How does a teacher add an artifact and link it to a self-assessment?

Background:

A teacher may wish to add an artifact to support their self-assessment for one or more component. The artifact can be a file, a web site, or a description of a professional practice.

Please Note:
This article will provide the steps required to add a file as an artifact, but the steps for adding a web site or a professional practice are the same.

Follow these steps:

When you are in the Self-Assessment module, one of the four tabs at the top will be the Artifacts tab. If there are any artifacts that have already been linked to this self-assessment, they will be listed on this page. In the sample below, there are no artifacts linked to this self-assessment, and there is no button or link that allows you to add an artifact from within this window. This window is only for displaying artifacts linked to this self-assessment.

To add an artifact, you will need to temporarily leave the Self-Assessment module.

  1. Click on the Artifacts menu on the left. A green marker will appear to the left of the menu, indicating that the Artifacts menu has been activated.
  2. All artifacts that have been created by the teacher (or created by the evaluating principal and shared with the teacher) during the current school year will be listed on the right. In the image below, there are not artifacts.
  3. To begin the process of adding an artifact to link to the self-assessment, click on the green Add Artifact button on the right.

The next page will be split into two parts:

  1. The Edit Artifact workspace on the left, and the Artifact Creation Checklist on the right. (You will do your work on the left side of the screen, and the Artifact Creation Checklist will check off the steps for you!)
  2. Give your artifact a descriptive title. The title must be limited to 30 characters.
  3. To upload a file that will serve as the artifact, click on the green Add File button.

Please Note:
If you wish to add a web site or a description of a professional practice, click on its green buttons, and the process of selecting it will be self-explanatory. Then continue on with the instructions below.

A dialog box will appear, asking you where to look for your artifact.

  1. A column will appear on the left side of the dialog box, listing many different options for places where you may be storing your artifact. These options include devices, web sites and social media sites.
  2. A large blue button will appear in the middle of the page, allowing you to look on a local hard drive (or a server) for your file. Most likely, your artifact will be a file. Click on the blue Choose a local file button. Navigate out to your hard drive or server, and locate the file that you wish to upload.

There will be some changes in the Attached items section of the work space:

  1. The name of the file will be displayed.
  2. A green Done button will appear. Click on it to complete this step.

You will notice further changes and take further steps on the page to continue preparing an artifact for your self-assessment:

  1. A checkmark will appear next to the first item in the Artifact Creation Checklist on the right.
  2. A new section called Rubric Component Alignment will appear on the left.
  3. Click on the domain/dimension to expand its list of components.

The componets for the domain/dimension that you selected above will be displayed.

  1. Click on each component that the artifact aligns to. You can click more than one. A green marker will appear to the left of the selected components, and a green checkmark will appear on its right. (And you can expand another domain/dimension to align the artifact to components there, too!)
  2. When you have selected all of the pertinent components to align your artifact to, click on the green Done button on the title bar of that section.

The  checkmark will appear next to the second step in the Artifact Creation Checklist.

A new section entitled Connect to Observations/Self-Assessments (optional) will appear on the page. To connect your artifact to the self-assessment:

  1. Click on the Self-Assessments row to expand the list of self-assessments that have been started this year.
  2. Click on the self-assessment you wish to link this artifact to. (And if you wish to write a rationale for linking your artifact to the components you selected above, you can do so in the text field at the bottom of the web page. This step is not shown in this online tutorial.)
  3. Click on the green Done button on the title bar of this section. (Or click on the white Clear button to clear your selections and start over.)

A checkmark will appear by the third step in the Artifact Creation Checklist. Click on the green Share Artifact button to share the artifact with the self-assessment.

Please Note:
Clicking on the green Share Artifact button does not share the artifact with your principal. It just links the artifact to the self-assessment.

The name of the artifact, along with lots of related data, will be listed on your Artifacts page.

Read the next article to see where this artifact appears in your self-assessment.