Frequenly Asked Questions

Q: How do I get started?
A: First register for a free Foliospaces. If you want to upgrade to a Premium account or transfer to a Foliospaces hosted Institutional membership still register for a free account first.

Q: What is a View?
A: Creating an ePortfolio in FolioSpaces is better than using a blog, wiki or web page because of the unique ability it gives you to create Views at will. A View is basically a 'Showcase Page'. You can have as many as you like and share them with individuals, yor lecturer, a customer or the world. Check these HELP pages (built in views) to see step by step how easy it is to create a view. 

Q: What makes Foliospaces different from other ePortfolio systems?
A: You control which items and information (called Artefacts) within your foliospace other users see. 

Q: How do you control what others see?
A: Foliospaces allows you to drag files, videos, blog posts, RSS feeds or other ‘Artefacts’ into a ‘View’. A unique link (URL) is generated for each View which may be shared for collaboration, assessment, display or any other purpose.

Q: How many views can I have?
A: You can have as many views as you like and include different artefacts in each.

Q: How can Foliospaces be free?
A: The Foliospaces team comprises a dedicated group of eLearning Developers, frustrated by the ‘locked in’ nature of most institutional ePortfolios. The free service is supported by advertising, and premium services are also available for individuals, businesses and institutions.

Q: Will Foliospaces remain free?
A: We are committed to always continuing a free advertising supported service,  complimented by a Premium service

Q: Do I have to supply my name?
A: You do need to provide your name and email address to register on Foliospaces, but you can elect to keep it private and just show a user name. When you register be sure to take a little time to set your account preferences.

Q: Can I import my ePortfolio into Foliospaces from another source?
A:  The Mahara project is helping develop an international standard to allow interoperability between ePortfolio hosts. It is anticipated that this work will be completed during 2009. It is always good practice to have backups of all files offline. 

Q: Can you receive feedback on a view?
A: Yes you can get public or private feedback on your View and even Artefacts within that View. Users can also add Views and Artefacts within a View to their Watchlist and receive automated notifications of any changes or updates. In education students can submit a View for assessment or comment by a tutor or lecturer. A View can also be made 'live' for a specified time period.

Q: What is the file allocation quota on Foliospaces?
A: All free Foliospaces are allocated 100MB of storage. This should be plenty if images are optimised. In many cases artifacts such as videos will be stored on other sites and simply embedded in Foliospaces. Premium accounts are allocated 2GB of storage space.

Q: Why can you have as many blogs as you like in Foliospaces?
A: The Mahara powered blogging tool is comprehensive, having a WYSIWYG editor the ability to have files attached, to embed images and accept coments. Blogs can be public or private, and are also considered Artefacts and they may be added to a View. For this reason it may be desirable to have a number of blogs on different topics so thay can be included in any or multiple  views.

Q: Does Foliospaces have a Social Networking facility?
A: Yes, you can assign Friends to individual views. Friends can either self assign, or be allocated by request and approval. 

Q: What is the purpose of the resumé builder?
A: Foliospaces includes a resumé builder which allows you to enter information into a variety of optional fields or to customise yourself. Fields can include (but are not limited to) 

•Contact and personal information

•Employment and education history

•Certifications, accreditations and awards

•Books and publications, professional memberships

•Personal, academic and work skills and

•Personal, academic and career goals

Q: How secure is Foliospaces?
A: The Mahara engine that drives Foliospaces automatically detects system settings that a pose security threat. Features include -

•Session key handling code has been tightly integrated with the core form/request APIs.

•Database abstraction that prevents any database injection attacks and input validation that prevents script injection attacks

•User authentication can be tied to external systems such as student management systems or other databases such as their Student ID number. 

Q: Can you add plugins to Foliospaces?
A: Mahara supports plug-ins for Artefacts, Authentication and Search. Therefore interoperating with an existing product simply requires the development of a plug-in.