2 Introduction

2.1 Introducing Digital Portfolios

A digital portfolio is an electronic collection of examples of your work. It is a tool that you can use in addition to your CV (or resume) to demonstrate your skills to potential collaborators, employers, and/or funders. Typically, these take the form of a website that is styled specifically to highlight the kind of skills you want to showcase.

You can think of your portfolio as public evidence of your data science skills.

For example, your portfolio can feature your code (including documentation) and writing samples (including publications) to show your ability to reproducibly work with data and communicate your findings. You can also use the narrative to illustrate how you develop a research question and/or approach problem-solving.

Black and white Noun Project Icon showing a woman juggling many skill icons - money, time, a computer, and a pen

2.2 Approach

We’ll use a series of steps to help you approach creating a digital data science portfolio. This is just one possible workflow. You might find that starting on a different step is more helpful for you, and that’s okay. You can think of this process as a checklist of things to do and consider before making your portfolio public, but they don’t necessarily need to happen in this order.

Suggested workflow:

  1. Set your goals for your portfolio
  2. Decide on a few projects to include (you can expand on this list later)
  3. Choose a platform for your portfolio
  4. Build a draft
  5. Get and implement feedback
  6. Share!

This workshop focuses on the first three steps (goals, projects, platform). By the end of the workshop you’ll have a solid plan for how to build your portfolio, which you can then implement afterwards.