When you register for a free account at OER Commons, a portfolio and profile is automatically created. Every time you save a search, add tags, ratings, reviews, comments, or submit your own instructional materials to OER Commons, these items are stored in your portfolio. You can quickly access all these items by clicking on the My OER Portfolio link located on the top of any OER Commons page.
Having a portfolio and profile in OER Commons can stimulate collaboration among educators and learners within and across disciplines.
The advantages to using your portfolio is that it:
- personalizes your OER Commons experience
- provides quick access to your most important OER materials
- manages all your OER Commons items in one place
- provides a history of your OER Commons activity
- makes it possible to share your OER items with others
Activity: Adding an OER saved search to your portfolio
- Go to OER Commons. You must be logged in to do this activity.
- Locate any OER item by searching with a keyword or clicking on a tag.
- On the results page, click the “Save This Search” button.
- This search is now saved in your portfolio.
- Go to your portfolio to view your saved search.
Activity: Saving an OER item in your portfolio
- Go to OER Commons. You must be logged in to do this activity.
- Locate any OER item by searching with a keyword or clicking on a tag.
- The results page appears with a listing of materials. Click on a title.
- Under the title click the link “Save Item.”
- The item is now saved in your portfolio.
- Go to your portfolio to view the saved item.
Activity: Saving tags, ratings, and reviews to your portfolio
Go to the module Tagging, Rating, and Reviewing OER Materials to learn how to create tags, ratings, and reviews, which are automatically saved to your portfolio as they are created.
Activity: Saving notes to your portfolio
- Go to OER Commons. You must be logged in to do this activity.
- Locate any OER item by searching with a keyword or clicking on a tag.
- The results page appears with a listing of materials. Click on a title.
- Under the title click the link “My Notes.”
- Create a note in the notes field, then click the “Save” button.
- The note is now saved in your portfolio.
- Go to your portfolio to view the saved note.
Searching your portfolio
You can search for items that exist only in your portfolio. You must be inside your portfolio to access this search feature.
Navigating within your portfolio
You can quickly jump to different items in your portfolio by using the navigation located in your portfolio on the left side of your screen. See Figure 1 for a visual representation of the portfolio navigation.
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Figure 1. Visual representation of the portfolio navigation.
If you have several items in your portfolio, there may be more than one page in your portfolio. To navigate to other pages, either click on a number or the back or forward arrows. These are located in the navigation bar on top and below all the items in your portfolio. See Figure 2 for a visual representation of this navigation bar.
Brackets surrounding a number indicate the page you are on. Figure 2 shows, e.g., that you are on page 2 of your portfolio with a total number of 36 pages. Notice the small arrows on the left and right ends of the bar. Clicking on the right arrow will take you to the next page while the left arrow will take you to the preceding page.
This navigation bar is present through all of OER Commons, not just in your portfolio.
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Figure 2. Visual representation of the navigation bar for browsing through pages in your portfolio.
Shared Portfolios
When your portfolio is created, by default it is a shared portfolio. Viewing shared portfolios shows what others have in their portfolio. Shared portfolios assist in knowledge sharing; you can see how others are actively engaging with OER. The concept of sharing portfolios is the foundation of the open educational resource movement: it is one of many avenues for providing access to teaching and learning materials by exchanging content for others to use and re-use.
Activity: Access OER Commons Shared Portfolios
- Click on OER Matters located on the top of any OER Commons page.
- On the left side of the screen, click on the Shared Portfolios link.
For easier access to the hundreds of portfolios, rearrange the number of results per page. If you choose “100 per page” on the drop down menu, you will have fewer pages to navigate through. Be sure to click the “Rearrange” button after you change the number of items to view per page.
Your OER profile
After creating a free account in OER Commons, you can edit your profile. There are 2 different ways to access your profile:
- Log in to your account at OER Commons.
- A page confirming you have logged in appears.
- Click on the link “Member Profile” to edit your profile.
- Edit/update your information as needed.
- Click the ”Save” button.
On the Edit OER Member page, you can set your profile or portfolio to a private setting. Our recommendation is to keep both settings public. OER Commons’ mission is to expand educational opportunities by increasing access to high-quality Open Educational Resources (OER), and facilitating the creation, use, and re-use of OER, for instructors, students, and self-learners. By keeping your portfolio public, you become a link in the chain of the OER movement.
The second way to access your profile page is to click on the “My Profile” link near the upper right corner of any OER Commons page. See Figure 3 for a visual representation.
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Figure 3. Visual representation of where to find the “My Profile” link.
"This "course" is a tutorial and rationale for open education"