4 Ways To Keep Your ELearning Portfolio Organized

Keeping your portfolio organized will help you find the items you want to show your prospective employer easily. Also, a well-organized portfolio will show you put some thought into it. There are many ways to organize your eLearning portfolio.  Below are just some of them. You can:

• Put your documents in chronological order starting from the year you began working in the field and ending with the most up-to-date samples of your work. Personally, I do not favor this method because if you have many years of experience your portfolio will overflow with samples and overwhelm the person viewing it. If, on the other hand, you have only spent a year or two in the field, your portfolio will clearly show that.
• Categorize your artifacts based on the ADDIE model. This way, your portfolio will have five sections. The first section will be dedicated to analysis. Your analysis documents will go here.

  The next section will be dedicated to design. You will most likely include your design documents here. Your third section will deal with all the pieces you developed for your eLearning courses. You will also include your storyboards here. The fourth section in your portfolio will present details that deal with implementation of course material.

  If, for example, you did any work with LMS, you may want to include it here. If you were a presenter in any of the trainings you created, you can include sample videos or screenshots in this section. If the outcome of your course was a printed brochure, you can also include it here. The fifth section should display your ability to conduct the four levels of evaluation as well as include examples of assessment items you created. If you decide to organize your portfolio based on the ADDIE model, you may add another section at the end showcasing those items that did not fit into the above categories such as recommendations and certificates of achievement.

• Another way to categorize your items is by creating sections for each type of work you have done. For example, you may have a separate section for your storyboards; writing samples; eLearning projects created with Articulate, Captivate, or Lectora; and project management documents.
• If during your career you were exposed to many different areas of expertise and wore many different hats, you may also consider organizing your portfolio according to the ten areas of expertise in the ASTD Competency Model. These areas are:
  • Performance Improvement
  • Instructional Design
  • Training Delivery
  • Learning Technologies
  • Evaluating Learning Impact
  • Managing Learning Programs
  • Integrated Talent Management
  • Coaching
  • Knowledge Management
  • Change Management

There is no single best approach for organizing your portfolio. The method you select will mostly depend on the experience you have in the field as well as the items you want to showcase.