Just as there are different kinds of scrapbooks, there are wide variations in portfolio collections and in where and how the special purpose portfolios that are formed from them can be used. Here's a starter list of artifacts to consider. Begin your collection with whatever is relevant to you.
Start with who you are now. Collect all the important information about you. (The Personal Information list is a good basic collection to keep safe and available because it will save you time when you need to verify any of these documents for employment or other reasons.)
Birth certificate
Social security card
Driver's license (copy)
Any other licenses (including business, professional and technical)
Health records (incl immunizations)
Passport/Citizenship papers
Schools attended (all - elementary, middle school, high school, technical, college, university, private, etc.) school addresses, even names of teachers
Transcripts (all)
Diplomas, certificates, CEUs, licenses
Course descriptions
Assessments, test results, appraisals, grade reports
Awards, honors, honor society memberships
Internships, apprenticeships, special projects
Workshops, seminars, conferences attended
Independent learning (things you've learned on your own, or taught yourself)
Special training (military, private institute, business, etc.)
Leadership positions held
Hobbies or Interests (time devoted to or photos?)
Participation in team sports
Service project participation
Volunteer activities
Organizations joined (all)
Public speaking or performances
Awards
Travel
Jobs/Contracts held (title, description of all duties, supervisor, phone, address)
Performance reports, appraisals
Accomplishments
Military training, citations (complete description of duties, activities)
Awards
Professional licenses
Publications, reports, published articles
Training materials
Samples of brochures, flyers made
Attendance records
Organization charts
Customer surveys
Documentation of accomplishments - increases in sales, decrease in claims
Computer-related items
Major projects completed/participated in
Strengths (personal qualities that will help you contribute to an employer)
Teamwork and people skills, problem-solving, budgeting, planning and organization, time management, energy, discipline, motivation, persistence, responsibility, dependability, etc., etc.
Contributing to your family (teaching, caring for siblings, cooking - all require planning, responsibility, dependability)
Helping your friends or working on extra-curricular projects (may require teamwork, problem-solving skills, teaching skills, people skills)
Raising a family and/or running a household (requires budgeting, organization, time management skills, adaptability)
Keeping fit and healthy; being member of sports team (requires energy, discipline, motivation, persistence, teamwork)
Notice that few of the items on this list are actually physical objects. Others
imply the existence of objects, and some are intangibles, like activities or
personal qualities. You'll need to bring out the intangibles, by creating something
to represent them visually. Having a visual representation of your accomplishment
will give you an opportunity to talk about why you have included a particular
item and what it represents in terms of your abilities.
It's usually best to collect portfolio artifacts while they are being created, but it is possible to create portfolio items that "represent" your past accomplishments after the occasion has passed.
1) At the time (artifacts made on the job / during the volunteer activity, or hobby)
Reports or research summaries
Training packets
Graphics for annual report
Sales percentage increases
Handouts from training workshops
Customer survey results
Published articles
Attendance records
Computer print-outs
Brochures, flyers
2) After the fact (representations of artifacts made at the time)
Resume, certificates
Pie charts of sales, bar graphs of savings
Collage of travel experiences
Title page of report written
Photo of award or you accepting award
Symbol that represents your philosophy, with text description
Newspaper clipping describing event you contributed to
Photo of product you helped develop.
When collecting artifacts to represent your past work accomplishments, include only items which you clearly own, or which you have permission to include. For example, if you have written a report while employed, your employer is normally considered the owner, even if you wrote it as a contract employee. Be aware that you should not be divulging proprietary information of any kind. Be especially wary of showing any information relating to sales figures, computer programming or business development plans.
If you are unable to get permission to use examples of your work, you still should be able to (creatively) demonstrate your contributions. For example, try converting your sales figures into percentages. ("My team increased the sales of our division by 37 percent." or "My program led to a 40 percent increase in customer satisfaction, according to our annual customer survey.") Visually, the figures could be represented by a pie chart, or bar graph, as long as it is not possible for a reader to take proprietary information from your display. You may be able to scale down a copy of your example to the point that the figures are not readable, but the concept of your accomplishment is visible. Or, perhaps, you could remove or obscure the actual data.
Students have a distinct advantage
in this situation, because their writing, research and data manipulation samples
from classes are clearly owned by them. However, students must be aware that
they cannot freely make use of work they have completed during an internship
or period of employment, unles they have written permission from that employer.