Portfolio Guidelines

We use the following guidelines and processes to assess portfolios. The portfolio you assemble must provide evidence that demonstrates how you have developed a number of the qualities and skills essential to your future success as an information professional. It also must be submitted in a timely manner, following our Portfolio Deadlines.

Five Essential Areas

Specifically, each portfolio must include evidence of work in five essential areas during your enrollment in the MLIS program:

  1. Significant teaching or training experience,
  2. Significant leadership experience,
  3. Significant practical or service experience,
  4. Sustained intellectual argument or experience through the creation of a professional-level document or presentation, and
  5. Significant project or product involving information technologies, in which you participated in its design and development.

In addition, the portfolio must:

  • Summarize and synthesize all elements, and
  • Explain how each experience contributed to your individual intellectual and professional development.

Evaluation Criteria

The portfolio will be evaluated on the following criteria:

1. Significance demonstrated by evidence of:

  • The extent to which the experience, expression, or participation included in the portfolio strengthens the individual student’s overall resume; and
  • The extent to which the experience, expression, or participation included in the portfolio illustrates a challenge or stretch for the individual student; and
  • The extent to which the introduction to each section of the portfolio or the summary and synthesis indicates clearly why the “significance” criteria listed above is met for the individual student.

Note that “significance” is determined on the basis of the individual student's experiences and the portfolio’s success in framing the portfolio requirements based on those experiences.

2. Each experience, expression, or participation included in the portfolio:

  • Occurred after the student entered the Information School,
  • Relates to the field of library and information science, and
  • Exceeds the minimum competencies required in core MLIS courses.

Manner of Presentation

Your portfolio should be a professional presentation. You may submit your portfolio in any format suitable for presentation of the necessary elements and for easy access by faculty reviewers. As you plan and assemble your portfolio, consider the faculty members who will evaluate it as well as future colleagues and employers who may review it as part of a hiring decision. Work on it iteratively. Consult with your advisor and perhaps with others as well.

Advice, FAQs, and Sample Portfolios

Consider some (unofficial) portfolio advice, read portfolio FAQs, and view student portfolios from graduates of our MLIS program.

Approval Process

A tightly-structured approval process follows strict deadlines. Find out more about the Approval Process.

If you have questions about the portfolio process, contact Marie Potter, MLIS Academic Advisor, by e-mail at mardup@washington.edu, or contact your faculty advisor.