MYP ePortfolio Guide - How to Prepare and What to Include

April 2026 - 10 min read

The ePortfolio is one of the two external assessment options available in certain IB MYP subjects. Unlike the on-screen eAssessment - a timed exam taken on a computer - the ePortfolio is a curated collection of your work, assembled over the course of the year and submitted digitally for external moderation. Some students find this format less stressful than a timed exam because there is no single high-pressure sitting, but it requires consistent effort and documentation throughout the year. This guide explains what the ePortfolio involves, which subjects use it, what to include, and how to prepare for the best possible grade.

What Is the MYP ePortfolio?

The MYP ePortfolio is a digital collection of student work that is submitted to the IB for external moderation. It is used in subjects where ongoing practical work and creative development matter more than performance in a single exam. Rather than testing what you can produce under timed conditions, the ePortfolio assesses the quality of work you have developed over an extended period.

The IB does not mark every student's ePortfolio directly. Instead, your teachers assess your work against the MYP criteria, and the IB then moderates a sample of ePortfolios from each school to verify that marking standards are consistent and fair. If the IB finds that a school's marking is too generous or too harsh, grades for the entire cohort may be adjusted up or down.

It is important to understand that the ePortfolio is not a folder dump. You cannot simply upload everything you have done during the year and hope for the best. It is a carefully curated, reflective selection of your strongest work, organised to demonstrate your skills, understanding, and development across the subject's assessment criteria.

Which Subjects Use the ePortfolio?

The ePortfolio pathway is available in subjects where practical, creative, or performance-based work is central to the discipline. The most common subjects include:

• Arts (Visual Art) - The most widely used ePortfolio subject. Students submit a selection of artworks alongside process documentation and written reflections.
• Arts (Music) - Students submit recordings of performances, compositions, and written analyses of musical works.
• Arts (Drama) - Students submit performance recordings, directorial concepts, script work, and reflections on theatrical practice.
• Design - Students submit documentation of the full design cycle, including research, development, prototyping, and evaluation of technology or product design projects.
• Physical and Health Education - Some schools use the ePortfolio for PHE, where students document their physical development, health understanding, and reflective practice.

Not all MYP schools choose the ePortfolio pathway. Some use school-based assessment with internal moderation instead. Your school may offer the ePortfolio in some subjects and not others. Check with your teacher early in the year to confirm which assessment pathway your school follows for each subject.

What to Include

The specific requirements vary by subject, but the underlying principle is the same: show your best work, show how you got there, and reflect on what you learned. Below is a breakdown for each major ePortfolio subject.

Visual Art

• Process work - Sketches, experiments, material tests, mood boards, and research pages that show how your ideas developed. Moderators want to see that your final piece did not appear out of nowhere.
• Final artwork(s) - High-quality photographs or scans of your completed pieces, accompanied by an artist statement explaining your intentions, themes, and choices.
• Reflection on artistic choices - Written commentary on why you chose specific media, techniques, colour palettes, or compositions. Connect these choices to your artistic intent.
• Responses to other artists - Evidence that you have studied and responded to the work of established artists. This could be written analysis, comparative studies, or artwork inspired by specific influences.
• Techniques documentation - Records of new techniques you learned and applied, including any experiments that did not work out (showing willingness to take creative risks).

Music

• Performance recordings - Audio or video of solo and ensemble performances. Ensure recordings are clear and properly balanced - a great performance captured with terrible audio undermines your work.
• Compositions or arrangements - Original pieces or arrangements with written explanations of your creative decisions, including notation or lead sheets where appropriate.
• Written analysis - Critical analysis of musical works you have studied, demonstrating your understanding of musical elements, structures, and contexts.
• Reflective commentary - Documentation of your musical development over the year, including challenges overcome and skills acquired.

Drama

• Performance recordings - Video recordings of performances or significant excerpts. These should capture both your individual contribution and your ensemble work.
• Directorial or design concepts - If you took on a directorial or design role, include your concept documents, staging plans, or design sketches with explanations.
• Script analysis or devising documentation - Evidence of your engagement with dramatic texts or the devising process, including annotated scripts, character analyses, or devising logs.
• Reflection on theatrical choices - Written reflection connecting your practical work to theatrical traditions, practitioners, or performance styles you studied.

Design

• Inquiring and analysing - Research into the design problem, client or user needs analysis, and investigation of existing solutions.
• Developing ideas - Sketches, concept drawings, feasibility studies, and design specifications that show how your solution took shape.
• Creating the solution - Documentation of the making process, including prototypes, iterations, testing records, and the final product.
• Evaluating - Critical evaluation of your final product against the design specification, including user feedback and suggestions for improvement.

How the ePortfolio Is Assessed

The ePortfolio is assessed against the same four MYP criteria (A, B, C, D) that apply to all MYP subjects. For Arts subjects, these criteria are:

• Criterion A: Knowing and Understanding - Your knowledge of the art form, its elements, and its contexts
• Criterion B: Developing Skills - Your technical proficiency and ability to apply skills effectively
• Criterion C: Thinking Creatively - Your creative process, risk-taking, and originality
• Criterion D: Responding - Your ability to reflect on your own work and respond to the work of others

Each criterion is marked out of 8, giving a total out of 32. This total is then converted to an MYP grade from 1 to 7 using the standard grade boundaries. The same boundaries apply whether a student takes the ePortfolio or school-based assessment, so neither pathway is inherently easier or harder.

Preparation Timeline

One of the most common mistakes students make with the ePortfolio is treating it as something to worry about at the end of the year. In reality, effective ePortfolio preparation begins on day one. Here is a realistic timeline:

Months 1-3: Collect Everything

From the very start of the year, build a habit of documenting every piece of work you create. Photograph sketches before they get crumpled in your bag. Record practice sessions even if they are rough. Save every draft of written work. You do not need to organise anything yet - just accumulate raw material. The goal is to have a rich archive to choose from later. Students who skip this step always regret it.

Months 4-6: Start Selecting

By mid-year, you should have a substantial body of work to review. Begin identifying your strongest pieces - the ones that best demonstrate your skills and growth. Ask your teacher for feedback on which pieces show the most potential for the ePortfolio. This is also a good time to identify any gaps: if you have strong practical work but weak reflection, start writing. If your process documentation is thin, make an effort to document your working process more carefully from this point forward.

Months 7-8: Write Reflections

This is where many students fall short. The practical work may be excellent, but without thoughtful reflections, you will score poorly on Criterion D (Responding). For each piece you plan to include, write a reflection that explains your artistic intentions, the choices you made and why, what you learned from the process, how the piece connects to artists or styles you studied, and what you would do differently. These reflections should be specific and substantive, not generic filler.

Final Month: Curate and Submit

In the final weeks, focus on presentation and quality control. Make sure all photographs are sharp and well-lit, all audio is clear, all video is stable and properly framed. Label everything clearly so the moderator can navigate your submission easily. Check that your ePortfolio tells a coherent story of your development, and confirm with your teacher that all required elements are present and correctly formatted.

Tips for a Strong ePortfolio

1. Quality over quantity - Three or four excellent pieces with deep, thoughtful reflection will always outperform ten mediocre pieces with surface-level commentary. The moderator is looking for depth, not volume.
2. Show development - Include early work alongside improved later work to demonstrate growth. A piece from the start of the year compared with a similar piece from the end tells a powerful story about your learning.
3. Reflect meaningfully - "I liked this piece" is not reflection. "I chose watercolour over acrylic because the translucency better captured the atmospheric quality I was responding to in Monet's water lily series" is reflection. Be specific about your choices and connect them to your intentions.
4. Technical quality matters - Photograph artwork in natural or studio lighting, not under flickering classroom fluorescents. Make sure audio recordings are free of background noise. Stabilise video recordings with a tripod or stable surface. Poor documentation quality distracts from the work itself.
5. Connect to artists and influences - Show that your work is informed by research, not created in isolation. Reference specific artists, movements, techniques, or cultural contexts that shaped your creative decisions.
6. Use MYP language - Reference the assessment criteria in your reflections. Use command terms like analyse, evaluate, and justify. Connect your work to global contexts where relevant. This signals to the moderator that you understand the assessment framework.

Common Mistakes

Avoid these pitfalls that cost students marks every year:

1. Leaving everything until the last month - You cannot recreate process work retroactively. If you did not photograph your sketches in September, they are gone. The ePortfolio rewards sustained effort throughout the year, not a last-minute scramble.
2. Submitting work without reflection - Practical work without accompanying reflection scores poorly on Criterion D. Even outstanding artwork will not reach the top bands if there is no evidence of critical thinking and self-evaluation.
3. Poor documentation quality - Blurry photographs, inaudible recordings, and shaky video undermine otherwise strong work. The moderator can only assess what they can see and hear clearly.
4. Not showing range - Submitting four very similar pieces (for example, four pencil portraits) does not demonstrate breadth of skill. Include work that shows different media, techniques, styles, or approaches to demonstrate versatility.
5. Ignoring the design cycle in Design ePortfolios - Going straight from an initial idea to a final product without documented research, development, and iteration will cost marks in every criterion. The design cycle is not a bureaucratic hoop - it is the framework the moderator uses to assess your work.

Related Guides

• MYP Personal Project Guide
• Understanding IB MYP Assessment Criteria
• ATL Skills Guide for MYP Students