Project 3 is due on the date listed on our schedule page. The files should be on your Clayton State Web site, readable using Mozilla Firefox, by the beginning of class on this day. Be prepared to demo your portfolio for the rest of the class.
Content
Create a digital portfolio that showcases examples of your talent in at least two of the following media: oral, textual, visual, audio, or digital. The following guidelines indicate the minimum acceptable examples for each medium:
- Oral: 1 minute of audio or video, with 1 still image;
- Still images: minimum 5 examples;
- Text (e.g. research papers, newspaper articles, prose fiction): 2000 words;
- Poetic texts: 5 poems;
- Audio (e.g. music or spoken word poetry): 1 minute;
- Video: 1 minute;
- Digital: 5 screen shots.
Note that these are guidelines. Exceptions in length or minimum number are fine, as long as they offer clear and comprehensive evidence of your talents.
In addition, your portfolio should provide a link to an electronic copy of an up-to-date résumé. (The easiest way to accomplish this is to upload and link a copy of the MS Word file.) Your link should indicate the file format and size.
Page format and coding: In general, the portfolio should follow all Web Style Guide recommendations regarding effective web-based communication. You should create a new external CSS file that controls the style of your pages. Unless you are targeting a specific audience known to work with older computers (e.g. elementary school teachers, Third-World NGO's), you may assume a minimum screen resolution of 1024x768 pixels. This means that your layout's width should not exceed 600 pixels. All hyperlinks to internal documents must be relative.
Recent projects by student x, student y, and student z also provide useful examples of what CMS students have done in the past. Please note that none of these projects is perfect; use their choices as a spark for your own creativity rather than blindly copying aspects that may not be effective design.
Organization
Your project pages should be placed in a folder called "portfolio" located within the "3710" folder on your CSU student web site. The link "3" on our class roll page should connect readers to the opening page of your portfolio.
In addition, your 3710 home page should include a prominent link called "Project 3: Professional Portfolio." This link also should take readers to your portfolio's home page.
Every page of your portfolio must include the "Who, What, Where, When" information necessary to orient readers on the Web, including an appropriate page title, top-level <h1> heading, and subheadings. In addition, your site should conform to the organizational standards presented in the Web Style Guide. See particularly the discussion on "chunking" information as well as the chapter on site design. Your pages' navigational tools should be obvious, easy to use, and logically structured for your readers' needs.
Mechanics, Grammar, and Style
All links must work. To ensure that this is the case, test your completed project on someone else's computer. Because of a software glitch, Dreamweave sometimes creates absolute links pointed at files on a particular C drive rather than creating the properly relative links. If you fall victim to this error, your links will seem to work on your computer, but they will be broken on everyone else's.
Spelling: Dreamweaver includes a spell-checker, accessible under the "Text" menu. Use it.
Punctuation: Perfection is expected. The basic rules of punctuation must be followed. Please note that American style requires placing commas and periods inside quotation marks. For models of these conventions, refer to any book published in the United States.
Sentence Structure: Perfection is expected. The basic rules of grammar and sentence structure must be followed. Ask a friend or family member to read over your final draft before the due date.
Style: Clarity, conciseness, and concreteness are vital for Web-based communication. In addition, your language should convey and maintain a professional tone.
Grading
Projects will be evaluated using the CSU Writing Guidelines. See the link in the blue bar for the basic Guideline standards. The project will earn a letter grade for each of the Guideline's three components:
- Content,
- Organization,
- Mechanics, Grammar, and Style.
No project earning a D or lower in any of the three components may earn an overall grade higher than D. Once this basic standard is met, the project's overall grade will be determined by an average of the three component grades