Clicking My Place, My Portfolio, My Journal allows you to access the Portfolio journal. This area allows students to record information for later reference and to communicate with their major advisor(s). Using the Journal is facilitated by two important tools: the Journal Navigation screen and the Journal Filter. You can add and edit journal entries or simply view the journal contents.
The following text answers some common questions about the Portfolio Journal.
What goes into the Journal? Virtually anything that you want to type in can go into the journal. In practice, we expect you to use the journal mostly to respond to topics. Anything that you or your advisor types in response to a topic prompt is logged into the journal.
Why do I need to write things to the journal? You don't have to, but you may find it extremely useful. As your advisor enters topics into Portfolio, she will most likely include prompts that ask you to answer specific questions before coming to see her about a topic. For example, your advisor may ask you to try to articulate your long-term career goals before choosing a major. What you record in response to that prompt will provide her with invaluable information for your next advising session.
Isn't this like letting someone read my diary? Yes and no. You can, and very well might, record very personal information within your journal. However, you also have total control over who can access each entry. If you remove your advisor's name from the list of approved readers for a particular entry, he will absolutely NOT be able to access that journal entry. In fact, he won't even know that such entries exist.
I understand that the journal "records" conversations between students and advisors very much like an answering machine or tape recorder. Can that recording be tampered with? Excellent question. If you're wondering whether you or your advisor could can go back and change a question or posted answer, rest easy. Journal entries are absolutely permanent. Although you can sort issues for better presentation, or ask the computer to "Ignore" unimportant entries, at no point can either students or advisors change an entry in the journal. Once it's there, it's there for the duration of your college life.
Won't this leave me with a lot of unrelated junk to wade through? Not at all. As you add each entry to your journal, you will mark it with an appropriate attribute - Hide, Ignore, Please Read, Please Reply, or Portfolio Bound. As you review your entries later on, you can ask Portfolio to display only Portfolio Bound entries or entries that your advisor has marked as Please Read. As always, you tell CNAV what you want to see.