etc.  For that reason, this project will require you to work with, and put the finishing touches on, your MyCred portfolio.

Since you may share a link to your MyCred portfolio with prospective employers, you also need to be ready to speak to its contents.  Employers will want to gain a deeper understanding of your knowledge, skills, and behaviors and they will rely upon you to articulate such as you walk them through your portfolio.  This is why the second part of this project will require you to create a video explaining the contents of your MyCred profile in detail.  

Institutional Outcomes

Your final Portfolio Project will contain a weblink to your MyCred portfolio and a weblink to your articulation video.  More detail on each of these components is provided in the Deliverable Descriptions below.

This week you will be revising your MyCred profile and completing an Articulation Worksheet to help you with your final presentation.  Detail on each of these components is provided below.  You will submit your MyCred link and Articulation Worksheet together.

To begin, complete the articulation worksheet template provided in Blackboard.  Within Week 3, go into the folder titled “Portfolio Project Articulation Worksheet” and locate and save the articulation worksheet for your degree program.  Further detail on the information required in each column is included below.  Use these guidelines as you fill in the middle and right columns within the worksheet.

• The left column of this worksheet lists the program and institutional outcomes associated with your degree program at Bryant & Stratton College.  
• Use the middle column to indicate in which course(s) each program and institutional outcome was met by a Portfolio Project or authentic assessment you completed in your time at Bryant & Stratton College.
• Finally, use the right column to briefly summarize how the outcome was met.  Detail what you did for the project and explain how that fits with the identified outcome.

The following information will be useful in completing the articulation worksheet:

• You can see your degree program outcomes and determine which outcomes you have met and attached a project to by utilizing these steps:
• Login to MyBSC and click into one of your available courses.
• Click the ePortfolio & Tools button.
• Click the ePortfolio link.
• In your ePortfolio, select your degree program from the dropdown menu that says “select outcome/competency library.”  Then click “open library.”
• The screen that loads will show you a list of your program and institutional outcomes.  Next to each outcome you will see a speech bubble.  Speech bubbles with a 0 indicate that you have not yet attached a Portfolio Project to that outcome.  Speech bubbles with a number greater than 0 indicate that you have attached one or more projects to that outcome.
  • Clicking on each speech bubble will expand it and allow you to see which project(s) you attached to the outcome and give you the option to attach additional projects if you wish.
• If you are in an associates degree program, at this point you will want to have evidence of having met all program and institutional outcomes.  If you have one or more outcomes without evidence attached, you can add projects to those outcomes now.

In case you have not worked on your MyCred profile in a previous course (or it has been a while since you have), a MyCred Resource Manual is provided for you in Blackboard.  Note: Bryant & Stratton students do not need to pay for their MyCred account.  If you are asked to pay, that means you have not accessed the site correctly or may need to enable cookies in your browser.  To get to MyCred:

• Login to MyBSC and click into one of your available courses.
• Click the ePortfolio & Tools button.
• Click the ePortfolio link.
• Along the top of your ePortfolio, you will see a black banner. In the top right corner, within this banner, you will see the words MyCred in gray/white. Clicking that icon will take you directly to your MyCred.

At minimum, make sure to fill in the following modules in your MyCred profile using the instructions provided in the MyCred Manual.  You can do more if you’d like, but remember you can return to your MyCred throughout your time at Bryant & Stratton to continue to make edits.

• Your professional photo
• Address (City, State ZIP)
• Phone number
• Professional email address
• Links to any professional social media accounts you have (if applicable)
• Biography/summary
• Educational background:
  • Include at least one tagged exhibit/Portfolio Project from your ePortfolio for each program and institutional outcome.  Your articulation worksheet will help you to determine which projects to add to your MyCred profile.
  • The MyCred Manual has instructions on adding assignments from your ePortfolio to your MyCred.  These instructions begin on page 20 of the manual.  Page 18 of the manual has instructions on adding new documents to your Portfolio and uploading them to MyCred simultaneously.
  • Make sure that all projects are clearly labeled and have instructor comments/feedback and grades removed from them.  Add the best copy of each project that you can.
• Goals (Personal & Professional)
• Resume & CV
  • Add your updated resume and cover letter, based on feedback you have received in previous courses

Add your MyCred link to the top of your Articulation Worksheet and upload to Blackboard for instructor feedback and review.  Instructions for accessing your MyCred share link to copy and paste can be found in the MyCred Manual beginning on page 25.

You will be graded based on satisfying all of the requirements listed as well as submitting your deliverable on or before the due date.

Your final video presentation will walk viewers through your MyCred portfolio, in approximately 5-7 minutes.  Before you begin, ensure you have incorporated any feedback you received on your MyCred profile or Articulation Worksheet in Week 3.  These will serve as the basis of your presentation.

In your video, for every Portfolio Project you have added to your MyCred portfolio, address the following prompts.  You already have a good start doing this from your Articulation Worksheet and previous courses.

• Explain how the project demonstrates your attainment of one or more program or institutional outcomes.  Make sure it is clear to the viewer which outcome you are discussing and how you believe the project you completed helped you to meet that outcome.
  • So, when you initially uploaded the assignment to an outcome in your ePortfolio, why did you attach it to that particular outcome?  Describe how the project meets the outcome you attached it to. If, for example, you are discussing the institutional outcome that says, “Follow established methods of inquiry and mathematical reasoning to form conclusions and make decisions,” you would want to detail how the project you attached to that outcome showed your ability to engage in mathematical and scientific reasoning to generate conclusions.
• Describe the knowledge, skills, and behaviors (KSBs) you developed or displayed as a result of completing the project.  Detail how those KSBs will be important to your success in the workplace.  As you address this prompt, these definitions might help you:
  • Knowledge is a conceptual or theoretical understanding that you gain from reading or doing research.
  • Skills are your practical, real-world application of knowledge.  These are the things you are able to do.
  • Behaviors include your attitudes, actions, mindsets, approaches, and habits.  They are often transferable across a variety of situations.

The video should be based on your program graduation rubric located in your ePortfolio.  

• Login to MyBSC and click into one of your available courses.
• Click the ePortfolio & Tools button.
• Click the ePortfolio link.
• Once you are in your ePortfolio, click on the messaging/support button along the left-hand side.
• Click on the document library button and locate the Portfolio Rubric for your degree program.

You might find it beneficial to use a tool like Screen-cast-o-matic to record your video.  Screencast-o-matic allows you to share/record your screen, while simultaneously recording your voice and/or your face. Screencast-o-matic can be accessed using the following weblink: Screencast-o-matic

Before recording, make sure you are dressed the part and that there are no distractions around you.  Remember, too, to practice your speech a couple of times before recording the video.  Use a clock to time yourself, and practice in front of a mirror so that you become accustomed to looking out at your audience rather than down at your notes. Focus on your body language to ensure you are standing up straight, making eye contact, and smiling.  Ensure that your voice is clear and easy to understand.  Try to vary your tone, pause, and use gestures to emphasize important points.  Avoid using non-words (like “um” or “uh”) and use professional language whenever possible.

Once you have recorded your video, upload it to YouTube.  Directions on how to do this can be found in the Student Resources area, linked on the side of the course.  The directions within the Student Resources area also walk you through how to ensure your video is “unlisted,” meaning only someone with the link to the video will be able to watch it.

Create a Word Document with the weblink to your MyCred Profile and the weblink to your articulation video in YouTube.  Upload this document to your ePortfolio.  Use the following naming convention:  CAPS265 – Portfolio Project.  This project should be uploaded to the following Institutional Outcome:

• Relational Learning- Transfer knowledge, skills, and behaviors acquired through formal and informal learning and life experiences to new situations.

For directions on how to upload your project to your ePortfolio, please see Student Resources in Blackboard on the navigation pane.