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Assessment task details and instructions
Assisted by your tutors and guest speakers from the digital industry, you will research options for your career and an action plan to create & curate an innovative digital portfolio. Your tutors and guest speakers will be presenting relevant business innovation topics for the module and in some cases highlighting what is involved in their digital industry job. In order to fully understand and research your options, it is vital to attend all talks and show respect to our industry guests by arriving on time and leaving at the end. Professional communication, practise and conduct are a fundamental skill for this module and your transition into your career.
You will be required to evaluate the options for working in this digital environment and to undertake background research in your chosen careers in order to ascertain the best option for you and a plan to execute a relevant, innovative digital portfolio to help you achieve your dream career. You will investigate how to make your portfolio reach your intended audience using contemporary search and social media techniques underpinned by the buyer persona spring. The key function of the task is to meet the learning outcomes of the module but there will be other advantages in terms of practical experience, developing social capital and connections and opening up opportunities and experience that will benefit your career. We accept also that some people will not be working directly in the digital industry but the industry and digital technology play an increasing role in all careers and this module will give you the opportunity to explore this in more detail.
1. Planning report (1000 words) (40%)
Produce a written report demonstrating your research of digital industry careers and action plan for an innovative portfolio. Reflect on the guest talks relevant to your chosen career and what have you learned so far. Make use of the buyer persona spring and consider digital marketing and your digital identity. Make sure you critically evaluate a range of digital technologies, appraise these technologies to provide a detailed analysis of aspects of current IS/IT practice and developments.
- Digital careers (250 words) – what options are available to you and why – which are the most appealing and why? Prioritise the digital/IS/IT skills required by your selected option. Weave in the knowledge you have gained from all of the guest talks, which inspired you the most? Who is your buyer persona? Include facts, figures, references to evidence your claim and avoid long descriptive paragraphs with no evidence.
- Channels (250 words) – Critically evaluate and appraise a range of relevant channels digital portfolio channels. What options are available to you to make a compelling and innovative digital portfolio (websites and social media) that will help you to achieve your dream job? Use evidence and tie back to your buyer persona.
- Content (250 words) – What kind of digital content will you produce or source in order to reach your audience and how will you use search and social media digital marketing techniques? Link back using references to core textbook and other sources on keyword research and SEO (onsite and offsite)
- Data (250 words) – What data sources will you use in your research of digital careers to support the channels and content in an on going and sustainable way? How is your plan sustainable in terms of maintainability, security and keeping it updated? Make sure you include information on website and social media analytics data.
The innovative use of diagrams, graphics and visual material to illustrate your points and further demonstrate innovative thinking would be beneficial.
It is crucial to evidence your reading and research using including a wide range of in text citations, which match to a references section at the end using Harvard reference format.
2. Presentation (10%)
You will create a 4 – 5 minute ‘Pecha Kucha style’ presentation (http://www.pechakucha.org/). The topic will be My Digital Career and will present the topics from your report e.g. digital careers, channels, content and data. Presentations will be delivered in November. Note that you can also discuss innovative ways to deliver your presentation with your tutors. You can be flexible about the number of slides and method. Try and use visual material and less text to make your points. Note that this does not need to be a strict, timed Pecha Kucha as long as it does not exceed 5 minutes.
You should use references and evidence to demonstrate your wider research and reading.
3: Digital portfolio (50%)
Now you have evaluated digital practise and your career options, it is time to apply this knowledge to create a digital portfolio for yourself. You are going to implement your chosen channels, create content and use data to inform the build in order to reach your buyer persona (potential employers). Your choice of strategy will involve innovative thinking, based on your research to produce a high quality digital portfolio. If you can demonstrate your research, effort, professionalism and relevance, you can approach this in a range of ways. Our suggestion would be to select a central website platform and to create digital artefacts of your existing and original media content. This could include a combination of text, photographs, diagrams, infographics, sounds, animations, video or other. Original content is preferred, and copyright must be adhered to and this will also be discussed in class.
The purpose of the artefact is to illustrate your suitability to your chosen career. In most cases, your portfolio will also involve curating and updating your professional social media presence and using this to raise awareness of your digital portfolio and content. You should also implement keyword research, onsite search engine optimisation, link building and social media optimisation. Your digital artefacts should be posted as a blog post to your own website portfolio which may be using a hand coded website, a CMS such as Wordpress, EduBlogs or Creative Hive etc. It is crucial that the blog post is accessible to your tutors at the point of marking.
Please be mindful of any copyright and commercial sensitivity, as it should be displayed publically on the Internet. You need to use your own material or material you have the rights to use. Please raise any issues with the module team. Your portfolio should reflect the work you have put into your plan, your engagement with the industry speakers on the module, your research and your attendance and presentation at the Creative Entrepreneur event. Before the deadline, you should submit a document to Blackboard containing the title of your project and any relevant web addresses to your portfolio and your professional social media presence, which forms your professional digital identity. There is a template provided for submission and you should evidence the customisation of your portfolio and the search and social media techniques you have applied and include screenshots.
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