My Portfolio

My Portfolio – Mahara Portfolio Server

What is “My Portfolio?”

Your portfolio archives key assignments, writing samples, and other resources for you across different courses at Montreat.  It follows your academic progress from start to end, and potentially beyond.  It provides a way to communicate your work to others who may be interested in it:  faculty members in other classes, colleagues, and even potential employers.  You are in control of your portfolio.

Getting Connected

There are two ways to get to your “My Portfolio” content.  One is through Moodle.  Please initiate your account through any Moodle class.  Look for the “My Portfolio” link after logging in to Moodle.

After you have set up your account through Moodle, you may then also log in via a direct link to the Mahara Portfolio server.  https://portfolio.montreat.edu/

Getting Set Up

When you log in you’ll see four tabs:  Home, Profile, My Portfolio, and Groups.  Start at the end with “Groups.”

Joining Groups

Groups control access to content.  Groups consist of users like you.  First, request membership in any groups you are not in that you need to be in.  Please do not request memebership in groups that are not appropriate for you.  The group administrator may have to accept your memebership in that group.  You can look at the My Groups and  Find Groups sub tabs for that.  Note you can also add “Friends” – individuals – and share content with friends as well.  (You can use Mahara to organize content for your own clubs and projects in addition to course content).

Setting up your content – My Portfolio

My Files

Under the My Portfolio tab, the proper ordering for things is to start with your files – you make folders in there.  It’s best to keep files you want to share with a group together in the same folder so that you can control access to the entire folder.  So go to My Files and for each class or activity, create a folder for it.  Your instructor may *require* you to name your folders in a certain way, for example, to include course names or project names. It is YOUR SOLE RESPONSIBILITY to set up and organize your own content.

My Views

After you have set up files, you need to create views, or windows, onto your content. You need at least one view, which if you’re going simple, might include everything you upload to your portfolio.  You can drag and drop content you want to share into your view.

My Collections

After you have set up one or more views, you can share one or more of them in a “collection” and then grant access to groups or friends to access that collection.  A collection is a set of views, which itself is a set of content you publish.  You control access at the level of collections.  So make a new collection and add your view to it and then tell Mahara who can see that collection.

Please note – again – that your department or instructor may have specific requirements for how you name and organize your views and files for particular courses or programs.  Please note that setting this up is your responsibility.  But if you have problems, please feel free to come by the IT department or talk with your instructor for guidance.

Other Questions

How long will information be on My Portfolio?

Until you delete it or your account expires. Account expiration has not yet been set.  But you can export your portfolio as a complete website (to save to DVD for viewing on the DVD or upload to your own webserver later)

Is there a limit on the amount I can store?

Yes.  Currently, students are limited to 50 megabytes, which is a huge number of text documents, but only enough space for about 50 Hi-res (1mb) photos.  Put your video on vimeo or youtube.

Get Help

The online user manual for Mahara is accessible here.  Please feel free to read up on what you can do. Let us know if you have issues along the way by emailing support@montreat.edu to create a help desk ticket.