Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
the best multimedia narrative possible. The images you use should back up your
theme and your work. The images should not be sprinkled frivolously through-
out the site. Build a library of good images to use on your Web portfolio will
be part of the learning process that comes along with the design of any type of
electronic portfolio. Collecting images from different sources becomes an area
in which you must recognize copyright laws and visual style. I highly recommend
that you try to use a minimal amount of clip art and stock images and a maximum
amount of your own work samples. Clip art and stock images can be effective
when used properly. Navigation items, page headers, and images that follow a
theme are all good uses of stock images and clip art.
When it comes to telling a story of your effectiveness, your personal narrative
needs to be backed up by samples of the work. Images such as photographs
from your gallery exhibition or your classroom are appropriate. Images that you
create as art, design, or some other project deliverable are great. Photographs
from your last vacation may not be appropriate. However, if the vacation was
coupled with an interesting learning experience or valuable historical explora-
tion, the photographs may be effective in telling your professional or academic
story. Other images that you may not think of are charts and graphs that you
have created. PowerPoint projects can be used as standalone graphics by
taking individual slides and saving the content out as a JPEG image. So keep
your presentations in mind when thinking about images.
Another area of text documents that may become graphic images later on are
letters of recommendation, evaluations, and lesson plans. These items may be
scanned as graphics and exhibited as tangible assets. They will be exhibited on
the Web portfolio as graphic images rather than downloadable documents.
An easy way to add graphics to your site is to use ready-made clipart or stock
photography. These items are good for establishing themes and visual skins for
the Web portfolio site. However, they do not constitute your work. Stock
photography and clipart should not be the only images within your Web
portfolio. These images should be used only if they are considered royalty-free.
If an image is not royalty-free, care should be taken when deciding on usage.
Copyright infringement is serious and has detrimental effects on the value and
appearance of your Web portfolio. We will try to give you some insight here
as to the usage guidelines you might want to follow when using images and
graphics that are not your own.
Borrowing graphics from authors is a touchy subject. Author Miles Kimball
(2003, p. 89) sites that rules are loosely defined the copyright law are translated
