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Note-this blog post was written for the 2017 cycle, but has been updated to reflect the new submission date for 2019.

Uploading your National Board components works the same way for both first time and renewal candidates.  The submission window for National Board Certification will open around April 1st, and you will receive notification from NBPTS about that via email if you have a candidate number.  If you don’t find that email within a week of April 1st, you will need to email them or check your spam folder.  Although you don’t have to submit your materials until midnight on May 16th, it’s helpful to understand how the e-portfolio site works before you actually need to upload.

When you get to the site you will need to register for an account with the email voucher code you receive from the NBPTS.  The Tutorials are excellent, and include information about how to compress and submit your videos for Mac, PC, and iMovie. 

Many candidates wonder how to get their evidence and written commentaries into the same file.  What I did was take pictures of my learners’ work and import them into my Word document.  Then I exported the file to PDF.  Others scanned their evidence and inserted it into a document. 

Another method for combining your evidence and writing would be to use an app like Tiny Scanner on your phone or iPad, you can create a PDF from a picture.  If your written commentary is in PDF form at, you can open any PDF files in preview and drag and drop the thumbnail images from the sidebar to combine PDFs.

One nice thing to know is that you can upload your files now, or as you complete them, but then remove them and add different files before the submission deadline.  Just don’t “submit” until you are ready.  If there are files in your e-portfolio, but you haven’t submitted your work by midnight on May 15th, those files will be automatically submitted at that time. 

Do you have any tips for candidates about submitting their work?  Leave them in the comments!