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Jeff Williamson
Northern Virginia Community College
www.nvcc.edu/home/nvwillj/html-portfolios/

First, some existing GSE portfolio sites:

www.gse.gmu.edu/portfolio/tjeffs/Index.htm
mason.gmu.edu/~jbeaureg
chd.gse.gmu.edu/portfolio/entrance.html
mason.gmu.edu/~ekelley/Portfolio/Homepage/Index.html
mason.gmu.edu/~ldines/PORTFOLIO/index.htm
mason.gmu.edu/~mjohnst2
mason.gmu.edu/~mkostrze

 Now (very) some rough ideas

1. GSE requirements have a different basis than web site goals. Requirements are about minimums and evaluations by superiors; web sites goals are about maximums and use by all. Put another way: GSE requirements do not make a workable web site. You are going to tweak them some anyway - why not think explicitly about how to make a successful web site than fulfills GSE requirements, rather than the other way around?

Even a minimal consideration of how to make your GSE documents work as a web site (i.e. useful for anyone other than your evaluators) will make it vastly more interesting and usable.

2. Parts of your portfolio are unsuitable for on-screen reading.  Long papers can and should be put on the web (and bless the academics who do this!).  However if users are more likely to print them than read them online,  they should be designed for easy retrieval and quality printing.  Things that definitely help printable pages include

- linear, first-generation layout (since tables often print oddly)
- dark text, light background
- a print-friendly version of documents formatted for the screen (like you see on many pro sites)
- line length control with blockquotes, just to keep text from running completely across a page

(the above especially apply to vitae and resumes)

Other possibilities include

- multiple formats of to-be-printed materials, such as Word, Acrobat, and HTML, particularly for heavily formatted documents
- an estimate of how many pages a document will take to print
- framed sites may want to use a trick or two to get the user to set focus in the right place before printing - ask me about these
- APA citation on each document

One other thing - be sure to read Jakob Nielsen's How Users Read on the Web.  It's a great short guide to writing for the web.

www.useit.com/alertbox/9710a.html

3. Parts of your portfolio may be unsuitable for an  audience beyond your superiors. Just in skimming the requirements, it looks to me as though some parts may by just for evaluation purposes, without much general value.  If so, they should be grouped into their own area, so the surperiors can find them easily and other users won't waste time on them.

4. You must have a feedback form.  No explanation necessary, yes?

5. A site map, search function, and Help page seem nearly as required. The site map is probably clear enough.  For the search function I'll suggest just using Altavista - you can set it to search your site only.  First register your page at

www.altavista.com/av/content/addurl.htm

Then tweak my example code for your own needs. You can also check out www.searchbutton.com and www.picosearch.com for other search services.

The Help page would link to the Site Map and Search, Feedback form, Glossary, Contact Info, and Frequently Asked Questions, among other things.  Here's one Help page:

www.nvcc.edu/alexandria/al_web/help/

6. Design and mark your pages as clearly from your web site.  This would include

- using common, repeated design elements from page to page
- including some kind of site navigation on each page
-include the URL on each page - browser setups do not print these reliably

A user who lands on any page should be able to reach the front of the site (and should know that the page is part of a site which has a front page) in one click. Without scrolling.

7. Design from your users' perspective.  If organization and link descriptions only make sense to folks who know the GSE, they're not so good.  

If you have two clear groups of users - such as general web users and your evaluators - then you might want to make two home pages for your site - one which reflects the needs of each.

8. Differentiate yourself - Because everyone is following the same goals, it's easy for a lot of the sites to look the same - Jim's site, Tim's Site, Tina's site, etc. Think of the poor evaluator going through these! PhD students especially have to have a research speciality, but really, eveyone should be about something distinctive. Jennifer Lee below is clearly a math instructor, while Elizabeth Riddle is clearly an elementary inst. tech person

mason.gmu.edu/~jlee2/edit772/first.html
mason.gmu.edu/~eriddle1/edit772/home.html

9. Engage your user - Do you want people to use the site or not? If yes, then go get 'em! Don't just slap info up and wait for people to appreciate you. You can engage users on a professional level, and there's much less risk of looking non-professional than there is of making a dead, unusuable site.

At the very least, address your user in a voice other than third person at least somewhere. Welcome them, give them some directions, ask for their feedback. Make it easy for them to find things and ask when they can't find something.