Journal entries are records of experiences, events or incidences that have had an influence on you, your practice or your students. They are also used for confidential dialogue and reflection with your Manager or chosen Mentor.
Creating an entry
- Select Journal from the navigation menu on the left.
- To create a new entry, select Add new entry in the top right corner.
- Enter your title, the date (if you wish to backdate it) and your opening entry content.
- If you wish to immediately attach evidence or resources of any kind, select the checkbox and then press Save.
Entry Management
- Manage Evidence - this includes documents, links and Reviews (direct link to your self-review level).
- Edit entry – this is only available until you share the entry.
- Delete – this is only available until you share the entry.
- Share this entry – choose to share the entry with your manager (appraiser) and/or a Mentor. Mentors are chosen by you, however, please be aware if selected they can also see your CPL, Professional Objectives and Self-Reviews.
- Add to Progress Summary – if you aren’t aware, the progress summary is a single file of all your activity from self-reviews to observations. You can choose to add entries to this, should you wish to download your portfolio in full.
- Comments – this is where your reflections, evidence and dialogue takes place, should you have shared the entry.
- Download PDF – should you wish to share the entry but not have additional participants.
As you begin sharing and populating your entry, icons on your index page will begin to highlight, so you can quickly see the activity of each entry.
You can hover over each icon if you are unsure what they refer to. In order it shows; Progress Summary link, Shared Status, Evidence, and Comments.
Notifications
Individuals you have shared the entry with will receive a notification in their account and via email the next day (if notifications are turned on). They will also receive a notification when comments, evidence or activity occurs on the entry.
To highlight this, they will also receive an orange counter on their Shared Journals navigation bar. If they comment or add evidence to your entry, you too receive an orange counter indicator and notification.
Shared Journals
Your manager is also able to create a Shared Journals Report which gathers together any shared entries, from a particular date, that has been shared with them. This is useful if you have been working on a particular theme or need your entries gathered together.