This article includes information on the new premium Educator Portfolios platform.
This article is relevant for network services only. Networks are multi-site services with more than one location. Learn more about contributors for independent services (services with only one location).
In this guide:
What is a contributor and why are they important?
A contributor is someone who has been invited to your portfolio, either by you or by your organisation's management. You can have as many contributors as you like.
The role of a contributor is to provide guidance, ideas and feedback on your growth and development as an educator. Contributors can collaborate with you on your portfolio plans, respond to your portfolio stories, assign you To Dos and give you recognition.
Contributors are an opportunity to lean on and learn from other educators in your service and wider network to further grow your capabilities and build on the work you already do in Storypark.
Contributors are also helpful for services that struggle to find time to all meet together and offer feedback, and for those who may find collaboration intimidating or challenging to do in-person.
Contributor types
Depending on whether your service is independent or part of a network, the types of contributors you can have will vary.
For network services (organisations with more than one location), contributor types are:
Network Administrators
Head office administrators who manage your subscription and have oversight across all portfolios in the organisation.
Managers
Your indirect managers (eg. your manager's managers) who need access to your Portfolio for the purposes of pedagogical or HR support.
Direct Managers
A manager you report directly to. For an educator this might be your Head Teacher or Room Leader. For a Head Teacher this might be your Service Manager). Direct Managers have the same access to your portfolio as Managers, but they are notified of certain portfolio updates whereas Managers are not.
Contributors
Peers or mentors who you wish to have limited invite-only access to your Portfolio.
Network admins, Managers and Direct Managers (which we'll collectively refer to as Managers in this article) have automatic access to some areas in your portfolio, and invite-only access to other areas. Standard contributors have no automatic access and must be invited to view each portfolio story or plan.
How to contribute
A contributor can contribute by:
Responding to portfolio stories that are shared with them.
Editing and commenting on a portfolio plan (depending on the plans' permissions)
Assigning you a To Do
Giving you recognition
Viewing and reviewing your focus areas (Managers only)
Sending you a check-in message (Managers only)
Responding to portfolio stories
Portfolio stories allow you to reflect and document evidence of your work over time.
When you first publish a portfolio story it is private to you as the author but you can make it visible to any or all of your contributors by clicking the dropdown arrow in the top right of the story preview card and selecting which of your contributors you'd like to give access to.
Contributors can then respond to the portfolio story, just as they would with child stories. The responses area can be used to make suggestions, give feedback or provide encouragement.
Edit or comment on a plan
Portfolio plans are flexible spaces where you can set, plan and work towards developmental goals, inquiry, appraisals or accreditation/registration as well as anything else related to your professional learning and development. Contributors can support this work by collaborating on any plans that are shared with them. This could include editing or commenting-only, depending on the plan's permissions.
Note: Managers can also edit certain plans (depending on the template permission settings) but this is intended to support educators in setting up their plans. After that, we would suggest that most interactions happen through comments.
Start or reply to a conversation
Conversations are private to the selected recipients.
That could be a two-person mentor-mentee conversation about planning your next one-on-one meeting, or it could be an all-contributor or all-team conversation about planning a team project, inquiry or review. You can start conversations with your contributors, as well as contributing to existing threads.
View a portfolio report
Educator reports can be used to analyse trends in how tags have been applied to portfolio stories, over time.
These might be tags applied to portfolio stories and related to your professional development (eg. teaching standards tags), or tags applied to child stories that you've saved to your portfolio (eg. curriculum tags). Your contributors will be able to observe differences/similarities over time which will help them to focus their support.
Reviewing your cycles and focus areas
Cycles are set up by your network and include a set of focus areas with a start and end date. They are generally used for professional growth, appraisal, induction or leadership. A cycle can also include a self-review and/or manager review at the end of the cycle period, but does not have to.
Your managers (but not your standard contributors) can see the links you've made to your focus areas. If the cycle includes a self-review or manager review, they can contribute to this and then view it afterwards.
What permissions does each type of contributor have?
Managers can:
Invite, change permissions of, and remove contributors from their own network/organisation
Assign you focus areas and see the links you've made to them
Review your focus areas at the end of a cycle
Start plans for you from a network template. If the template allows it, they may also edit and comment on the plans
Start and contribute to new conversations (they cannot access conversations they are not added to)
View and respond to any portfolio story that you've changed from private to visible
View your portfolio reports
Message you via your manager check-in
Give you recognition, and read what others have written
View and assign To Dos
Network Administrators can:
Invite, change permissions of, and remove contributors from their own network/organisation
Assign you focus areas and see the links you've made to them
Review your focus areas at the end of a cycle
Start plans from network templates. If the template allows it, they may also edit and comment on the plans
View your portfolio reports
Give you recognition, and read what others have written
View and assign To Dos
Access an archived version of your portfolio when you leave
Contributors can:
See who your other contributors are
Comment on plans that are shared with them
Start and contribute to new conversations (they cannot access conversations they are not added to)
View and respond to any portfolio story that you've changed from private to visible
View your portfolio reports
Give you recognition, and read what others have written
View and assign To Dos
How to invite or remove a contributor
1. Go to your Contributors page and tap the 'Add contributors' tile.
2. Place your cursor in the search field and either begin typing or select from the educators listed (you can only select a single contributor at a time). Note: Managers can also select the level of access each contributor has.
3. Tap the 'Add contributor' button and they will now appear on your Contributors page.
What do contributors see when I invite them?
Contributors get their own team dashboard that provides them with quick access to your portfolio and an overview of its activity. See an introduction to the team dashboard.
Remove a contributor
As a portfolio owner, you can remove any Contributor, but you cannot remove a Manager.
On any contributor's tile, tap the small triangle in the top right corner and then tap 'Remove'.
That contributor will now no longer have access to your portfolio.
Contributor access when you leave
When you leave your current organisation, all contributors from that organisation will be removed. The network administrators though will retain an archived and locked version of your focus areas and their reviews as well as any network plans you created while you worked with them (that were shared with network admins). Learn more about what happens when you leave a service.