1. ePortfolios and Mahara
Meredith Henson

2. Overview

Introductions

ePortfolios
− What is an ePortfolio?
− Why use an ePortfolio?
• Mahara
— Background and Overview
— Features
— Roadmap

3. Introduction
Meredith Henson
• Project Manager at Catalyst IT Ltd
— Moodle and Drupal projects
— Moodle administration, training and business
analysis
• eCDF ePortfolio Project Manager (Massey)
• NZOSVLE I & II Project (Open Polytechnic)

4. Introduction
Catalyst IT Ltd

Established 1997

Over 100 staff
− Wellington, Kerikeri, Nelson, Christchurch,
Australia and United Kingdom

Completely Open Source focused

Moodle and Mahara Partner

www.catalyst.net.nz

5. ePortfolios
What is an ePortfolio?
• An electronic portfolio is an online collection of
reflections and digital Artefacts
• Students and staff can use an ePortfolio to
demonstrate their learning and development
over time to various audiences
• An environment to facilitate and record
personalised, life long, reflective and evidential
learning

6. ePortfolios
Definitions

Artefacts – Electronic evidence of learning
—
documents, images, blogs, résumés,
multimedia, contact information etc.

Views – An access controlled collection of
Artefacts

7. ePortfolios
Applications for Students

Student ownership and control of portfolio

Area for showcasing work and reflection
—
Critical review of assessment items
—
Life-long learning and development tool

Online résumé
—
CV for potential employers

8. ePortfolios
Applications for Students

Online résumé cont.
—
Programme and course applications
—
Scholarship applications

Social networking with other students
—
Collaborative projects
—
Peer review and feedback

9. ePortfolios
Applications for Staff

Area for staff to demonstrate professional
development
—
Publish works and presentations
—
Create individual development plans
—
Performance reviews

10. ePortfolios
Applications for Staff

Networking
—
With internal and external colleagues
—
Distribution of résumés, staff exchanges

Research
—
Peer review and feedback
—
Sharing and distribution

Teaching tool

11. ePortfolios vs LMS’
Learning Management ePortfolio
System
Course centric Student centric
Teacher makes rules Student makes rules
Courses typically Student portfolio may be
structured structured
Grades given and managed No grading infrastructure
Content attached to course User defined content with
and generally available to highly granular access
all students
Social networking often User defines their social
revolves around course network
Tied to an institution May be institution agnostic
Limited to time studying Life long learning

12. ePortfolios
Moodle Portfolio API
• ePortfolio agnostic
• Ability to publish items from Moodle to
external portfolio systems
• New in Moodle 2.0, sponsored by MHQ
• Ready for download now!
• Puts “Send to Portfolio” buttons
throughout Moodle

14. Mahara
Background
• Funded by TEC’s eLearning Collaborative
Development Fund
• 4 consortium partners - Massey
University (lead), Auckland University of
Technology, The Open Polytechnic and
Victoria University of Wellington
• Case study partners – consortium
members and TWoR, NMIT and Tai Poutini
Polytechnic

15. Mahara
Background
• Technology Provider - Catalyst IT Limited
• The ePortfolio Project was charged with
developing an open source ePortfolio
application and to provide
implementation strategies for the New
Zealand tertiary sector

16. Mahara
ePortfolio Project Deliverables
• Generate a theoretical framework for student
ePortfolios
• Develop an open source ePortfolio application
• Facilitate a series of case studies
• Create documentation for implementation
strategies, user guides and suggested policies
• Establish an open source group for further
development

17. Mahara
ePortfolio Project Deliverables
• Research report
• Case studies
• Implementation guidelines
• Mahara.org

18. Mahara
Introduction

Mahara is based on an Artefacts, Views
and Access framework

Users can create any number of Views
and assign access to individuals,
communities, groups, keep it private or
make it public

19. Mahara
Overview

20. Mahara
Overview

21. Mahara
Features
• File repository
— Create folder and sub folders structures
— Upload multiple files quickly and efficiently
— Give each file a Name and Description
— Manage their file allocation Quota
— When uploading a file users must agree to a
configurable Copyright disclaimer

22. Mahara
Features
• Blogging
— Create blog posts using a WYSIWYG editor
— Attach files to posts
— Embed images into postings
— Comments on/off
— Create draft postings for later publishing

23. Mahara
Features
• Résumé builder
— Contact and personal information
— Employment and education history
— Certifications, accreditations and awards
— Books
and publications, professional
memberships
— Personal, academic and work skills
— Personal, academic and career goals

24. Mahara
Features
• Profile Information
— Preferred Name
— Student ID
— Postal address and contact phone numbers
— Skype, MSN, Yahoo & Yabber name
— Introduction
— Profile Icons images

25. Mahara
Features
• Social Networking
— Users create and maintain a list of Friends
and Groups within the system - building a
digital identity
— Users
can interact via Friend Messaging and
Groups based Forums

26. Mahara
Features
• Administration
— Language packages and themes
— Session and account lifetimes
— Authentication methods
— Core page and Main Menu editor
— Artefact
types may be configured, disabled or
enabled, according to the organisation’s
requirements.

27. Mahara
Points of Difference
• Students have complete ownership of
their ePortfolio
• Users have the ability to set permissions
of access to various nominated groups
• All Artefacts have associated metadata
including user defined tagging
• Contextual help is available throughout
the system

28. Mahara
Points of Difference
• Social networking functionality
• Flexibility to be used to create formal,
informal, personal and/or professional
environments
• Modular design, best practice
programming and full documentation
• Language translation package based

29. Mahara
Points of Difference
• Designed for scalability, security and
interoperability
• Multiple authentication methods
• Strong consideration to pedagogy and
policy during development

30. Mahara
Moodle Integration
• Portfolio API – export items from Moodle
to Mahara
• Mahara can do single sign on (SSO) with
Moodle
— New in Mahara 1.1 and Moodle 2.0
— Allows
users to send data from Moodle to
Mahara
— Includes account transferral

31. Mahara
Moodle SSO
• Users can roam from one application to
another without re-logging in
• Moodle/Mahara SSO built on MNET so is
secure
• Identity Provider (IDP) - system with the
users (Moodle)
• Service Provider (SP or CP) - system
where the users go (Mahara)

32. Mahara
Moodle SSO
• Accounts can be automatically be created
on the SP the first time the user logs in
• Single Sign Out
— logging
out in one place logs you out
everywhere
• Theme support
— Roaming users can see Moodle/Mahara
branded like their IDP

33. Mahara
Current State of Play
• Mahara 1.1.5 released 22/6/09
• ~1000 downloads per month
• New! Improved! Mahara.org
• Partner programme
— 14 Partners (including Catalyst)
• Mahara Moot UK09

34. Mahara
Roadmap
• Mahara 1.2
— Import/Export portfolios
— Files area improvements
— Templates and CSS simplification
• Future releases
— Ongoing usability work
— Tagging and searching improvements
— Statistics and reporting

35. Mahara
Roadmap
• Future releases cont.
— Groups, bulk add/invite
— Blogs – RSS support
— Views– feedback improvements, PDF
generation
— Résumé custom fields, PDF generation
— Advanced Messaging

36. Mahara
Who is using it?

MyPortfolio
—
UCOL, AUT, CPIT, Massey, Open Polytechnic,
Victoria University, NMIT, University of
Auckland...

Universities especially across Europe
− Glasgow, Birmingham Uni Krems,
Cambridge...
• Schools across the world
— Cumbria and Lancashire, Sylvan Union,
others in England, Spain, Germany...

37. Mahara
Examples
http://myportfolio.ac.nz/view/view.php?id=933

38. Mahara
Examples
http://myportfolio.ac.nz/view/view.php?id=932

39. Mahara
Examples
http://cterfile.ed.uiuc.edu/mahara/view/view.php?id=81

40. Mahara
More Information
• http://demo.mahara.org
• http://mahara.org
• http://catalyst.net.nz
• http://eduforge.org/projects/mahara
• #mahara on freenode