Activity-based descriptions of OSP 2.1

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Last updated: Oct 03, 2006 by Former user (Deleted)Version comment
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Collect

Each Portfolio Owner has a personal filing system of folders and sub-folders which they use to collect and organize any digital items they choose. These items may be files such as audio, video, and documents, or they may be information collected in a web-based Form they have completed within the portfolio system. OSP 2.1 uses the Resources Tool to collect, organize, and access items. Once items are stored in the Resources Tool, the Portfolio Owner may access them from anywhere within the system and reference them in any number of activities.
Wizards facilitate the construction and organization of information by providing a Portfolio Owner with guidance and structure. In OSP 2.1, Wizards may present the Portfolio Owner with activities as a linear sequence of steps, in hierarchical form, or as a set of rows and columns in a Matrix. Wizards provide important guidance, rationale, and examples which can be in the form of rich formatted text, and associated files of any type.

Reflect

Often Portfolio Owners will reflect on various aspects of their work, thinking carefully about relationships between learning experiences. OSP version 2.1 supports reflective activities throughout a Portfolio Owner's experience by providing tailored reflection Forms and guided reflection activities (through Wizards) that encourage and guide the Portfolio Owner through reflective activities. Virtually every component of OSP can be used reflectively. For example, owners may reflect through the visual relationships they compose between items on a page.

Design and Publish

Another key group of activities for Portfolio Owners is selecting from a diverse collection of items and designing a Portfolio that presents those items to a particular audience for a particular purpose. The OSP system provides a rich set of tools that give the Portfolio Owner creative freedom to represent herself in different ways over time to various audiences. The Portfolio Studio is where a Portfolio owner creates and manages her Portfolios. Any Portfolio Owner can create new Portfolios. New Portfolios may be created from pre-defined templates, or by using the Portfolio Designer. Pre-defined Portfolio Templates control layout and style for consistency but allow the Portfolio Owner to select appropriate content and customize various aspects of the presentation. The Portfolio Designer gives the Portfolio Owner much more creative freedom to design multi-page Portfolios based on a customizable selection of layouts and styles.
Portfolios may be published and shared with others in 4 ways:

  1. Portfolios may be published to other users of the portfolio system by role or by name.
  2. Portfolios may be published to anyone by email address.
  3. Portfolios may be published to a publicly accessible URL that anyone can see using a Web browser.
  4. Portfolios may be published to removable media such as CD-ROM, DVD, or USB drives.

Guide

Program Administrators and CIG Coordinators use the OSP system to provide Portfolio Owners with essential guidance throughout the Portfolio Owner's portfolio experience. The OSP 2.1 includes a rich set of tools to provide guidance in the form of structure, content, and process. The most granular building blocks of guidance Program Administrators and CIG Coordinators can provide for Portfolio Owners are Forms. Forms are a collection of fields that provide a space for user entry of data. Forms can be designed to collect virtually any kind of information desired, and they contain instructions to help users complete them. Forms can also be arranged in Wizards to provide higher level structure and process that facilitates the completion of multiple Forms. These wizards can be organized as a linear sequence, a hierarchical organization, or a set of rows and columns that form a matrix. Guidance associated with Wizards can include rich text instruction, rationale, and examples as well as file attachments of any type.
Pre-defined portfolio templates, and the layouts and styles in the Portfolio Designer also provide guidance for the Portfolio Owner.
Throughout the OSP system, terms defined in the OSP Glossary are highlighted for the user proving quick and easy access to the definitions. Terms in the OSP Glossary may be defined system-wide, and terms may be overridden in a particular CIG.

Review and Evaluation

Portfolio Reviewers, Evaluators and Guests interact with Portfolio Owners by providing Portfolio Owners with formative feedback, formative and summative evaluations, and comments. CIG Coordinators and Program Administrators are able to customize comment, feedback, and evaluations by designing Forms and Wizards to be used for those activities.

Analyze

OSP 2.1 introduces completely new reporting functionality to support analysis of portfolio data. The OSP reporting engine is based on an XML report definition that articulates the source and format of data, and the style and layout of the report. Report definitions may have multiple style and layout options that accommodate, for example, the different needs of print and screen formats.
To generate reports, Program Administrators and CIG Coordinators will use the OSP Report Designer. The Report Designer allows selection of a report definition and prompts the user to fill-in and select parameters. Reports may then be saved to run again with the same parameters, or saved in a snapshot form which will preserve the data and still provide layout and style options which can be chosen when the report is viewed. The results of any report may be exported to a file suitable for import into a spreadsheet program such as Open Office or MS Excel.