Reading Instructions

This portfolio contains summaries of and supporting materials showcasing my work in scholarship, teaching, and service. This page explains how to navigate the site, describing the layout (location) and description of each section as well as recommendations for navigating between sections and posts. Occasionally on this page I use the phrase technically speaking. When doing so, I am referring to technical details that you may or may not be interested in. I’ve written the text so you can skip these parts, if you like, but I encourage you, for the ease of reading this portfolio and learning a little bit about rhetorical uses of technology, to read them. I’ve tried to employ a less formal tone in those sections, for your enjoyment.

Layout

The general layout, from top to bottom, is as follows:

TOP: Clicking on my name (Dr. Cheryl E. Ball, in pink) at the top of every page will return you to the Introduction/Home page of the portfolio. You may not ever need this since you can access any part of the site from any other part of the site using the navigation menus on the right, but you might use it to re-orient yourself if you get lost.

TOP-RIGHT: A search tool is included in this portfolio (although, as the original template designer confesses, it’s not very accurate. You may need to search twice for items you know are contained in the portfolio.) Results of any search will be listed in the body of the portfolio.

CENTER-LEFT: The large space with the white background in the middle of every page is the body of the portfolio. It will contain the “contents” of portfolio links, such as this text you are reading. On portfolio contents (i.e., posts) that you can add comments to, the “Leave a Reply” feature will be at the bottom of each post or page. (This feature is disabled on the Introduction page.)

CENTER-RIGHT: The main navigation for the entire site runs the length of this center-right column. The navigation includes three main sections: Application, Supporting Materials, and Keywords. The function of each in relation to the paper application is detailed below.

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  Application menu contains major summaries of work

  Application (top) includes links to the main pages of the portfolio, as required in the print application for tenure & promotion, my copy of which is linked here.

  • The Introduction gives a short bio and summary of my research, teaching, and service agendas. Included under the Introduction are materials supplementary to the print application, including a history of how this digital portfolio came to be (in the About this Portfolio link) and Reading Instructions, which you are reading now.
  • The Curriculum Vitae page includes a PDF copy (both downloadable/printable and embedded, which you can scroll through) of my vitae. Of note in the PDF is that if you download and open it in Adobe Reader, you can click on any links provided in the document and go directly to the published versions of articles, etc. My external reviewers used this feature when reviewing my body of scholarshp.
  • The Letter of Application page is the required letter to the Provost that must accompany all applications for tenure & promotion. I have used the letter as an opportunity to explain my use of a digital portfolio as well as to explain and justify my research agenda in digital scholarship. I recommend readers start with the Letter of Application.
  • In Teaching & Selected Artifacts, I have a list of links (i.e., a table of contents) for all the teaching materials required by the CTLT Teaching Award portfolio, which the College of Arts and Sciences uses as its basis for evaluating teaching records. Also on that page are selected teaching-related artifacts. For each, I have written short summaries about why I have included them as exemplars of my teaching record.
  • As a sub-page under Teaching, I have included my Teaching Philosophy, which explains my pedagogical viewpoint and points to additional (and sometimes the same) artifacts as those listed on the above page.

• Supporting Materials
  

  Supporting Materials links to individual artifacts

  (middle) includes links to records of my scholarship, teaching, and service. I have used the same wording (e.g., Publications>Chapters, or Presentations>Major Speeches) as the print tenure & promotion application. [Technically speaking: Each category of scholarship, teaching, and service as outlined in the paper document corresponds to either a category or a tag in this blog-portfolio. To better understand what categories and tags are in blogging platforms, which is what this portfolio is built on, please see this brief explanation.] The number of entries in each category is listed in parentheses, although keep in mind that some posts are cross-listed (and are marked as such using tags). The categories are also listed in the same hierarchy (heading levels) as in the paper document whenever it made sense to do so (i.e., Major Speeches is a subheading under Presentations while Grants and Honors were both given their own headings, separate from Publications and Presentations in the paper document, so get their own major headings in the portfolio). Further information on how to navigate using categories and tags is listed in the next section.

• Keywords
  

  Keywords uses categories & tags to navigate

  (bottom) is an animated text (technically speaking: a Flash-based WordPress plug-in called WP Cumulus) composed of categories and tags from the supplemental materials. This animation is useful in two ways: (1) It groups and highlights key ideas from my portfolio–that is, you can search and read supplemental materials that are related but wouldn’t necessarily appear together (on the same page) by clicking on one of the keywords. For instance, by clicking on the word “SoTL,” this animation would retrieve a listing of all works related to the scholarship of teaching and learning, including peer-reviewed publications, professional development workshops, and grant applications. (2) Because the graphic is in constant motion, it reiterates the way I think about the shared importance of teaching, research, and service, in that the animation does not privilege one category or tag over another. Note that tags are in lowercase while categories are in initial caps. You probably won’t need to use the Keywords to navigate, but it’s there if you want to explore.

Navigation

Some general navigation tips include:

• Categories in this blog automatically list in alphabetical order, so that is a difference from the paper document and is a feature (or bug, depending on your worldview) of this blogging system. To access any of these categories, click on a link. For instance, if you click on Major Speeches, it will take you to a listing that includes all instances of times I have presented keynotes, plenaries, invited roundtables, and so on.
• Technically speaking: Every entry on my CV (with the exception of education, jobs, and areas of specialization) is listed as a unique entry in this portfolio. Because I am using a blog platform (called WordPress) to host this portfolio, each entry is called a “post.” Those posts make up the numbered entries under the Supporting Materials menu. As with all blogs, posts occur in reverse chronological order, which means—just like with CVs—entries are listed most-recent-first. So, below, when I say to click on “Older Entries” (or, conversely, “Newer Entries”), you’re literally browsing the chronological history of my academic life, via the chronology of posts. Keep in mind, however, that the blog-specific dates of entries will probably not match up with the dates in the citation information for each post. This is because I entered much of this information across several sittings, after I got permission to use a digital portfolio. As I move forward in my academic career (and now that the portfolio is set up to finally function kinda the way I want), I will be able to post items more closely to when they occur. And that’s the beauty of the digital portfolio.

Navigating between the paper application and the online portfolio

For tenure readers who want to start with the traditional paper application for tenure & promotion, I have copied all relevant links from this portfolio and pasted them under the appropriate headings in that form, making them “hot links” that you can click on from within Microsoft Word (the university’s proprietary standard) so that it opens the appropriate portfolio page in an Internet browser such as Mozilla Firefox or Opera (see technical notes, below, if you were hoping to see Internet Explorer in this list).

Navigating multiple pages of a category or tag
The links in the Word document lead to a list of posts for that category or tag, which correspond to the print application. For instance, in the heading C.6 (Scholarly Papers Published on Teaching in Your Field), I have included a link to all portfolio entries tagged “SoTL,” which stands for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.

Technically speaking: There is no category for SoTL under the Supporting Materials menu because SoTL crosses major headings and can be found (in my case) under Publications, Presentations, Grants, Workshops, and Service. Thus, I created a tag for SoTL that could cross these categories. All SoTL-based work, then, will be listed under that tag’s URL (i.e., http://www.ceball.com/tenure/tag/sotl/ — notice that the URL tells you whether it’s a /tag/ or a /category/, in case you wanted to know).

Sooo, when you click on a link in the Word doc, you’ll get a browser full of individual posts (like a search-results list) that you can scroll through. Each entry is separated by a thin pink line. (The thick pink box contains each post’s categories and tags, with which you can go “off-paper” and use to navigate.) If you scroll to the end of the page and there’s a navigation option at the bottom-left labeled “Older Entries,” then there are MORE entries for that category or tag. Click on “Older Entries” to see the rest of the posts in that category or tag (and keep clicking on Older Entries for as long as it remains at the bottom-left. It will stop appearing when you’ve gotten to the last entry).

Navigating a post
In the body of each post, the citation (or similar relevant listing), abstract (or description of that post), and accompanying materials (links to any supporting documentation, if available), are presented. In some cases, there are also links to related items in the portfolio, under a heading called see also, as well as a thumbnail image relevant to that entry. Also in each post is a pink box listing the category (of Supporting Materials) and tags (Keywords) for that specific post. Below is a description of the major sections in each post.

• The citation lists the most important information for that post. For instance, if you’re looking at a post for a Peer-Reviewed Article, then the citation section is literal: it will be the actual citation including author(s), date of publication, article title, journal title, and pages or web location (URL), if published online. For other categories, such as Committees, it includes any relevant information such as name of committee (if under Service) or name of student (if a dissertation-advising or other teaching-related committee).
• The abstract, which is sometimes called description depending on what kind of post it is, is just that: an abstract, such as for an article or book chapter, or a description of the citation, such as, if for a committee, what work I performed while on that committee. When relevant and available, I include a thumbnail image of the entry, for visual interest and to showcase my research designs (since most of these are screenshots from digital texts that I designed).
• The accompanying materials section links to relevant artifacts such as copies (pdfs or websites) of peer-reviewed articles, grant proposals, committee reports, etc. There are not always accompanying materials (or some less relevant ones that I have lost over the years), in which case I list “none available” or “not available.” In some cases, I was able to embed media elements such as videos or presentations that readers can peruse within the portfolio itself.
• Also of interest, but not mandatory for the print application, may be the see also section, which lists entries in my portfolio that may relate to the current entry. These tend to show the history or trajectory of a research or teaching project.

Navigating between posts in a single category
Because of the way I filled this blog with content (inputting many of the posts in several sittings and not across time), I have disabled the feature to navigate between individual posts (e.g., to Older or Newer Entries). This is because such navigation would misrepresent the order in which events in my academic life took place. In other words, giving readers the ability to view older or newer entries among individual posts would make it appear that I had, for instance, done eight interviews all at once during my career but none elsewhere, since I inputted all of the “Interviews” from my CV in one sitting. Thus, if you find yourself on an individual post with no “internal” navigation to other posts, please refer back to the Word document (for tenure readers) to re-orient yourself, or click on one of the categories under Supporting Materials to continue reading.

Navigating using tags in posts or category lists
If you’re feeling adventurous, you can explore this corpus more randomly than the Word document allows. In each post, there is a pink box filled with the appropriate categories and tags for that post. Both cross-reference to all other posts in those particular categories and tags. (As a reminder: Categories are also listed under the Supporting Materials menu, and tags are found in the Keywords cloud.)

Navigating using the tag cloud
The tag cloud, in the form of the animated Keywords menu, includes links to all tags and categories. Because of its size, which is necessarily small so it can fit seamlessly into the right-hand navigation column, it is a little difficult to navigate. If the animation has stopped, move your mouse over top it and the animation will restart. Words that appear slightly larger are usually those with more entries while smaller words have less entries. Also, categories are in initial caps while tags are in all lowercase. If you drag your mouse to the edges of the tag cloud, the animation will move quickly; and, it slows down as you hover your mouse over words towards the center, so you can click on them. The category or tag list will show up in the body of the portfolio, where you can scroll through its entries.

Technical Notes

Please note that this site has not been usability tested for compatibility with Microsoft Internet Explorer because, technically speaking, that browser is a piece of crap, isn’t cross-platform, does crazy stuff to good code, and no one should be using it anymore. Please download and install Mozilla Firefox, which is cross-platform (meaning it runs on Macs and PCs equally well and securely). You may need a CAS-IT or other technical support specialist to do this for you if you aren’t an administrator of your school computer (on your home computer, you just have to know your own login password). While you’re at it, here’s a list of add-ons for Firefox that you may need to view many of my projects. Most of these come pre-installed on newer machines, but you may need to update your system.

If you experience any 404 errors (pages missing; URLs not linked properly, etc.) while navigating my portfolio, please send me an email with a copied URL (you can copy this from the address bar at the top of your browser) for the page you were on, the link title you tried to click (e.g., if trying to click on “Major Speeches” and get a 404, tell me you were trying to click on “Major Speeches”; and, finally, right-click on the link you wanted (e.g., “Major Speeches) to “Copy Link Location” (or similar wording). I need all that info to fix the link. If this process doesn’t work, read this article, then email me. ;)