There are various ways for you to discover, categorize, follow, and review content shared with you in ePortfolio.

[2]Invites

Invites enable you to promote the content you're sharing with specific people. When you share an item with others, you also have the option to send an invite to those you're sharing your item with from the Sharing Settings dialog. See Sending invites [3] for more information.

An invite contains information about who shared the item, when it was shared, what type of item it is, and any description or tags it has. The sender might also include a message letting you know why they shared the item.

When you receive an invite from another user to view an item in their ePortfolio, a notification appears in the Message alerts on the minibar and the invite displays in the Unread Invites area of your dashboard. You might also receive an email informing you of the invite. You can subscribe to the Invite RSS feed from your ePortfolio settings [4] to receive external updates about new invites.

Subscriptions

Subscriptions enable you to follow activity on items or from specific people that interest you. You can subscribe to user or item activity from your dashboard, the Explore page, or your invites.

• Subscribe to an item by clicking Subscribe in the context menu of the item.
• Subscribe to other users by toggling the ​ Subscribe icon beside their names.

Use the Subscriptions filter on your dashboard to view activity on items or from users you subscribed to. Recent subscription activity also appears in your minibar alerts.

Unsubscribe to items or users by toggling the ​icon or click Unsubscribe.

Friends List

The Friends List filter on the dashboard enables you to view content shared with you or publicly from friends in your pager list.

Minibar alerts

Alerts on the minibar signal new activity related to your subscriptions and invites.

• The Message alerts display recently received invites.
• The Update alerts display assessments made on items or by people you've subscribed to.
• The Subscription alerts display comments made on items or by people you've subscribed to.

Email and SMS notifications

If you want to receive ePortfolio updates externally, use the Notifications tool located in your personal menu on the minibar to set up the following instant notifications:

• feedback added to subscribed items Receive updates about comments and assessments made on items or by users you've subscribed to.
• another user has subscribed to your updates  Receive a notification when someone has subscribed to you or one of your items.
• feedback added to my items Receive updates about comments and assessments made on your items.

See also

• Understanding ePortfolio settings [4]

Use permissions to share ePortfolio items with other users. You can set up separate permissions options for each artifact, collection, reflection, presentation, and learning objective in your ePortfolio so you can pick and choose what content you share with others. You can assign permissions to individual users, sharing groups, groups of users based on course or department enrollment, or the general public through a URL (presentations only). You can choose whether others can see the item, see comments, see assessments, add comments, add assessments, and/or edit the item.

Sharing items with internal users

You can share items with other users in your organization by selecting individual users, all users in a course or group you are enrolled in, or a previously saved sharing group.

For information on saving permission settings using a sharing group, see Setting up sharing groups [5].

Assign permissions for a user or group of users

1. Click ​ Share from the context menu of the item you want to make available to others.
2. Select when you want users to see the item in the Visibility section of the Sharing Setting dialog.
3. Click Add Users and Groups.
4. Browse for the users or sharing groups you want to add. Use the Search for field to narrow your browsing results. Users with cascading roles must perform a search to display results.
5. Click on users or sharing groups in the browse listing to add them to the Selected Users list. Click the ​ Remove icon beside users or sharing groups you want to remove from the Selected Users list.
6. Select the permissions you want the selected users to have and click Add. View more detail about permission options [6].

   Note You can adjust permissions for individual users by clicking the ​ Edit Permissions icon beside their name in the Sharing List grid. You can adjust permissions for sharing groups you've created by clicking the Edit Sharing Group link beside their name in the Sharing List grid.

7. If you want to send an invite to specific users in the Sharing List, select the check boxes beside their names and click Send Invite.
8. Click Close.

Sharing presentations with external users

You can share ePortfolio presentations with people who are not part of your organization such as friends, parents, or potential employers.

You can share presentations with external users in two ways:

• You can make the presentation publicly available to anyone through a URL. When you share a presentation this way people can only view the presentation. They cannot add comments to, add assessments to, or edit the presentation.
• You can send a personal invite to view your presentation via an email and the recipient can follow the attached link to view the presentation. The recipient must set up a username and password, and then they can see and add comments or assessments based on the permissions you gave them. External users cannot edit presentations.

Make a presentation publicly available through a URL

Note  If you make a presentation public via URL, the system includes social media icons (Twitter, Google+, and Facebook) at the top of your presentation to enable further sharing.

1. Click ​ Share from the context menu of the presentation you want to make available by URL.
2. Select Anyone with the URL below can access this item from the presentation's Sharing Settings and click Close. Share the provided URL with others.

Make a presentation externally available to specific people and assign them permissions

1. Click ​ Share from the context menu of the presentation you want to make available to external users.
2. Click Add Users and Groups from a presentation's Sharing Settings.
3. Click Click to share the presentation with an external user.
4. Enter the External Email Address of the external user you want to send an invite to and click Add.
5. Select the permissions you want the external users to have and click Add. The system automatically notifies external users of their granted permissions. View more detail about permission options [6].
6. Click Close.

   Note  The recipient must follow the link in the invite and set up a username and password to view the presentation. The invite expires after three days (or another amount of time set by your organization).

Sending invites

When you send an invite to internal users you are sharing an item with, you have the opportunity to leave them a message about why you are sharing the item and what you’d like them to do with it. Depending on how the user’s preferences are set up, they will receive the message in their email, the Invites area of their dashboard, or an RSS Reader. Recent invites also appear in the Message alerts on the minibar.

Send an invite

1. In the Sharing Settings dialog for an item, send invites to specific users in the Sharing List by selecting the check boxes beside their names, then click Send Invite.
2. Complete the invite and click Send.

Important If you send an invite to a sharing group that includes all users at your organization or all users in a particular course or department, all of the users in the group will receive the invite. This may be bothersome to users who do not know you.

See also

• Setting up sharing groups [5]
• Sharing permission options [6]

Create quicklinks to ePortfolio content in the same way as other quicklinks. However, the person following the link must have that item shared with them. If you want to include quicklinks to ePortfolio items in your course content, ensure your course participants have permission to view the item.

Create a quicklink to an ePortfolio item

1. Open the HTML Editor.
2. Click ​ Insert Quicklink.
3. Click ePortfolio Item from the Insert Quicklink dialog.
4. Select whether you want to link to a personal or shared item.
5. Do one of the following:
   • Click on the item you want to link to.
   • Click Options to edit your link title and choose how you want the link to open. Click Insert.
6. Save the HTML file.

Note  To use the comments and assessments permissions, you must make sure the comments and assessments check boxes are enabled on the item's Edit page and that a rubric for assessing items has been attached to the item. These check boxes are selected by default, but it is possible to clear them (if you want to temporarily remove the ability to comment on or assess an item), and you can change the default setting so they are not selected on new items.

Items in collections and presentations

When you include an item in a collection or presentation, the item inherits permissions from the collection or presentation (permissions are cascading), with the following exceptions:

• The Add Assessments permission is not inherited because it requires that a rubric be associated with each item.
• The Edit permission is not inherited because it would allow users to make major, possibly unwanted, changes to your ePortfolio. If you want individuals to be able to edit items in a collection or presentation, you must give them the Edit permission on each item individually.

Inherited permissions do not override existing permissions on items. For example, if you give an individual the view, see comments from others, and add comments permissions for a specific item, but only the view permission is set for a collection that contains the item, the individual is able to see and add comments to the item. This is the case regardless of whether it is accessed from the collection or outside the collection.

Items associated with a reflection

When you associate a reflection with another item, the reflection does not inherit permissions from the item, nor does the item inherit permissions from the reflection.

Sharing a reflection associated with an item, only allows users to view the name of the associated item. However, sharing an item associated with a reflection allows users to view the reflection as part of the item.

Sharing groups let you save the permissions you want a user or group of users to have so you can reuse the permissions for other items. You can create sharing groups for individual users or for all users in a particular course or group. You can have multiple sharing groups for the same users that you apply in different situations. For example, you can create sharing groups named "Comment" and "Edit and Review" and share them with the same group of peers. You would use the first sharing group for items you want to collect general feedback on and the second sharing group for items that you want others to collaborate on or revise in detail.

An organization, department, or course can also set up sharing groups and share them with you. Sharing groups that are shared with you are either optional (you can choose to apply them to specific items) or automatic (you have to use them). Automatically shared groups are either visible (appear in your Sharing Groups area) or hidden (information on the group is not available to you).

Access Sharing Groups

Click Sharing Groups from the tool navigation.

Create a new sharing group

1. On the Sharing Groups page, click New Sharing Group.
2. Give the profile a Name and Description.
3. Click Save and Close.

Add or change users and permissions in a sharing group

1. Select the sharing group you want to manage by clicking its name.
2. Click Add Users to add new users to the sharing group.
   1. Browse for the users you want to add. Use the Search for field to narrow your browsing results. Users with cascading roles must perform a search to display results.
   2. Click on users or groups of users in the browse listing to add them to the Selected Users list. Click the  Remove icon beside users or groups of users in the Selected Users list to remove them from the list.
   3. Select the permissions you want the selected users to have.
   4. Click Add.
3. Click the  Edit icon beside the user or group of users for which you want to edit permissions. Select new permissions and click the Save link.
4. Click the ​ Remove icon to remove a user or group and their permissions from the sharing group.
5. Click Save and Close.

Set a default sharing group

A default sharing group can make sharing easier if you consistently share items with the same group of users.

1. Click ​ Settings from any page in ePortfolio.
2. Select a Default Sharing Group in the Sharing Settings section.
3. Use the Item Type Filter check boxes to specify which item types to automatically apply the default sharing group to.
4. Use the Tag Filter to restrict which items the default sharing group applies to by tags.
5. Click Save.

Remove permissions from an item

1. Click  ePortfolio on the navbar or in the My Settings widget.
2. On the My Items page, click  Share from the context menu of the item you want to modify permissions for.
3. Click the ​ Remove icon next to the user or group of users you want to remove permissions from.

Remove permissions in a sharing group

1. Click  ePortfolio on the navbar or in the My Settings widget.
2. Click Sharing Groups from the tool navigation.
3. Select the group you want to modify permissions for by clicking its name.
4. Click the ​ Remove icon next to the user or group of users you want to remove permissions from.

Note You cannot modify sharing groups that your course or organization shares with you.

Delete a sharing group

1. Click  ePortfolio on the navbar or in the My Settings widget.
2. Click Sharing Groups from the tool navigation.
3. Click the  Delete icon beside the group you want to delete.

Note You cannot delete sharing groups that your course or organization share with you.

Temporarily hide an item from all users

1. On the My Items page, click  Share from the context menu of the item you want to hide.
2. Click Show Display Options and change the Visibility options available.

If you have the appropriate permissions, you can ignore shared items from other users. Once you ignore a user, all items and invites belonging to them are hidden from the following:

• your newsfeed
• the Unread Invites area
• the Invites page
• the Explore page

If you have ignored a user's shared items, you can restore the items at any time, allowing you to view all items shared with you by the previously ignored user.

Ignore items from a user

1. Click ​ Ignore Items from User from the context menu of an item authored by the user whose items you want to ignore.
2. Click Ignore from the Ignore Items from User? dialog to confirm you want to proceed with this action.

Note  Once you ignore items from a user, all items, including ones you subscribed to, are no longer visible to you.

Restore items from a user

1. On any ePortfolio page, click  Settings.
2. Click ​ Restore Items for the user whose items you want restored.
3. Click Restore on the Restore Items from User? dialog to confirm you want to proceed with this action.