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How to use the Dashboard

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Your 'Dashboard'

Once you are logged in (see 'Registration') click on 'Dashboard' in the main navigation bar. You are now viewing your personal space on the OCA website. From here, you can gain a brief insight into activity on the website that is relevent to yourself - forum discussions you have taken part in, latest comments made on content within your Portfolio, messages left by others on your Whiteboard and Resources that are relevant to the course(s) you are enrolled upon.

Editing your Profile

First, you should edit your profile - click on 'Edit Profile', either on the left of the screen or in the 'Quick Links' box.

You can now upload an image of yourself (or an image you would like to represent you) to the website, which will be displayed next to comments you make on others' work and in your portfolio. Please ensure that the image has an 'RGB colour space' and is a jpeg file of approximately 72ppi width: 55px, height: 73px to ensure the upload is successful. you can also enter a 'Biography' of yourself to introduce yourself to others, and choose whether or not you would like your name and e-mail address to be visible

Uploading files to your portfolio

Now you can begin to upload files to your portfolio - click on 'Edit Portfolio' in the grey navigation bar on the left. You will now see a page called 'Choose a Folder to Edit'. Click on the 'Unsorted' folder. Click on 'Add a New File'.

You now have the option to either 'Upload a file' from your computer's hard drive (ensure it has an RGB colour space, and is a jpeg file less than 2mb in size to ensure a successful upload); include a YouTube video by pasting in the url from a video in YouTube; include an image from Flickr, by pasting in its Url; or include a link to an external website. After uploading or linking through to images and other resources, you can add a title, discription, medium and style to the file. Now, you can place them into folders...

Managing your folders

Click on 'Manage Folders' then click on 'Add a New Folder', and enter a name for your folder. Now go back to 'Edit portfolio', click on your 'Unsorted' album, and click on each of the images that you want to put into your new folder - a black border will appear around each selected image. Now click on the 'With selected' drop down menu and select the folder you would like the files to go into. To check that the files have gone into the correct folder, click on 'View Portfolio' and then click on the folder you created. You should now see the images that you moved. You can try different ways of organising your files - you may wish to order them according to the content e.g. 'People', 'landscapes' etc., or by media e.g. 'Paintings', 'Photographs', 'Video', 'links' or even by course or assignment.

Resources

The resources section of the OCA website contains links to useful websites relevant to individual courses. Some of the resources are selected by students and tutors of OCA, others are placed there by OCA staff. All resources are checked by an OCA moderator or administrator before they are made available.

To add a resource...

Go to your Dashboard and, on the left navigation bar, click on the relevant course below the 'Resources' header. Now enter the full URL (website address), the title of your resource, and your description of the course. Click on 'Submit resource', and an OCA moderator will then assess the resource before either approving, or rejecting the resource. We aim to assess resources within 2 working days of the resource being posted.

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