Showing posts with label visual. Show all posts
Showing posts with label visual. Show all posts
Friday, 8 July 2016
Unexpected ethical challenges in using screen grabs of youths' #participatoryculture productions #visualresearch
Advances in online image and text search may pose unexpected ethical challenges to researchers in protecting the privacy of their participants while sharing visual productions. I mistakenly assumed that depersonalising screen grab imagery would be sufficient to conceal teenagers' identities. However, in testing "depersonalised" screenshots of my participants' online portfolio screen grabs, I learnt that the ever-growing accuracy of text-and/or-image searches (i.e. via Google Image, TinEye, Bing, Pinterest et al.) requires additional steps for dis-identification. Without these, sharing webpage screen grabs can potentially be used by undesirable audiences to locate young people's websites and contact details. Screen grabs may also pose reputation risks in potentially being shared long after participants might want them to be. Both types of risks will be weighed up against the benefits of sharing select students' e-portfolio productions in my thesis. These include visual representations making it easier for readers to become familiar with the online portfolio genre. Screen shots also provide visual support for research themes emerging from young people's choices.
Background to my visual research ethics challenge.
I had developed an original method for multimodal content analysis that used screen grabs to reverse-engineer the choices that 29 visual arts students made in using Carbonmade. To keep the rich nature of my visual data, I analysed these privately using NVivo. I then sought to de-identify select web page screenshots for sharing in conference presentations. I followed a process for visual anonymization, which was not extensive as I wanted to preserve most of the screen grab for accuracy. The anonymizing process involved Adobe Photoshop's blur function being used on several fields of every webpage. This ranged from the web address and portfolio name on every page to all mentions of their name on their profile pages and their contact details. It also involved checking that the e-portfolio's creator was not identifiable from their portrait picture and that no images disclosed their school's identity (i.e. school poster designs or uniforms). To further protect anonymity, image files were titled using pseudonyms.
I also added select screen grab, two per A4 page, into my draft thesis's case study chapters. During their review, Associate Professor Marion Walton advised me to remove screen grabs that might expose its creators to ridicule and also to check the reverse search-ability of all images. She was concerned that these might not be truly anonymised. In checking, I learnt that the depersonalisation measures I took were insufficient. A 'visual specific dilemma' existed whereby my participants could still be traced through the following types of internet searches:
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"George", 'depersonalised' About page, 2012. A participant who gave permission for portfolio screen grabs to be shared. |
- An internet text search using text used in students’ self-descriptions under their About Us page;
- An internet text search using the folder titles shown by the screenshots (i.e., in Google, using <e-portfolio software name> + <folder title>);
- An internet search using the image titles shown in the screenshots (i.e. in Google, using <e-portfolio software name> + <image title>);
- An internet image search using the screen grabs (for example in 'Google Images');
- An internet image search of the images inside the screenshots;
- In addition, location information and other information in the case studies and school backgrounds could be used in narrowing image and text searches.
Testing the first four types revealed I had not successfully de-identified several screen grabs.
Ethical concerns and considerations.
This was concerning as it held ramifications for my future and past publications. It also had consequences for the ongoing e-portfolio pedagogy at the independent school research site:
I warned the e-portfolio educator, "Mr Proudfoot", that he should take additional steps to better protect student privacy via revising their e-portfolio pedagogy: my action research project found that teaching students to hide their contact details did provide a false sense of security, since teachers mistakenly believed that this made their students difficult to contact. Simply using students’ real names in online searches quickly served up their social network profiles. Some of these were public by default. Teachers must better support students with resources and examples of effective privacy protection that can at least minimise the dangers of ill-considered self-disclosure. This could include case studies of bad examples and in-depth advice on constructing pseudonymous personas. Schools should also provide support, such as policies and staff that young people can readily refer to in case of unsolicited online contact.
I recently asked an ethics expert about protecting students' privacy and his advice contrasted to the cautious visual research feedback that I expected. He advised that since the screen shots are of web pages they are in the public domain already, I actually do not need these students' permission. Despite it not being a legal or institutional requirement, I remain mindful of the assurances that I gave to schools and students on protecting the research participants' privacy. Such assurances helped me overcome one challenge in securing ethics approval from the Western Cape Education Department/Department of Education and my two research sites. I am also aware that only a few of my case study subjects responded to Facebook or emailed requests for retro-active permission to publish anonymised screenshots in my thesis.
My concerns around potential disclosure and lacking participants' explicit consent resonates with Prosser, Clark and Wiles' (2008) contention that concrete contextual issues and a researcher's individual moral framework must be added to legal and institutional requirements in making ethical visual research decisions. The risks to participants associated with disclosure may be small, but it does not sit well with my moral compass that the screen grabs in my thesis might provide visual evidence for subverting past assurances. Particularly now that the thesis itself is easy to source and search. In the past, the provision of UCT thesis hardcopies were mostly limited to its library. However, these are now automatically digitised for sharing post-graduation online via the library's website (and possibly Open UCT). Further, since I have already shared many screen grabs online in conference presentations, I must also explore reciprocal measures to protect my participants' privacy. For example, by replacing the screen grabs I shared in old presentations with properly anonymised ones.
To find out how other researchers have tackled the problem of depersonalising screen grabs, I did Google Scholar searches for guidance on anonymising 'screen grabs', 'screenshots' or 'screen captures'. I could not find relevant content, which seems to mirror the reality of screen capture techniques being mostly used for exemplars rather than in the research process itself. Lacking a matching example to follow in visual culture research, I found Dr Kirsty Young's discussion of her research experiences with young people's online spaces (2013) particularly informative. It highlights several ethical dilemmas posed by new forms of research enabled by the internet.
My research project is unusual in being human subject research focused on public texts. It is the former as I have been involved in developing a new syllabus and doing face-to-face research with youths throughout e-portfolio lessons. However, I am also researching public texts since all my participants Carbonmade portfolios have no privacy restrictions. Given its unusual position in straddling both methods, I cannot expect unanimous agreement in the academic community regarding how the ethical principles of consent and anonymity pertain to my study. The public text argument versus one for the more onerous rules governing human subject research could easily be argued in both cases. This may pose unexpected problems for the publication of my visual research data. If research data cannot be shared it becomes redundant, which itself is unethical in wasting participants' time (Young, 2013).
In response, I must be cautious and take steps to ensure that my project's ethics in sharing screengrabs cannot be faulted from a human subject research perspective. While all participants and their parents/guardians consented to my research, some were only asked after my fieldwork concluded for permission to re-publish their work. I had not considered the future need to use young people's webpages publicly in academic publications. Given that the webpages are the intellectual property of their authors and that their content would be displayed more widely than the youth possibly intended, I intend to secure written consent for their academic use. This consent will address the timespan that informed consent is given for and afford options for the level of anonymity required. I will show my case study subjects examples of their dis-identified webpages to assist their decision-making.
My research project is unusual in being human subject research focused on public texts. It is the former as I have been involved in developing a new syllabus and doing face-to-face research with youths throughout e-portfolio lessons. However, I am also researching public texts since all my participants Carbonmade portfolios have no privacy restrictions. Given its unusual position in straddling both methods, I cannot expect unanimous agreement in the academic community regarding how the ethical principles of consent and anonymity pertain to my study. The public text argument versus one for the more onerous rules governing human subject research could easily be argued in both cases. This may pose unexpected problems for the publication of my visual research data. If research data cannot be shared it becomes redundant, which itself is unethical in wasting participants' time (Young, 2013).
In response, I must be cautious and take steps to ensure that my project's ethics in sharing screengrabs cannot be faulted from a human subject research perspective. While all participants and their parents/guardians consented to my research, some were only asked after my fieldwork concluded for permission to re-publish their work. I had not considered the future need to use young people's webpages publicly in academic publications. Given that the webpages are the intellectual property of their authors and that their content would be displayed more widely than the youth possibly intended, I intend to secure written consent for their academic use. This consent will address the timespan that informed consent is given for and afford options for the level of anonymity required. I will show my case study subjects examples of their dis-identified webpages to assist their decision-making.
Additional steps for depersonalising or anonymising screen grab images
Given the ready availability of image search sites and image reverse search applications, it is important for researchers to take steps to fully depersonalise images for participants' anonymity. As web page design is multimodal, it is also important that researchers filter both images and text. For example in my research into students' e-portfolios, I had to avoid mentioning folder titles verbatim in my thesis. I also must try to avoid quoting students’ profile descriptions verbatim for longer than three words.
The two alternate options (A - B) I tested for depersonalising screen capture images were:
A. Black out all text and replace profile image with silhouette outline
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| Option A. "George" depersonalised About page with with all text blacked out and profile image in silhouette outline, 2012 |
All text is blacked out, making it impossible for viewers to copy text strings in their searches. The blurred outline image is replaced with an outline drawing to add some visual information.
B. Only add depersonalised screen grabs at small thumbnail sizes, organised inside tables
Here the size of each image is reduced to a thumbnail size for making their recognition via reverse image search more difficult. I tested each option in reverse image search engines and neither options A nor B produced results linked to its creator, let alone Carbonmade.
While the process of dis-identifying over 80 images will be lengthy, I am pleased that I can use heavily anonymised imagery, rather than none. In addition to changing these thesis' images, I must also reciprocally update them in old presentations, which need then to be reloaded to Slideshare.
Request for comments... or turning this post into an academic paper.
This post was written to stimulate discussions on ethical issues related to the use of screen grabs.
It heeds the call to engage the general internet publishing publishing population in debates about the use of content for research purposes as this can ensure the ethical use of online content, (Young, 2013). Kindly add your thoughts by commenting below.
 |
| Option B. "George" de-personalised e-portfolio pages from 2012 reduced into thumbnail images in a table |
Here the size of each image is reduced to a thumbnail size for making their recognition via reverse image search more difficult. I tested each option in reverse image search engines and neither options A nor B produced results linked to its creator, let alone Carbonmade.
 |
| Google image search result for option A's image, 2016 |
 |
| Google image search result for option B's image, 2016 |
Both options enabled sufficient levels of anonymity in their results being linked to generic software entries. I then tested what would happen if a thumbnail image of student's work was selected from the table of thumbnail images. At such a small size, the highly-pixelated image results did not link back to their creator or Carbonmade during a reverse image search.
 |
| Google Images result for "George" depersonalised thumbnail painting crop 2016 |
Request for comments... or turning this post into an academic paper.
This post was written to stimulate discussions on ethical issues related to the use of screen grabs.
It heeds the call to engage the general internet publishing publishing population in debates about the use of content for research purposes as this can ensure the ethical use of online content, (Young, 2013). Kindly add your thoughts by commenting below.
There is also a gap in the literature concerning ethical issues related to sharing screen grabs of young people's participatory culture as research evidence. If you would like this post to be upgraded into an article for helping close the gap, please get in touch. For updates on my research, follow this site or @travisnoakes.
Thursday, 25 June 2015
Introducing the portfolio genre to first-timers from under-resourced schools and homes
Written for educators in minimally resourced environments that are interested in teaching novices about the role of digital portfolios; particularly to help justify tertiary education access to visual creative disciplines and bridging courses.
Although online portfolios are increasingly used to secure educational and vocational opportunities, anecdotal evidence from South African secondary schools suggests that electronic learning portfolio (e-portfolio) production is rarely taught. The costly infrastructures required to support e-portfolio syllabi most likely restrict these those schools with high levels of economic and cultural capital.
Although such schools may readily support young people's participation in visual arts and/or design subjects, such facilities support a mere one percent of young South Africans. Ninety nine percent do not have formal opportunities to study; visual art, graphic design and/or computer studies. The vast majority of young people are thus excluded from formal opportunities for developing digital or analog portfolios and self-presentations related to their creative productions.
However, it is possible for educators at minimally resourced sites to expose students to three important portfolio uses, namely:
- applications for select tertiary disciplines (in particular; architecture, design, fine art and media production);
- supporting access to bridging courses (such as the Cape Peninsula University of Technology's or Michaelis' School of Fine Art's portfolio workshops);
- and for creative professionals' and amateurs' digital self-presentation, curation and sharing practices.
I covered these using specific examples in a two hour lesson with Creative Code students at Ikamva Youth's Makhaza computer lab in Khayelitsha last year. Associate Professor Marion Walton had invited me to speak at her educational outreach project, which introduces dedicated teenagers to computer coding. Marion's lessons aim to make coding and visual design more accessible through youth media, gaming and mobile phones. She asked me to do a short introductory workshop that introduced newcomers to the portfolio genre's use, particularly in education.
Like most Capetonian teenagers, her volunteers have never formally been exposed to portfolios. I chose to start with its use in professions delivering visual creative work. To orient learners, I first provided an overview of the types of careers in which portfolios are important. I took students through the Wanna Have a Designer Future? design careers booklet by the Cape Craft and Design Institute. These volunteers were shown a typical art student's analogue portfolio, before being introduced to how visual creatives specialising in different genres use Carbonmade to present themselves and their creative work. In discussing important differences between online portfolio services for visual creatives, Deviantart and Behance were briefly introduced. The former offers additional social networking functionality, while the latter is integrated with Adobe's varied software subscriptions.
Portfolios may also be very important outside visual creative domains; I showed a Cape Times headline concerning my father, Professor Noakes', recommendation that eating animal organs is better for impoverished children than sugary, high-carbohydrate alternatives. As an academic whose scientific contribution spanned over forty years, I showed how his research contributions to sports medicine and science (in Challenging Beliefs) ranged across many media formats (video, articles, publication lists and other resources). To further buttress his reputation online, it was helpful that a consolidated resource be created with links to the Prof's varied intellectual contributions.
Each learner then completed a brief self-reflection on portfolios questionnaire, which aimed to stimulate individual reflection on what they had just learnt and catalyse contemplation on applying this knowledge in developing one portfolio, or perhaps more. These might range from; hobby showcases to school and co-curricular portfolios intended to support tertiary study and workplace applications.
I hoped that using an open approach focused on the resources that teenagers access in school and outside it could encourage this audience to appreciate that showcase portfolios are worth pursuing for sharing one's vocational and/or leisure interests. Feedback from these students suggested they had many. I trust that they will leverage their emergent coding, design and photographic skills for creating portfolios that serve the important uses introduced by the workshop.
Monday, 3 March 2014
Artworks need creative titles: an important, but seldom taught, skill.
Written for educators interested in teaching their Visual Arts learners to creatively label artwork.
Why teach creating artwork titles?
Naming artworks is an important aspect of the creative artist's practice. As explained in Don Thompson's excellent overview of the contemporary art market, 'The $12 million Stuffed Shark', an interesting title can be the most important contributor to an artwork's conceptual value, and financial worth. He used Damien Hirst's 'The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living' {1991} as a leading example of this.
By contrast to the important role of titling for practicing artists, anecdotal evidence from my research fieldwork (2009-13) suggests that learners and students are too seldom taught to think about creating interesting titles or even the most appropriate formats to use while labeling digitized artworks. Arguably this is due to Visual Arts syllabi that tend to be dominated by an emphasis on representation, with limited attention being given to communication. According to Kress (2010; 49), representation and communication are distinct social practices: Representation focuses on one’s interest in engaging with the world and one’s desire to give material realization to meanings about that world. By contrast, communication focuses on one’s wish or need to make that representation available to others through interactions.
Despite titles having an important role to play both in representation and for communication, they are often only taught briefly in response to a requirement that artworks be labelled for end-of-year exhibitions. At best, an explanation for this teaching omission could be that creating titles and selecting the most appropriate labeling conventions are assumed to be implicitly understood. At worst, titling may be deemed irrelevant as "just" school or tertiary Visual Arts genres that will seldom be viewed outside the studio or home. Lankshear and Knobel (2003: 107), in particular, have warned educators to avoid this ‘fridge door mindset’ – where project work has no audience purpose beyond the classroom (other than a display on a family’s refrigerator door).
By contrast, a rationale for encouraging learners to think of appropriate titles and labeling conventions {for the (sub-) genres in which work} could draw from these four points:
Titling digitized imagery creatively and labeling them in an appropriate format is not only an important aspect of ongoing e-portfolio design and assessment, but vital in the text-dominant, Internet medium for searchability. Despite this importance, a content analysis of learners' title, format and attribution choices reveals that most pupils had difficulty with; creating interesting artwork titles, adding full labels and consistently formatting them across their artwork project folders. For those that attributed work, several struggled to attribute it to an appropriate source:
Learners were taught to use two formats for labeling; one for the artworks they created, the other for attribution. Both formats are close to those used in their prescribed Art History textbook.In response, five learners chose not to label their artworks at all. "Thembani" was one and explained, ‘I really think that looking at it was to me, more interesting than the title. So, I just thought that the work itself was there. It was important. Like you just see it and you don't need a title saying...'portrait of whatever', because you can just see it. That's what I thought.’ (Int2, 23 November 2012, R19)
Twenty learners used labels that varied from the curricular guidelines and all were inconsistent in not applying a consistent labeling format across all their e-portfolio's imagery. Just one learner achieved consistency for every digitized artwork. There were very few examples of artwork titles being creative; most simply reflected the title of their educator's rubric or artwork subject's content.
Interestingly, two learners took the initiative to use a specific format of labeling for photographic work. In "Hui"'s case, he followed a detailed labelling convention for his photographs. He sourced this format from publications, ‘like National Geographic, when they would give a photo they would say here like give this aperture and all that...’ (Int1, 9 November 2012, R25) He believed that this contributes to making his photographs look more professional.
The 17 independant school learners were taught to sample and publish images that inspired them. 13 sampled works, which six did not attribute. In Thembani's case, he explained that he did not label the images sourced for his Inspiration folder as a side-effect of the Google search itself not showing this information, ‘Ja, when I was looking for inspiration, I just saw artwork which had, um, no title. So, I thought that it would be quite a mission for me to go, like, to go search for titles when I can't really... when I found the work without titles… on the Internet, on Google. So, putting titles on your work was not really important to me... all I wanted to do, was just put work down...’ (Int2 ST1, 23 November 2012, R20). Just seven learners attributed their sources in full.
Recommendations
The poor compliance results that emerged in the content analysis are not surprising, given that educators at both sites did not emphasize titling artworks as an important discipline, nor were learners explicitly referred to interesting titles as inspiration in any e-portfolio lessons. Also, most learners are inexperienced with working in a medium that foregrounds the relationship between the visual (image) and verbal (text) modes.
It is also evident that there is considerable scope to improve pedagogy for labeling in the 'Visual Arts showcase' e-portfolio meta-genre. Below are five recommendations to help Visual Arts educators:
A. Supply learners with an A4-sized, print-out guide.
'Labeling instructions' were part of one e-portfolio lesson's particular curricular materials. Learner feedback was that this was difficult to retroactively refer to. Rather, an A4-sized guide for labeling should be printed for convenient, ongoing reference.
B. Provide (sub-) genre specific labeling formats for learners to select from.
Learners should be encouraged to think how context shapes the the type of format they choose for artwork. Educators can achieve this by reflecting the variety and depth of diverse Visual Culture fields through including varied labeling formats for diverse sub-genres (for example; photography, botanical illustration, poster design and character concept artworks).
C. Check that labeling tools are readily available and that learners are prompted in class to use them.
Learners complained that they did not have sufficient tools at hand to follow the labeling guidelines; in one example "Masibulele" said that he did not have a ruler long enough to measure his his paintings. Ideally, learners should have the tools and opportunities in class to measure their artworks and label them fully. This would be good preparation for their end-of year exhibitions and avoids a tricky problem Hui notes concerning retroactively labeling work, which often required remembering and finding, ‘… the task's name and stuff... so PAT 1.5 'Human Clay' or whatever. So, we had to find all that...’ (Int1, 9 November 2012, R31)
D. Get learners to set file-name titles as a starting point for labeling.
Learners' image file management and labeling can be improved by encouraging them to approximate their image titles in the digitized artwork's file names.
E. Teach interesting titling lessons!
While suggestions points A. to D. may be considered a bit procedural and boring, there's no reason that teaching artwork labeling has to be. Ideally, titling should be included as an important part of the creative art-making process: learners could be referred to contemporaneous works whose appreciation is closely tied to the titles used, for example: Sofia Hultn 'Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment' 2011 or Rodney Graham 'The Gifted Amateur, Nov. 10th, 1962.' 2007. Students could then be encouraged to develop interesting titles themselves, and then only representations for them.
N.B. If you have any other suggestions that could help, please suggest them in the comment box below, ta.
Why teach creating artwork titles?
Naming artworks is an important aspect of the creative artist's practice. As explained in Don Thompson's excellent overview of the contemporary art market, 'The $12 million Stuffed Shark', an interesting title can be the most important contributor to an artwork's conceptual value, and financial worth. He used Damien Hirst's 'The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living' {1991} as a leading example of this.
By contrast to the important role of titling for practicing artists, anecdotal evidence from my research fieldwork (2009-13) suggests that learners and students are too seldom taught to think about creating interesting titles or even the most appropriate formats to use while labeling digitized artworks. Arguably this is due to Visual Arts syllabi that tend to be dominated by an emphasis on representation, with limited attention being given to communication. According to Kress (2010; 49), representation and communication are distinct social practices: Representation focuses on one’s interest in engaging with the world and one’s desire to give material realization to meanings about that world. By contrast, communication focuses on one’s wish or need to make that representation available to others through interactions.
Despite titles having an important role to play both in representation and for communication, they are often only taught briefly in response to a requirement that artworks be labelled for end-of-year exhibitions. At best, an explanation for this teaching omission could be that creating titles and selecting the most appropriate labeling conventions are assumed to be implicitly understood. At worst, titling may be deemed irrelevant as "just" school or tertiary Visual Arts genres that will seldom be viewed outside the studio or home. Lankshear and Knobel (2003: 107), in particular, have warned educators to avoid this ‘fridge door mindset’ – where project work has no audience purpose beyond the classroom (other than a display on a family’s refrigerator door).
By contrast, a rationale for encouraging learners to think of appropriate titles and labeling conventions {for the (sub-) genres in which work} could draw from these four points:
- Unlike working in particular media, titling and labeling original artworks (and attributing others) are far more likely to be continuously practiced throughout learners' lives {whether at work or as a hobby}. These skills are not limited to visual imagery, but can be applied to all media;
- While learners often are given the same subject material to draw in class, encouraging them to reflect about how they might differentiate their work using titling will be of interest to the truly creative;
- Encouraging thinking about; titles, varied labeling formats and attribution can help learners better appreciate key attributes of their work's (sub-)genre, the visual creative worlds and better facilitate the relationship between their work and potential online (and offline) audiences;
- Titling is particularly important in the contemporary era of Internet search, where search engine services use text descriptions to deliver image results (whether on Google Images, online portfolio services or other sites) and savvy searchers look for distinctive content with very particular word combinations. In publishing distinctively-labeled imagery online and making it searchable (with appropriate file names, distinctive meta-tag combinations, etc.), learners can pull and cultivate audiences for their particular creative niches.
Titling digitized imagery creatively and labeling them in an appropriate format is not only an important aspect of ongoing e-portfolio design and assessment, but vital in the text-dominant, Internet medium for searchability. Despite this importance, a content analysis of learners' title, format and attribution choices reveals that most pupils had difficulty with; creating interesting artwork titles, adding full labels and consistently formatting them across their artwork project folders. For those that attributed work, several struggled to attribute it to an appropriate source:
Learners were taught to use two formats for labeling; one for the artworks they created, the other for attribution. Both formats are close to those used in their prescribed Art History textbook.In response, five learners chose not to label their artworks at all. "Thembani" was one and explained, ‘I really think that looking at it was to me, more interesting than the title. So, I just thought that the work itself was there. It was important. Like you just see it and you don't need a title saying...'portrait of whatever', because you can just see it. That's what I thought.’ (Int2, 23 November 2012, R19)
Twenty learners used labels that varied from the curricular guidelines and all were inconsistent in not applying a consistent labeling format across all their e-portfolio's imagery. Just one learner achieved consistency for every digitized artwork. There were very few examples of artwork titles being creative; most simply reflected the title of their educator's rubric or artwork subject's content.
Interestingly, two learners took the initiative to use a specific format of labeling for photographic work. In "Hui"'s case, he followed a detailed labelling convention for his photographs. He sourced this format from publications, ‘like National Geographic, when they would give a photo they would say here like give this aperture and all that...’ (Int1, 9 November 2012, R25) He believed that this contributes to making his photographs look more professional.
The 17 independant school learners were taught to sample and publish images that inspired them. 13 sampled works, which six did not attribute. In Thembani's case, he explained that he did not label the images sourced for his Inspiration folder as a side-effect of the Google search itself not showing this information, ‘Ja, when I was looking for inspiration, I just saw artwork which had, um, no title. So, I thought that it would be quite a mission for me to go, like, to go search for titles when I can't really... when I found the work without titles… on the Internet, on Google. So, putting titles on your work was not really important to me... all I wanted to do, was just put work down...’ (Int2 ST1, 23 November 2012, R20). Just seven learners attributed their sources in full.
Recommendations
The poor compliance results that emerged in the content analysis are not surprising, given that educators at both sites did not emphasize titling artworks as an important discipline, nor were learners explicitly referred to interesting titles as inspiration in any e-portfolio lessons. Also, most learners are inexperienced with working in a medium that foregrounds the relationship between the visual (image) and verbal (text) modes.
It is also evident that there is considerable scope to improve pedagogy for labeling in the 'Visual Arts showcase' e-portfolio meta-genre. Below are five recommendations to help Visual Arts educators:
A. Supply learners with an A4-sized, print-out guide.
'Labeling instructions' were part of one e-portfolio lesson's particular curricular materials. Learner feedback was that this was difficult to retroactively refer to. Rather, an A4-sized guide for labeling should be printed for convenient, ongoing reference.
B. Provide (sub-) genre specific labeling formats for learners to select from.
Learners should be encouraged to think how context shapes the the type of format they choose for artwork. Educators can achieve this by reflecting the variety and depth of diverse Visual Culture fields through including varied labeling formats for diverse sub-genres (for example; photography, botanical illustration, poster design and character concept artworks).
C. Check that labeling tools are readily available and that learners are prompted in class to use them.
Learners complained that they did not have sufficient tools at hand to follow the labeling guidelines; in one example "Masibulele" said that he did not have a ruler long enough to measure his his paintings. Ideally, learners should have the tools and opportunities in class to measure their artworks and label them fully. This would be good preparation for their end-of year exhibitions and avoids a tricky problem Hui notes concerning retroactively labeling work, which often required remembering and finding, ‘… the task's name and stuff... so PAT 1.5 'Human Clay' or whatever. So, we had to find all that...’ (Int1, 9 November 2012, R31)
D. Get learners to set file-name titles as a starting point for labeling.
Learners' image file management and labeling can be improved by encouraging them to approximate their image titles in the digitized artwork's file names.
E. Teach interesting titling lessons!
While suggestions points A. to D. may be considered a bit procedural and boring, there's no reason that teaching artwork labeling has to be. Ideally, titling should be included as an important part of the creative art-making process: learners could be referred to contemporaneous works whose appreciation is closely tied to the titles used, for example: Sofia Hultn 'Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment' 2011 or Rodney Graham 'The Gifted Amateur, Nov. 10th, 1962.' 2007. Students could then be encouraged to develop interesting titles themselves, and then only representations for them.
N.B. If you have any other suggestions that could help, please suggest them in the comment box below, ta.
Saturday, 7 September 2013
Four Learners Responses to an Emergent ‘Visual Arts Showcase e-Portfolio' Meta-Genre
Written for Visual Arts educators and researchers interested in the electronic learning portfolio design choices that learners make.
I presented at the South African Visual Arts Conference 2013 today on a cross-section of four independent school Visual Arts learners' e-portfolio design choices. Since I spoke in its pedagogical stream', I chose to prepare a paper that focused on learners' design choices and how they varied in reflecting different aspects of the e-portfolio's significance to the learners. This was used as a basis for a pedagogical reflection, which suggested three avenues for future research into teaching approaches:
A Social Semiotic approach to Multimodal Communication (SSMC) was used to explain the significance of designed ‘texts’ (such as an e-portfolio), which learners described in their interviews and profiles. Kress (2000) proposed that textual significance can be explained by using the the three key questions of an SSMC approach; ‘Who produced it?’, ‘For whom was it produced?’ and ‘In what context and under what constraints was it produced?’. Bateman's Genre and Multimodality {GeM} framework (2008) was used to describe learners' varied page design choices using its layout, content and rhetorical structural layers. My presentation features screen grabs from the four case studies and examples of choices that reproduced, extended, replaced or undercut (Yoshioka and Herman, 2000) their educator's guidelines. His instructions constitute a meta-genre (Giltrow, 2002), which one learner complied with very closely and extended, two reproduced, replaced and extended slightly and one completely undercut. These choices are explained in context of the e-portfolio's significance to each learner and my paper concluded with a pedagogic reflection that advised Visual Arts educators to teach these aspects when teaching e-portfolio curricula.
I presented at the South African Visual Arts Conference 2013 today on a cross-section of four independent school Visual Arts learners' e-portfolio design choices. Since I spoke in its pedagogical stream', I chose to prepare a paper that focused on learners' design choices and how they varied in reflecting different aspects of the e-portfolio's significance to the learners. This was used as a basis for a pedagogical reflection, which suggested three avenues for future research into teaching approaches:
A Social Semiotic approach to Multimodal Communication (SSMC) was used to explain the significance of designed ‘texts’ (such as an e-portfolio), which learners described in their interviews and profiles. Kress (2000) proposed that textual significance can be explained by using the the three key questions of an SSMC approach; ‘Who produced it?’, ‘For whom was it produced?’ and ‘In what context and under what constraints was it produced?’. Bateman's Genre and Multimodality {GeM} framework (2008) was used to describe learners' varied page design choices using its layout, content and rhetorical structural layers. My presentation features screen grabs from the four case studies and examples of choices that reproduced, extended, replaced or undercut (Yoshioka and Herman, 2000) their educator's guidelines. His instructions constitute a meta-genre (Giltrow, 2002), which one learner complied with very closely and extended, two reproduced, replaced and extended slightly and one completely undercut. These choices are explained in context of the e-portfolio's significance to each learner and my paper concluded with a pedagogic reflection that advised Visual Arts educators to teach these aspects when teaching e-portfolio curricula.
The ‘Visual Arts Showcase e-portfolio’ meta-genre has changed and matured since 2010 to become one that assists learners by providing in-depth guidance on each design choice. This approach resonates with the compositional approach of Linguistics, where learners create meaning from the “bottom up” through specific modal choices. Although this proved successful in encouraging compliance for particular choices, it is unlikely to help learners in appreciating how different combinations of choices can be used to create successful examples within the ‘Visual Arts Showcase e-portfolio’ sub-genre.
They should encourage learners to think about the cultural and social significance that the e-portfolio may have to them; at their school, in their professional life and in hobbies, the relevant curricular and extra-mural disciplines they want to feature, who they want to involve in its development and their orientation to potential audiences. In addition to supporting coherence, this should also give more freedom to learners to develop their emergent identities and voice.
The results of following this pedagogical curriculum design recommendation are an avenue for future research. Two other important avenues are pedagogical strategies to address time constraints and design choices with e-portfolios supporting social networking: The number of lessons allocated under ‘Self-management and Presentation’ is insufficient for educators to address important issues of self-curation and publication. The effectiveness of strategies (such as ‘flipping the class’) for helping educate learners about these issues should be investigated. An important criteria for Carbonmade being used at the independent school was that it did not afford social networking functionality (Noakes, 2011). It would be interesting to explore the design choices that learners make when their e-portfolios also afford social networking affordances.
The references for the citations in this post are included in my article. I have provided its source data (such as its interviews) under http://www.travisnoakes.co.za/p/articles-and-data.html at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UXNq-TP8KVOLSAPOSid5ozWdWouTlgz5ltYqCmZOwPY/edit?usp=sharing.
They should encourage learners to think about the cultural and social significance that the e-portfolio may have to them; at their school, in their professional life and in hobbies, the relevant curricular and extra-mural disciplines they want to feature, who they want to involve in its development and their orientation to potential audiences. In addition to supporting coherence, this should also give more freedom to learners to develop their emergent identities and voice.
The results of following this pedagogical curriculum design recommendation are an avenue for future research. Two other important avenues are pedagogical strategies to address time constraints and design choices with e-portfolios supporting social networking: The number of lessons allocated under ‘Self-management and Presentation’ is insufficient for educators to address important issues of self-curation and publication. The effectiveness of strategies (such as ‘flipping the class’) for helping educate learners about these issues should be investigated. An important criteria for Carbonmade being used at the independent school was that it did not afford social networking functionality (Noakes, 2011). It would be interesting to explore the design choices that learners make when their e-portfolios also afford social networking affordances.
The references for the citations in this post are included in my article. I have provided its source data (such as its interviews) under http://www.travisnoakes.co.za/p/articles-and-data.html at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UXNq-TP8KVOLSAPOSid5ozWdWouTlgz5ltYqCmZOwPY/edit?usp=sharing.
Wednesday, 19 December 2012
Online portfolio users new to computers must get familiar with these new terms and processes.
Written for Visual Arts or Design learners new to online portfolio page creation and computers.
As a learner who wants to create one online portfolio (or more), but has not been taught computer courses and may have limited access to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in school and home, you need to learn about the new terms and processes involved in working digitally. This post was written to help you better prepare for these:
1. Getting familiar with new words, acronyms, symbols and signs in online portfolio creation.
If you are used to working on paper and canvas, the move to working on a computer screen involves learning new words (such as 'screen resolution'), acronyms (like DPI), symbols (i.e. ©) and signs (e.g. @) and new processes (such as 'file editing and saving'). It is useful to ask your educator to provide definitions if you do not understand what he or she is talking about to avoid misunderstanding what is being taught. You can also research almost any word, acronym, symbol or sign's definition using Google and other search engines:
1.1 New words
It is important to understand the words used for online portfolio page design elements (such as uniform resource locator, title, header, body, footer, et al.) as your educator is likely to provide you with guidelines for each choice. If you don't know the terms he or she refers to in lessons, you may struggle to understand the reasoning behind the guidelines. Please ask your educator if you need further help or you can find out what new words mean by using a search engine; simply type in the word you want to know, a plus (+) sign, then the word definition straight after (i.e. type 'uniform+resource+locator definition' into www.google.co.za). If you can spare the time, it's best to read through several results to gain a broader understanding of the word's definitions and usage. {You should also read my post on 'Online portfolio page design element questions to help you in creating a better one', as it lists these elements with important questions on your use of them}.
1.2 New acronyms
Acronyms are heavily used in ICT and those you will encounter when creating your online portfolio will fall under the categories including: imagery digitization (DPI, OCR); file format selection (JPG, GIF, PNG); internet-use (WWW, HTTP, .COM) and screen display sizes (W, H). Please ask your educator to explain the acronyms you do not know, or search for them (for example, type 'JPG+definition into google.com and click to its top results).
1.3 New symbols
The symbols you are most likely to encounter in online portfolio use are © for copyright, ™ for trademark and ® for registered trademark. If you encounter others, ask your teacher for help. It is also useful to get help with sourcing special symbols when typing in your computer's word processing software and via your browser. You can then also ask to be shown how to cut-and-paste these into your online portfolio.
1.4 New signs
A sign you will definitely use is the at sign (@) in creating your email address (i.e. @gmail.com). You may want to experiment with signs for emoticon creation {i.e. listening to music d(-_-)b}, too}!
2 New processes
If you are new to working with a computer, you should sit close to a more knowledgeable peer or your teacher to get help with; using its keyboard, editing and saving files, using relevant software, accessing your lab's network and installing drivers for your own device(s):
2.1 Working with a keyboard
Be sure you get help if you are struggling to type what you intended to. Pressing a "wrong" button just once on your keyboard can create very irritating results: 'Caps lock' will capitalize all your text; 'Num lock' can prevent you entering numbers; and 'Ins' can lead to you typing over content you didn't intend to. You may also need to be shown by your educator or peers how to select alternate keys (such as the symbols above your numeric keyboard) using the relevant key combinations for your operating system and its software.
2.2 Editing and saving files
As a learner who wants to create one online portfolio (or more), but has not been taught computer courses and may have limited access to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in school and home, you need to learn about the new terms and processes involved in working digitally. This post was written to help you better prepare for these:
1. Getting familiar with new words, acronyms, symbols and signs in online portfolio creation.
If you are used to working on paper and canvas, the move to working on a computer screen involves learning new words (such as 'screen resolution'), acronyms (like DPI), symbols (i.e. ©) and signs (e.g. @) and new processes (such as 'file editing and saving'). It is useful to ask your educator to provide definitions if you do not understand what he or she is talking about to avoid misunderstanding what is being taught. You can also research almost any word, acronym, symbol or sign's definition using Google and other search engines:
1.1 New words
It is important to understand the words used for online portfolio page design elements (such as uniform resource locator, title, header, body, footer, et al.) as your educator is likely to provide you with guidelines for each choice. If you don't know the terms he or she refers to in lessons, you may struggle to understand the reasoning behind the guidelines. Please ask your educator if you need further help or you can find out what new words mean by using a search engine; simply type in the word you want to know, a plus (+) sign, then the word definition straight after (i.e. type 'uniform+resource+locator definition' into www.google.co.za). If you can spare the time, it's best to read through several results to gain a broader understanding of the word's definitions and usage. {You should also read my post on 'Online portfolio page design element questions to help you in creating a better one', as it lists these elements with important questions on your use of them}.
1.2 New acronyms
Acronyms are heavily used in ICT and those you will encounter when creating your online portfolio will fall under the categories including: imagery digitization (DPI, OCR); file format selection (JPG, GIF, PNG); internet-use (WWW, HTTP, .COM) and screen display sizes (W, H). Please ask your educator to explain the acronyms you do not know, or search for them (for example, type 'JPG+definition into google.com and click to its top results).
1.3 New symbols
The symbols you are most likely to encounter in online portfolio use are © for copyright, ™ for trademark and ® for registered trademark. If you encounter others, ask your teacher for help. It is also useful to get help with sourcing special symbols when typing in your computer's word processing software and via your browser. You can then also ask to be shown how to cut-and-paste these into your online portfolio.
1.4 New signs
A sign you will definitely use is the at sign (@) in creating your email address (i.e. @gmail.com). You may want to experiment with signs for emoticon creation {i.e. listening to music d(-_-)b}, too}!
2 New processes
If you are new to working with a computer, you should sit close to a more knowledgeable peer or your teacher to get help with; using its keyboard, editing and saving files, using relevant software, accessing your lab's network and installing drivers for your own device(s):
2.1 Working with a keyboard
Be sure you get help if you are struggling to type what you intended to. Pressing a "wrong" button just once on your keyboard can create very irritating results: 'Caps lock' will capitalize all your text; 'Num lock' can prevent you entering numbers; and 'Ins' can lead to you typing over content you didn't intend to. You may also need to be shown by your educator or peers how to select alternate keys (such as the symbols above your numeric keyboard) using the relevant key combinations for your operating system and its software.
2.2 Editing and saving files
You probably have already used a mobile phone to edit and save pictures and search through these. But on moving to a shared computer in a lab, saving, editing and accessing these files often becomes more complicated, because your lab's computer is setup for many users with more complicated file paths. Your educator should show you how to setup and access a folder on the desktop where you can save your online portfolio-related work securely.
2.3 Using your computer's relevant software
2.3 Using your computer's relevant software
In digitizing imagery, you may need to edit its size, colour balance and resolution. Ask your educator or computer lab's manager to show you which software is available for this; your computer may have a basic image editing and management software (like Microsoft Picture Manager) pre-installed or more advanced software like Graphic Image Manipulation Program, Corel Photo Paint or Adobe Photoshop.
2.4 Accessing your lab's computer network
If you are scanning imagery at a different computer from the one you normally use and wish to copy it across, you should ask your educator or lab manager to show you how to access the lab's network and copy your scanned image(s) across. This is also useful if you have to use a different computer from the one you normally have access to.
2.4 Accessing your lab's computer network
If you are scanning imagery at a different computer from the one you normally use and wish to copy it across, you should ask your educator or lab manager to show you how to access the lab's network and copy your scanned image(s) across. This is also useful if you have to use a different computer from the one you normally have access to.
2.5 Installing drivers for your own devices
If you bringing your own device to class, you should bring the device's software drivers and a storage device (like a USB flash drive), too. Hopefully, your school lab's computers are up-to-date enough to install the driver and link to your device. If not, you should ask to be given access to the lastest computer at your school, so that you can install the relevant driver, download your files, save them to your storage device and transfer them to your personal folder.
Online portfolio page design element questions to help you in creating a better one.
Written for learners new to online portfolio page design choices, plus their educators.
You are already familiar with writing on paper. As you begin to work onscreen as well, it is important to understand the important differences between the analog environment of paper and the screen's digital one. The key aspects to consider whilst designing your online portfolio pages are categorized below, with related questions to answer in helping you design a better portfolio:
1. Understand the terms that define your online portfolio page's layout
Your online portfolio page is constructed using a digital page template that is constructed from a database of entries. Each webpage is constructed inside your web browser and, in Carbonmade's case, has a 'header bar' (featuring the portfolio title and 'Work' and 'About' navigation buttons), a 'page title' (either the artwork project folder's or the name you chose for your about page), a 'body section' (on your homepage this includes your project artwork folders and their titles; in your project's pages an artwork with its labels and tags and in your about page, your description, profile picture and related entries) and a 'footer' (typically used for a statement protecting your artwork's copyright). In reviewing each portfolio page, have you thoroughly defined entries for your; header bar, page title, body section and footer? If not, your page is likely to appear incomplete!
2. Use a spell-checker for your profile description
Are you sure that there are no spelling mistakes in your portfolio? While you may have to rely on your memory or a dictionary when hand-writing your profile, you should write your profile up in a word processing program (like Microsoft Word or Google Documents) to ensure that its spelling is correct. Once you're done, you can 'cut' the text content and 'paste' it into your profile description.
3. Check your digitized artworks' orientation matches your screen's
Paper is commonly used in portrait format, while all screens are made in landscape format. Before uploading digitised artwork, ask yourself if it is formatted for optimal display in the new format? If not, you should experiment with rotating, rescaling and different image resolutions to achieve the desired effect.
4. Check that all the elements of your online portfolio page's structure are present and work well with each other
The designers of Carbonmade's featured portfolios tend to take advantage of all the design options it provides. In particular, their choices for each of these webpage design elements must work together to create a thoroughly-professional impression. Check yours does too, by asking:
4.1 Online browser elements
4.1.1 Does your web address reflect the identity you're aiming to create?
4.1.2 Does your website title save well as a bookmark (see browser- and social bookmarking)?
4.2 Page title elements
4.2.1 Does your portfolio's title link well to your web address and portfolio's content?
4.2.2 Do your homepage navigation buttons link to complete pages?
4.3 Page body elements
4.3.1 Does the background colour you selected for your online portfolio resonate with the overall exhibition space effect you are trying to create (i.e. if your portfolio features mostly sketches, you may want to choose a white background to suggest a sketchbook)?
4.3.2 Does your page's heading tie in well with the page body content?
4.3.3 Do the text options you chose with your font's type, size and colour enhance the page's overall look-and-feel?
4.3.4 Have you titled your artwork project folder categories appropriately and chosen cover imagery for them that best highlights their content?
4.3.9 Have you added sufficient meta-information for your artwork folders and the digitised images they include? (For example, did you enter; an artwork description, a folder description, the relevant tags and a client description?)
4.3.10 Have you linked to your other web presences that relate to your online portfolio?
4.3.11 If you have chosen that you are 'Available for freelance', have you provided appropriate contact details that still protect your privacy from undesirable audiences?
5. Check that your copyright is protected
5.1 Have you added appropriate copyright statements in each artwork's description or your folder labels and your page footer to assert your moral rights as the artworks creator and protect them?
Hope answering these questions helps you create a better, more coherent online portfolio.
You are already familiar with writing on paper. As you begin to work onscreen as well, it is important to understand the important differences between the analog environment of paper and the screen's digital one. The key aspects to consider whilst designing your online portfolio pages are categorized below, with related questions to answer in helping you design a better portfolio:
1. Understand the terms that define your online portfolio page's layout
Your online portfolio page is constructed using a digital page template that is constructed from a database of entries. Each webpage is constructed inside your web browser and, in Carbonmade's case, has a 'header bar' (featuring the portfolio title and 'Work' and 'About' navigation buttons), a 'page title' (either the artwork project folder's or the name you chose for your about page), a 'body section' (on your homepage this includes your project artwork folders and their titles; in your project's pages an artwork with its labels and tags and in your about page, your description, profile picture and related entries) and a 'footer' (typically used for a statement protecting your artwork's copyright). In reviewing each portfolio page, have you thoroughly defined entries for your; header bar, page title, body section and footer? If not, your page is likely to appear incomplete!
2. Use a spell-checker for your profile description
Are you sure that there are no spelling mistakes in your portfolio? While you may have to rely on your memory or a dictionary when hand-writing your profile, you should write your profile up in a word processing program (like Microsoft Word or Google Documents) to ensure that its spelling is correct. Once you're done, you can 'cut' the text content and 'paste' it into your profile description.
3. Check your digitized artworks' orientation matches your screen's
Paper is commonly used in portrait format, while all screens are made in landscape format. Before uploading digitised artwork, ask yourself if it is formatted for optimal display in the new format? If not, you should experiment with rotating, rescaling and different image resolutions to achieve the desired effect.
4. Check that all the elements of your online portfolio page's structure are present and work well with each other
The designers of Carbonmade's featured portfolios tend to take advantage of all the design options it provides. In particular, their choices for each of these webpage design elements must work together to create a thoroughly-professional impression. Check yours does too, by asking:
4.1 Online browser elements
4.1.1 Does your web address reflect the identity you're aiming to create?
4.1.2 Does your website title save well as a bookmark (see browser- and social bookmarking)?
4.2 Page title elements
4.2.1 Does your portfolio's title link well to your web address and portfolio's content?
4.2.2 Do your homepage navigation buttons link to complete pages?
4.3 Page body elements
4.3.1 Does the background colour you selected for your online portfolio resonate with the overall exhibition space effect you are trying to create (i.e. if your portfolio features mostly sketches, you may want to choose a white background to suggest a sketchbook)?
4.3.2 Does your page's heading tie in well with the page body content?
4.3.3 Do the text options you chose with your font's type, size and colour enhance the page's overall look-and-feel?
4.3.4 Have you titled your artwork project folder categories appropriately and chosen cover imagery for them that best highlights their content?
4.3.5 Does the format of the thumbnails you chose (one, two or three per row) create the effect you wanted (for example, choosing one thumbnail per row creates a landscaped cinematic effect for each image)?
4.3.6 Does the labels you chose for your artwork folders look best inside the folder, below it or
should you rather design folder covers that include custom text?
4.3.7 Have you chosen an appropriate style of artwork navigation (either flipbook, flipbook with thumbnails or list) in each folder and is it beneficial to stick to a common style across all folders?
4.3.8 Have your titled your digitised artwork imagery well enough for any viewer to attribute your artwork appropriately?4.3.6 Does the labels you chose for your artwork folders look best inside the folder, below it or
should you rather design folder covers that include custom text?
4.3.7 Have you chosen an appropriate style of artwork navigation (either flipbook, flipbook with thumbnails or list) in each folder and is it beneficial to stick to a common style across all folders?
4.3.9 Have you added sufficient meta-information for your artwork folders and the digitised images they include? (For example, did you enter; an artwork description, a folder description, the relevant tags and a client description?)
4.3.10 Have you linked to your other web presences that relate to your online portfolio?
4.3.11 If you have chosen that you are 'Available for freelance', have you provided appropriate contact details that still protect your privacy from undesirable audiences?
5. Check that your copyright is protected
5.1 Have you added appropriate copyright statements in each artwork's description or your folder labels and your page footer to assert your moral rights as the artworks creator and protect them?
Hope answering these questions helps you create a better, more coherent online portfolio.
Thursday, 9 August 2012
Define your online portfolio's keywords, check its search results and take these steps to improve them.
Written for Visual Arts and Design learners and students who use online portfolios, plus their educators.
Like the proverbial billboard in a dessert, what good is an online portfolio website if it can't be readily found by your family, peers and potential clients? 'If you build it, they will come' may have worked for Las Vegas, but it won't for your online portfolio or other webpage types, whatsoever!
So, once you have created an online portfolio you want to share, it's up to you to take steps to ensure that your online creative presence(s) can be found through being well-ranked, searchable and visible. Here is a step-wise process to achieve just that:
1. Clearly define what you want to present and what you want to be searched under;
2. Refine your personal description, use of keywords and artwork tags;
3. Check your online portfolio service's search engine results;
4. Submit your online portfolio to external search engines;
5. Use your social media presences to promote your portfolio;
6. Respond to your audience;
7. Comment on others' works and create new presences;
8. Check your results, improve; check your results, improve; to infinity and beyond...
1. Clearly define what you want to present and what you want to be searched under.
In the attention economy, it is important to be highly differentiated in the work you do. This will ensure your work stands out and be easier for people searching using the distinctive combination of keywords that describe your artworks. Although it may be hard defining your niche within the constraints of your school's syllabus, you can make a start by thinking about the type of post-matriculation online portfolio you desire (i.e. for example it could have a specific niche in Fine Art (i.e. portraits of people in a particular community) or design (i.e. Surfrican slang).
It is useful to list the words that you would like your online portfolio to be found with, and then to ensure these words are used consistently throughout your portfolio (i.e. in your profile's description, artwork titles and projects' descriptions). These keywords should reflect the media, subjects or themes that predominate in your current and past work (for example; 'body-boarding photography at Cape Town's beaches' or 'Pencil illustrations of Spaza rappers').
If you are at a loss for (key)words, do your own online portfolio apprenticeship by searching the featured work of creatives whose work relates to your artworks and resonates with your interests; learn from the way the describe themselves and imitate their example. As you become comfortable with uploading work and refining your descriptions, you should develop the confidence to set your own example.
2. Refine your personal description, use of keywords and artwork tags.
Like an up-to-date online portfolio helps you prepare for your Visual Arts and/or Design exams, having the right keywords can guide your creativity and ensure your portfolio's development is aimed at realizing your post-school ambitions. Once you know the core of what you wish your online portfolio to be about, you should review your online portfolio and consider changing its title, artworks labels & tags and your profile description & tags to better reflect your desired portfolio presence. Making these changes is important as search engine algorithms rate coherence in an online presence and by consistently repeating keywords, you not only improve your search engine results, but are more likely to pull the most interested viewers for your creations.
3. Check your online portfolio service's search engine results.
You should test that your website is searchable on your portfolio service's local search engine, before checking results from external ones (like Google and Bing). For example, Carbonmade users can use http://carbonmade.com/portfolios to search for text (such as their 'first-' and 'last names') and by 'expertise' to narrow results down. Use your proper name, nicknames or whatever a friend or family member would typically use when searching for you.
No results? Oops. Check your online portfolio service preferences allow your portfolio to be found. Most services are set to "findable" by default, but yours can be an exception.
As you look at the search results page, you will notice that some creatives have not taken any time to check what their results show. Ask yourself, would you (or any other searcher) be likely to click on a result that: looks bad, features bad spelling and vague information?
No results? Oops. Check your online portfolio service preferences allow your portfolio to be found. Most services are set to "findable" by default, but yours can be an exception.
As you look at the search results page, you will notice that some creatives have not taken any time to check what their results show. Ask yourself, would you (or any other searcher) be likely to click on a result that: looks bad, features bad spelling and vague information?
 |
| Example of a search engine result for a matric learner (29 July 2012) |
If you would like the backing image to your search result to look better (which is usually your 'about' profile pic), you can experiment by seeing how changing this pic affects your result's appearance.
Should your portfolio be hard to find using your names, take steps to improve your search results (i.e. use your first and last name in your portfolio and include your nickname in your 'about' description).
You should also experiment with seeing whether you can be found using the combination of 'keywords' you want to be found with. For example, you can use the 'Sift by Area of Expertise' function to see where your results show up for combination of expertise or skills you wish to be found with.
Should your portfolio be hard to find using your names, take steps to improve your search results (i.e. use your first and last name in your portfolio and include your nickname in your 'about' description).
You should also experiment with seeing whether you can be found using the combination of 'keywords' you want to be found with. For example, you can use the 'Sift by Area of Expertise' function to see where your results show up for combination of expertise or skills you wish to be found with.
4. Submit your online portfolio to external search engines.
Once you're getting results on the local search engine, it is more likely that you'll get results on external search engines. Most users will search for your portfolio using Google or Bing: to register your online portfolio with Google for free, submit your portfolio to https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/submit-url?continue=/addurl&pli=1, and for Bing go to https://ssl.bing.com/webmaster/SubmitSitePage.aspx. You can also submit your portfolio to the Open Directory Project at http://www.dmoz.org/add.html.
At worst, your online portfolio could take up to two months to be indexed and you should check whether, how and where, it appears on the external search engine's results. If you are dissatisfied with the results, you may want to experiment with search engine optimisation techniques.
At worst, your online portfolio could take up to two months to be indexed and you should check whether, how and where, it appears on the external search engine's results. If you are dissatisfied with the results, you may want to experiment with search engine optimisation techniques.
You probably have a Facebook presence and maybe Twitter, Google+ or Pinterest ones, too. By posting a link to your online portfolio, you can introduce online connections to your work and update them when you post a new body of work or similarly significant updates.
6. Respond to your audience.
In Reasons Why Blogs Fail, Rean John Uehara makes several recommendations for bloggers to follow that could also be applied for online portfolios. One of them is to respond to comments; 'Nothing shuns away readers more than a non-responsive author. They might think that your blog is just another aggregator or a robot that publishes posts. Having a human connection is important!' It is rare that internet viewers make the effort to give feedback and you should take this opportunity to respond, whether it is to thank them for their feedback or respond to constructive criticism.
7. Comment on others' works and create new presences.
You can also raise your portfolio's visibility and visitors by commenting on other people's written and visual creative work with a link back to your blog. Once you are satisfied with the standard of your portfolio showcase, you can also create multiple presences that reflect different aspects of your creative work. For example, if you are produced work in computer graphics, you can join and publish them to www.cgsociety.org. You should aim to use sites that have a high authority in their creative niches, this way you work is more likely to be noticed.
8. Check your results, improve; check your results, improve; to infinity and beyond...
Your online presences are works in progress. In trying different approaches in promoting them, you should learn what works to attract the audience you want. Hopefully, this results in your spending less time experimenting online and more time producing artwork :) !
To let this blog's readers know if there are any other tips they should follow, simply add your advice in the comments box below.
To let this blog's readers know if there are any other tips they should follow, simply add your advice in the comments box below.
Wednesday, 18 July 2012
Digitizing one's art and designs for an online portfolio
Written for those Visual Arts and Design learners (and their educators) interested in digitizing artwork for upload to their online portfolios.
2. Organize access to digitization tools.
Once you've collated the artworks you want to digitize, you must organize access and help with the appropriate tools. The type you need to digitize your artworks should depend on their size and dimensions:
If you are at a well-resourced school with a computer lab and
library, you should be able to organize scanner assistance with either
your Visual Arts or Design educator, your computer lab's IT manager or a librarian. You may also be able to ask your Visual Arts or Design educator to setup a well-lit area for you and your classmates to take pictures or video-record your bigger works, too.
If you do not have access to a scanner, camera or video-recorder at school, you should investigate alternatives. These could include:
8. Backup your archive.
Finally, there are two types of computer users on earth; those who have lost data through computer hard-drive failure, and those who are about to! Rather than regretting that you didn't backup your digital artwork archive, you should schedule regular backups and do them to at least three different sources (i.e. external hard-drive, CD and USB memory stick). To find out more about backing up, read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_backup and to take you backup practices to the level of best practice, check out www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1847364,00.asp.
I trust that this post provides learners and their educators with the background they need to digitize their art and designs for the online portfolio services they use. I would like to thank the independant Visual Arts Head of Department and IT curriculum integration specialist, whose curricula, 'Digitising, Presenting and Publishing', was sourced in preparing a few sections of this post.
Please let me know if you have any suggestions on improving it in the comments box, below?
Making good digital copies of artwork is a core competence in creating an online portfolio that does justice to your originals. This post was written for novices wanting to achieve this through sufficiently understanding the process and key concepts of digitization. Links to other website articles and online videos have also been provided for more in-depth assistance.
The digitization process
There is a eight-step process you must follow in digitizing your art:
- Collate your best artworks and designs;
- Organize access to digitization tools;
- Get your work ready for digitization;
- Digitize your works with a scanner or camera;
- Save each work to your digital archive with an appropriate filename and format;
- Edit your files to get them upload-ready;
- Upload your files;
- Backup your archive.
1. Collate your best artworks and designs.
You online portfolio should showcase your best art to viewers. So, it is important to keep your digital up-to-date by digitizing your latest (and best) artwork and design projects. It is helpful to review your curricular tasks and sketchbooks to check what you have done, and should these creative works are at different sites (such as home, school studio, boarding house, art center, government exhibitions, etc.), you must plan a schedule for collating them. You should also consider diarising a digization session on a regular basis; this will prompt you to set the time aside for updating your personal digital archives and online portfolio.
2. Organize access to digitization tools.
Once you've collated the artworks you want to digitize, you must organize access and help with the appropriate tools. The type you need to digitize your artworks should depend on their size and dimensions:
- For very small (21.5cm x 35.5cm), two-dimensional (2D) works and small, relatively flat three-dimensional (3D) ones use an A4 flatbed image scanner;
- For small (297 × 420) 2D and flat 3D works, use an A3 flatbed scanner;
- For medium and large 2D works use a tripod-mounted camera (or mobile phone camera) in well-lit studio;
- For medium and large 3D works use a tripod-mounted camera, video-recorder or mobile phone video camera.
If you do not have access to a scanner, camera or video-recorder at school, you should investigate alternatives. These could include:
- Getting help from family and or friends at home or at their work;
- Receiving support at an Arts Center or your local library;
- Or paying for assistance at your local photocopying shop or internet cafe.
3. Get your work ready for digitization.
Once you have defined where and when you can digitize your images, you should order your collated artworks and designs in descending order; from your best, downwards. This will ensure that should you run out of time, you at least have digitized your best works first.
Checkpoints
4.1 Useful online resources for scanning or photographing your works:
A4 or A3 scanning introduction
Search for other resources
If you are having problems digitizing works, use a search engine like Google or Bing to see if there is helpful content on the relevant terms: i.e. If glossy surfaces are posing a problem, search using 'How to photograph shiny surface',
N.B. To cut down on editing time, please ensure the layout of your artwork matches that you want to see in your online portfolio when your (ie. with minimal or no background showing, nor upside down or at an unusual angle!)
5. Save each work to your digital archive with an appropriate filename and format.
Checkpoints
- Any small drawings in smudge-able media (like charcoal or pastel) should be sprayed with fixative, so that they do not change whilst marking the scanner!
- All glass-framed work should be removed from its framing, since photographing or scanning a glass surface without reflections is more complex.
- Check that any fragile work is safely stored for transport to the digitization venue.
4. Digitize your artworks with a scanner or a camera.
Working with digitization tools means learning some new terminology: you will use these tools to create 'raster images' made up of 'pixels'. Designers and digital artists distinguish between 'vector' and 'raster' images; vector images are images based on mathematical primitives, whose expressions are used to create computer graphic images, and are generally used for typesetting and graphic design. Raster images, or 'bitmaps', are going to be used when you create your photographs and scans. These images are made up of tiny colour squares. These colour squares
are pixels (there is a parallel between the pixels and the tiles in
mosaics).
Raster graphics are resolution dependent and cannot scale up to an arbitrary resolution without loss of apparent quality (unlike vector graphics, which easily scale up to the quality of the device rendering them). Before digitizing work, it is important to decide what you may want to use your digitized artworks for in the future. For example, you may have two objectives: in addition to using reduced images for your online portfolio website, you may want to print your digitized works on A4 paper.
Defining your objectives are vitally important; they should determine the initial resolution in 'dots per inch' and image size settings you choose when scanning or photographing imagery.
'Dots per inch' (dpi) refers to the number of dots of colour a colour printer creates when printing work, while 'pixels per linear inch' (ppi) refers to the number of pixels per linear inch in a raster image. For example, you would choose a high resolution, like 20,000-ppi, and a large format if you wanted to reprint your artwork at the same size. Or you would convert imagery to a small size for speedy display on a webpage (and at a low resolution, though this need not be a low, 72 dpi!) N.B. Please note that if you are only able to gain access to a mobile phone camera, its sizing is generally much higher than that used in internet imagery, so you can readily create online portfolios imagery with it.
Raster graphics are resolution dependent and cannot scale up to an arbitrary resolution without loss of apparent quality (unlike vector graphics, which easily scale up to the quality of the device rendering them). Before digitizing work, it is important to decide what you may want to use your digitized artworks for in the future. For example, you may have two objectives: in addition to using reduced images for your online portfolio website, you may want to print your digitized works on A4 paper.
Defining your objectives are vitally important; they should determine the initial resolution in 'dots per inch' and image size settings you choose when scanning or photographing imagery.
'Dots per inch' (dpi) refers to the number of dots of colour a colour printer creates when printing work, while 'pixels per linear inch' (ppi) refers to the number of pixels per linear inch in a raster image. For example, you would choose a high resolution, like 20,000-ppi, and a large format if you wanted to reprint your artwork at the same size. Or you would convert imagery to a small size for speedy display on a webpage (and at a low resolution, though this need not be a low, 72 dpi!) N.B. Please note that if you are only able to gain access to a mobile phone camera, its sizing is generally much higher than that used in internet imagery, so you can readily create online portfolios imagery with it.
Given the wide variety of scanners and cameras (including video and mobile) available, this post cannot possibly address techniques for specific equipment. It's up to you to take the initiative and either find help at your school, at home, outside or 'Do-It-Yourself' by referring to the online resources below (and/or finding the relevant equipment's manual(s)!).
4.1 Useful online resources for scanning or photographing your works:
A4 or A3 scanning introduction
Scantip's beginner guide at www.scantips.com/begin.html by Wayne Fulton is a great resource that will help you no matter what type of scanner you use.
Photographing your painting
Photographing your painting
Tyler Stalman's introduction at www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpj28da03JQ&feature=g-like is a useful guide.
Photographing your sculpture
Chris Warner shows at www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jNbVdNKaBo how to use artificial and natural light to photograph sculptures.
Same size imagery from scanning or photography
If you want to create same size imagery from your scans or photographs, read Lar Matré's article at http://matre.com/731/print-prep/ to learn how complex this is.
Video screenshots
You can use a video camera to take still photos of your work or your can take lower-resolution screenshots of video with a screenshot (on PC see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGG-58qnsnk {with your volume low} or on Mac, watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKNfjrFsO3E).
Photographing your sculpture
Chris Warner shows at www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jNbVdNKaBo how to use artificial and natural light to photograph sculptures.
Same size imagery from scanning or photography
If you want to create same size imagery from your scans or photographs, read Lar Matré's article at http://matre.com/731/print-prep/ to learn how complex this is.
Video screenshots
You can use a video camera to take still photos of your work or your can take lower-resolution screenshots of video with a screenshot (on PC see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGG-58qnsnk {with your volume low} or on Mac, watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKNfjrFsO3E).
Search for other resources
If you are having problems digitizing works, use a search engine like Google or Bing to see if there is helpful content on the relevant terms: i.e. If glossy surfaces are posing a problem, search using 'How to photograph shiny surface',
N.B. To cut down on editing time, please ensure the layout of your artwork matches that you want to see in your online portfolio when your (ie. with minimal or no background showing, nor upside down or at an unusual angle!)
5. Save each work to your digital archive with an appropriate filename and format.
Based on my design experience, I would recommend that you should first
capture your imagery in a high resolution (at 300 dots per inch, or greater) TIF image file format and then export this as a small size JPG format. The reasoning for this is that you can keep your TIF files in reserve (for larger image work, like poster creation, for example), than you would be required when using small JPG files for Carbonmade uploads.
Check that your scanner or scanner is set to scan TIF files at high resolution after the image preview is shown. You should save the source TIF scans in a folder, and create a sub-folder within it for the JPG exports. You should also give your exported files different names to ensure its easier to spot the difference between the large and small versions. For example, 'table mountain sketch 17 July 2012.bmp' is exported as 'table mountain sketch small 17 July 2012.jpg'.
6. Edit your files to get them upload-ready.
Check that your scanner or scanner is set to scan TIF files at high resolution after the image preview is shown. You should save the source TIF scans in a folder, and create a sub-folder within it for the JPG exports. You should also give your exported files different names to ensure its easier to spot the difference between the large and small versions. For example, 'table mountain sketch 17 July 2012.bmp' is exported as 'table mountain sketch small 17 July 2012.jpg'.
6. Edit your files to get them upload-ready.
You set your scanner or camera's software to edit and export imagery in JPG format. Alternatively, you can use Microsoft Picture Manager on PC, Preview on Mac, or GIMP on Ubuntu. Simply click on the appropriate link for a tutorial.
Open the jpg file(s), then focus on learning how to get the appropriate image dimension, cropping technique, colour-balance and size:
6.1 Try out different image dimensions
You will need to experiment with the dimensions that work best for you, but it should not be smaller than 448 by 336 pixels, as you will see on the 'appropriate image sizes for uploading to web/adding to documents/sending by e-mail' listed below:
A. 1024 x 768 ppi Large document
B. 800 x 600 ppi Small document
C. 640 x 480 ppi Large webpage image
D. 448 x 336 ppi Small webpage image (unsuitable– too small, low quality)
E. 314 x 235 ppi Large email (unsuitable)
F. 160 x 160 ppi Small email (unsuitable)(N.B. These may vary to some extent depending of original dimensions of image captured).
Please check that the sizing you use for digitised imagery is consistent for your portrait and landscape formats, respectively; if these sizes vary significantly it will create a jarring visual effect for the viewer scrolling through your works. That's fine if it's deliberate, but a poor show, if not!
6.2 Cropping
An important aspect of presentation is to ensure that the digitised images of your artworks are cropped neatly to the edge and no extraneous background should be visible, unless this is consistently done. For example, including the wireframe of your sketchbook may be an interesting touch when done in all sketch scans, but odd if done just for one.
Open the jpg file(s), then focus on learning how to get the appropriate image dimension, cropping technique, colour-balance and size:
6.1 Try out different image dimensions
You will need to experiment with the dimensions that work best for you, but it should not be smaller than 448 by 336 pixels, as you will see on the 'appropriate image sizes for uploading to web/adding to documents/sending by e-mail' listed below:
A. 1024 x 768 ppi Large document
B. 800 x 600 ppi Small document
C. 640 x 480 ppi Large webpage image
D. 448 x 336 ppi Small webpage image (unsuitable– too small, low quality)
E. 314 x 235 ppi Large email (unsuitable)
F. 160 x 160 ppi Small email (unsuitable)(N.B. These may vary to some extent depending of original dimensions of image captured).
Please check that the sizing you use for digitised imagery is consistent for your portrait and landscape formats, respectively; if these sizes vary significantly it will create a jarring visual effect for the viewer scrolling through your works. That's fine if it's deliberate, but a poor show, if not!
6.2 Cropping
An important aspect of presentation is to ensure that the digitised images of your artworks are cropped neatly to the edge and no extraneous background should be visible, unless this is consistently done. For example, including the wireframe of your sketchbook may be an interesting touch when done in all sketch scans, but odd if done just for one.
6.3 Colour balance
You can also try out the different colour-scheme in the editor, as listed on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_scheme. Once you have defined a scheme, you can also explore how changing an image's colour balance settings enhances (or degrades) your image's appeal.
6.4 Image size
Once you are happy with how your image looks, you need to check its file size. If you have followed the dimensions guide (6.1) it should be less than 1 Megabyte. If not, you need to be aware that a
large file size may take a while to upload and the download-time for your viewers will also be slow if they are on slow connections.
7. Upload your files.
Log into your online portfolio service and upload your files. If you have a slow connection, it is safest to upload your files one at a time since batch upoads may time out when your school's broadband is being heavily used by other learners.8. Backup your archive.
Finally, there are two types of computer users on earth; those who have lost data through computer hard-drive failure, and those who are about to! Rather than regretting that you didn't backup your digital artwork archive, you should schedule regular backups and do them to at least three different sources (i.e. external hard-drive, CD and USB memory stick). To find out more about backing up, read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_backup and to take you backup practices to the level of best practice, check out www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1847364,00.asp.
I trust that this post provides learners and their educators with the background they need to digitize their art and designs for the online portfolio services they use. I would like to thank the independant Visual Arts Head of Department and IT curriculum integration specialist, whose curricula, 'Digitising, Presenting and Publishing', was sourced in preparing a few sections of this post.
Please let me know if you have any suggestions on improving it in the comments box, below?
Saturday, 14 July 2012
Guidelines for learners' Carbonmade homepage and template choices.
Written for Visual Arts and Design learners using Carbonmade and their educators.
Carbonmade gives you varied design choices for creating three distinct pages types; a 'homepage', an 'about' page and 'project folder artwork' pages. In designing with Carbonmade's online portfolio template, you will make design choices that are specific to each page and those that apply to all. This post focuses on providing suggestions for the look-and-feel of your homepage, which covers all template choices and those specific to it. These are your 'portfolio title', 'website address', 'artwork thumbnail layout', 'artwork names', 'background color' and 'footer':
What is your portfolio for?
Before making choices, its important to reflect on your reasons for using an online portfolio. Creating a quality portfolio takes a good understanding of what you want to express, how to achieve it and how you would like your audience to interact.
As a learner, here are some important reasons to create yours:
N.B. If you are unsure, take the time to look at the portfolio examples of the creative types (see the left hand side menu) that interest you, and learn from their example. If a portfolio is one you would like to have one day, simply think about what its creator's goals are, then think if they could match your own...
Your online portfolio's title (and web address')
Once you know the reason(s) you are creating an online portfolio, you should have a sound basis for choosing a name and its website address. Your online portfolio title can be based on your; genuine identity (i.e. your real name), your nickname, a pseudonym, a fake name, a corporate identity or your particular interest (i.e. subject, theme or medium). Whatever your choice, make sure it is well-aligned to your online portfolio's aims, unless your aim is to confuse your audience :) ! As a free user of Carbonmade, your website address will be your portfolio's title inserted between http:// and carbonmade.com (i.e. http://amymullen.carbonmade.com).
Background color
Carbonmade offers just two choices for a background colour; either 'black' or 'white'. In making your choice, it is useful to think of the resonance that your colour choice creates. For example, a white background can suggest a sketchpad and is well-suited for portfolios that feature many drawings. A black background suggests a screen or film negatives and is often highly appropriate for mixed-media, photographic or film portfolios.
Homepage thumbnail layout
Carbonmade offers three design choices for the layout of your homepage's artwork folder covers; either one, two or three thumbnails per row.
If you want to create a cinematic effect, then the one thumbnail option works well. It is also well- suited for artworks in landscape format. If you prefer a look that is more similar to a gallery, then the two or three thumbnails option is more appropriate.
Artwork project folder names
Please visit my tips to name your online portfolios for advice on choosing folder names, if your educator hasn't given you specific instructions.
Artwork project folder images
Your artwork folder covers can either be the first artwork that is inside them, or show an image that does not feature in the folder itself. You can choose whether you there's merit in having artwork or designs that are especially chosen as folder covers, or whether your first folder image does the job.
Copyright your online portfolio's content using your footer.
Your Carbonmade online portfolio's 'header' section is at the top of every webpage and features your online portfolio's name and the 'Work' and 'About' buttons. You can also add a footer, which will appear at the bottom of every page. I recommend that you use this space to assert copyright for your website. To do this, insert the copyright symbol © in front of the year your online portfolio was first-published and then list the copyright owner. For example: © 2010 Travis Noakes. It is also a good idea to do the same for each artwork, when you label each newly uploaded one.
I hope this advice proves helpful. Should you need more, kindly review my online portfolio posts. Comments welcome in the box below, thanks.
Carbonmade gives you varied design choices for creating three distinct pages types; a 'homepage', an 'about' page and 'project folder artwork' pages. In designing with Carbonmade's online portfolio template, you will make design choices that are specific to each page and those that apply to all. This post focuses on providing suggestions for the look-and-feel of your homepage, which covers all template choices and those specific to it. These are your 'portfolio title', 'website address', 'artwork thumbnail layout', 'artwork names', 'background color' and 'footer':
What is your portfolio for?
Before making choices, its important to reflect on your reasons for using an online portfolio. Creating a quality portfolio takes a good understanding of what you want to express, how to achieve it and how you would like your audience to interact.
As a learner, here are some important reasons to create yours:
- To impress your adjudicators by exhibiting it as an adjunct to your analog portfolio in your matric exhibition (on a tablet or laptop computer);
- To showcase extra-mural and co-curricular work, the extra-effort in which might otherwise be unnoticed by your educator;
- To help you in your application for further education;
- To showcase your visual creativity and media-savvy to future employers;
- To show your interests in an amateur, visually creative hobby.
N.B. If you are unsure, take the time to look at the portfolio examples of the creative types (see the left hand side menu) that interest you, and learn from their example. If a portfolio is one you would like to have one day, simply think about what its creator's goals are, then think if they could match your own...
Your online portfolio's title (and web address')
Once you know the reason(s) you are creating an online portfolio, you should have a sound basis for choosing a name and its website address. Your online portfolio title can be based on your; genuine identity (i.e. your real name), your nickname, a pseudonym, a fake name, a corporate identity or your particular interest (i.e. subject, theme or medium). Whatever your choice, make sure it is well-aligned to your online portfolio's aims, unless your aim is to confuse your audience :) ! As a free user of Carbonmade, your website address will be your portfolio's title inserted between http:// and carbonmade.com (i.e. http://amymullen.carbonmade.com).
Background color
 |
| Learner EG's homepage: white background example (May, 2012) |
 |
| Learner MH's homepage: black background example (May, 2012) |
Homepage thumbnail layout
Carbonmade offers three design choices for the layout of your homepage's artwork folder covers; either one, two or three thumbnails per row.
 |
| Learner AK's homepage: horizontal thumbnails example (November, 2010) |
Artwork project folder names
Please visit my tips to name your online portfolios for advice on choosing folder names, if your educator hasn't given you specific instructions.
Artwork project folder images
 |
| Learner KP's homepage: artwork folder example (May, 2012) |
Copyright your online portfolio's content using your footer.
Your Carbonmade online portfolio's 'header' section is at the top of every webpage and features your online portfolio's name and the 'Work' and 'About' buttons. You can also add a footer, which will appear at the bottom of every page. I recommend that you use this space to assert copyright for your website. To do this, insert the copyright symbol © in front of the year your online portfolio was first-published and then list the copyright owner. For example: © 2010 Travis Noakes. It is also a good idea to do the same for each artwork, when you label each newly uploaded one.
I hope this advice proves helpful. Should you need more, kindly review my online portfolio posts. Comments welcome in the box below, thanks.
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