Collecting and selecting artefacts
Throughout your time as a student, you will create content that you can repurpose as artefacts for your portfolio. It is important to continually add new evidence to demonstrate your growth from a student into a professional.
Over time you will collect a lot of artefacts and you will need to be selective with how you use them for different purposes. Remember if you’re creating it for an assessment task this will be different to creating a professional portfolio.
However, you may decide to repurpose an artefact from an assessment task to meet a new context, such as applying for a job.
Activity: choosing appropriate artefacts
Your Task
Think about what you’ve just learnt about collecting and selecting appropriate artefacts. Let’s check your learning.
Which of the following artefacts would you choose to add to your portfolio page if you were showcasing it to potential employers?
Drag and drop the artefacts into the ‘Portfolio’ column if you would showcase them in your portfolio, or into the ‘Not relevant’ column if you would not include them in your portfolio. Then select Submit.
Activity overview: Choosing appropriate artefacts
Two columns are displayed. The first column is a page in a portfolio and the second column is an empty white page entitled Not relevant. To the right of the columns are 9 text boxes describing artefacts. These can be dragged and dropped into either of the columns. At the bottom of the activity is a Submit button. The task is to place the artefacts that are relevant to the scenario into the Portfolio column, or into the Not relevant column if you would not include them in the portfolio page to showcase to potential employers.
Interactive content
The moveable text box content is as follows:
- The final product of a group assessment
- A short video that promotes your acquired knowledge and capabilities
- Your unit code and student number
- Certificate of attendance for relevant professional development
- All of your assessments from your final year at university
- Reflection on professional experience
- Annotated learning experiences demonstrating professional/industry standards
- Photos of your peers taken during a professional placement
Which of the above artefacts do you think should go on your portfolio page for the job in the scenario?
Correct answer:
The correct solution to this activity is as follows:
Portfolio
- Annotated learning experiences demonstrating professional/industry standards
- Reflection on professional experience
- A short video that promotes your acquired knowledge and capabilities
- Certificate of attendance for relevant professional development
Not relevant
- All of your assessments from your final year at university
- The final product of a group assessment
- Photos of your peers taken during a professional placement
- Your unit code and student number
Tip
A portfolio should be a curated collection. Select what best reflects your portfolio’s purpose. Remember, while you judge something as not relevant now, it could be later.
Keeping it professional
When creating your portfolio, keep in mind that you have professional and personal responsibilities, these include:
protecting the privacy of others and yourself
respecting the rights of others
choosing appropriate artefacts
acknowledging the work of others
For an assessment task it’s easy. There are clear guidelines around what you can include; like how to seek permission for collecting photos and videos while you are on placement and how you’re able to use them in the future. Check if your faculty, workplace or industry has a permission form available to use.
When selecting artefacts for a portfolio, consider the following questions.
1. Are there identifiable people in the artefact that I am sharing?
If you have taken images of other people you need to respect their privacy. Sharing photos, videos or audio of others can impact their comfort level, their cultural beliefs, or even their safety. So always ask permission first. Remember, definitely no pictures of children without permission.
2. Is the artefact mine to share or was it created by someone else?
If you didn’t create the artefact yourself, you need permission to reuse. For example, a photo from a reading that you annotated is fine to use for an assessment but will breach copyright outside of university.
There are lots of great, high quality images you can find online that are considered Public Domain. This means that the creator is happy for you to use them without paying for them or asking their permission.
For more options, explore this Deakin provided List of Free Image websites.
3. Who can see and use artefacts in my portfolio?
If you have created a new activity or learning experience you may want to share it with others. Creating online portfolios means you can set limits on who and what others can see.
You can also set conditions on how others can use your work by applying a creative commons licence. For example, you may want to share a resource with your colleagues but not allow people to make money from it.
Your Portfolio Content: Now and later
As a student creating a portfolio, your focus in on responding to assessments or evidencing your learning. You might be uploading a diagram from your textbook or a video of a group presentation. And this content is typically shared privately with your teachers rather than the rest of the world.
When you make the change from a student context into a publicly visible professional portfolio there are some things you will need to change or consider. For example, group work means there are many owners of the content and anything you're not the sole creator of requires permission to reuse.
To better understand the differences in your rights and responsibilities for student portfolios versus real-world portfolios, it's a good idea to look at some copyright advice.
Using genAI in your portfolio
If you are creating a portfolio for an assessment task then you need to refer to your assessment guidelines, unit guide or speak to your unit chair about whether it is appropriate to use generative AI. If you are developing a professional portfolio to showcase your experience to potential employers then it is up to you as to whether you use genAI.
If you do decide to use genAI, make sure to critically evaluate the content it generates. Think of AI outputs as a rough draft to get you inspired and then adapt and improve with your own tone of voice and writing style.
Caution
By submitting content to AI platforms through prompts or uploads, you may likely grant the AI services the right to re-use and distribute this content and that might result in a breach of copyright or privacy. Refer to our guides on genAI for more information.
Activity – Ethical dilemmas
Now that you have read the professional and personal responsibilities you need to keep in mind when creating and sharing content online, let’s check your understanding.
Your Task
Drag and drop the dilemmas into the correct professional responsibility column.
Activity overview: Ethical dilemmas
Three columns are displayed as follows:
- Protect the privacy of others
- Acknowledge the work of others
- Respect the rights of others.
Beneath the columns are 6 text boxes describing ethical dilemmas. These can be dragged and dropped into any of the columns.
At the bottom of the activity is a Check button.
The task is to place the ethical dilemmas into the correct professional responsibility column.
Interactive content:
The moveable text box content is as follows:
- Someone has recut part of your short video and made it into an embarrassing meme.
- Your employer has asked if they can use a photo that you took on placement on their promotional website.
- Someone copied your essay and included it as part of their training as a consultant without your permission.
- You copy a technique that you found on a blog without acknowledging who wrote it.
- You include a complete scanned copy of a key textbook as an artefact in your portfolio.
- You include an artefact created as part of a group assessment and represented it as your own.
Which columns do you think these ethical dilemmas fit into?
Correct answer:
The correct solution to this activity is as follows:
Protect the privacy of others
- Someone has recut part of your short video and made it into an embarrassing meme.
- Your employer has asked if they can use a photo that you took on placement on their promotional website.
Acknowledge the work of others
- You copy a technique that you found on a blog without acknowledging who wrote it.
- You include an artefact created as part of a group assessment and represented it as your own.
Respect the rights of others
- Someone copied your essay and included it as part of their training as a consultant without your permission.
- You include a complete scanned copy of a key textbook as an artefact in your portfolio.
Tip
Interested in learning more about your professional responsibilities? Visit the Copyright Modules for Students or ask your Scholarly Services Librarian.