Welcome to Carleton’s guide to creating a digital presence through a personal website!

This website will guide students through the process of creating a personal website (also known as an ePortfolio). We hope to help you learn what web content to include in your site and how to do it effectively.  

For supervisors, this site offers strategies to provide feedback on how these websites are coming together.  

Remember, creating a personal website takes time, practice, and reflection. You want to make sure the design of the site complements the content you showcase and your reflective writing is supported by evidence of your work. This could be through text, videos, images, code, musical scores, or other forms of expression. Generative AI may seem like an easy solution, but only you can make your eportfolio authentic and unique.

Why is it helpful to create a personal website?

Many of us already use different social media platforms to connect with friends and colleagues.  Having a dedicated website where people can learn about you or what you are interested in has a couple of advantages:

  1. It gives you the space to tell a concise and intentional story of who you are and what you want others to know about you.
  2. It creates not only the space but also the process of reflection that guides you to think about your learning of all kinds, across academic and co-curricular experiences, to reinforce a culture of learning beyond the classroom and to prepare for life-long learning.
  3. It helps you practice telling your story when you meet people in person. Research has shown that students with a personal website (or ePortfolio) are more confident in interview situations because they have spent focused time thinking about their knowledge and skills in connection with their work and life (Ring, G., Waugaman, C., & Brackett, B. (2017). The Value of Career ePortfolios on Job Applicant Performance: Using Data to Determine Effectiveness. International Journal of EPortfolio, 7(2), 225–236. http://theijep.com/pdf/IJEP259.pdf) .
    • “A one-way ANOVA revealed that students demonstrated statistically significant higher quality interview skills after engaging in ePortfolio pedagogy mentoring sessions, compared to students who received limited or no interventions”.
  1. Some students indicate that a carefully designed website gave their application for graduate school additional support. (AAEEBL 2023, online conference,  Student Panel, July 13, 2023)
  2. Your ePortfolio will make it easier for faculty to write letters of recommendation as they gain a deeper understanding about you, outside of the courses you have taken with them
  3. The ePortfolio can be a snapshot in time that can be interesting for future you.

You need to take the initiative – no one can think and create for you. Your time spent on your website will pay off.

Click for form to ask questions or provide feedback.

What questions do you have about the ePortfolio creation?

Please use this form to provide feedback on anything ePortfolio related. What parts of the design and technical process need more explanation? What parts of providing support need more explanation? What other ideas do you have to improve this site?

Please let us know how we can improve the process for creating an ePortfolio and other aspects of this web site.
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