This presentation outlines how we have developed 4 new analytic reports for the open source eportfolio platform Mahara. These reports are going into "core" Mahara fromv ersion 17.10

1. ADVANCED ANALYTICS IN MAHARA
AAIM Project

2. Context of the project
HEFCE Catalyst Fund:
● short-term
● project-based activity
● emphasis on collaboration
“The benefits arising from Catalyst
funding to students, to the public and
to universities and colleges as a whole
should outweigh those to the
institutions receiving funding.”

3. ● Address recognised
limitations in Mahara’s
reporting capability
● Engage the community
internationally
● Contribute to the
maturation of an open
source learning technology
system
Aims of the project

4. Steered by peers:
reference group
drawn from 6 UK
HEIs:
● University of the Highlands and
Islands
● Cranfield University
● Gloucestershire University
● University of Warwick
● Edinburgh Napier University
● Royal Veterinary College
Open development
Developing code as
contribution to the
core open source
software
Development partners Catalyst
Open survey:
responses received
from institutions in
seven countries:
● Australia
● China
● Czech Republic
● England
● Ireland
● Scotland
● Switzerland
1 2 3

5. Activity by
users
Activity within
“Pages”
Development of reports and reporting capability:
Project Outputs
Enabling timeframe filtering within all these reports
Group
activity
Collaboration
activity

6. Currently, only the most recent modification date of a page/artefact is retained
The project development will:
● add new tables to the database to store & retain a record of all
modifications
● make this data available within the four reports to be developed
● make this data available for download
Reports: Timeframe Filtering

7. Enhancing existing “Most
popular pages” report
All pages created, edited,
visited or commented on
during the set timeframe
are returned
Reports: Page Activity

8. New report, showing all user
accounts in place at any
point within the timeframe
Captured actions are:
● create / modify an artefact
(including personal pages
and collections, group
pages)
● post to a forum
● make a comment
Reports: User Activity

9. Reports: Collaboration Activity
New report
Shows, for each week
within the timeframe,
relevant actions taken by
all users within the
selected institution

10. Enhancement of current
“Groups” report
Shows activity for all
Groups that exist at any
point within the selected
timeframe
Reports: Group Activity

11. Direction of Travel
Analytics vision: providing meaningful data for students and teachers to
guide learning - personal dashboards & visualisations
Recognising that Mahara is likely to be just one part of the picture: API
access for aggregation of data with other sources
Underpinning principle: measuring what we value, not simply valuing
whatever we can measure

12. Steering through core software
change management
Intended inclusion in October
2017 Mahara release (v17.10)
Next steps
Promotion of a direction for further development
Evaluation and presentation of
the Mahara reporting
developments via case studies

13. David Walker
@drdjwalker
Antony Coombs
@antonycoombshe
Innovation, collaboration and openness: advancing analytics in Mahara
Mark Glynn
@glynnmark
Lisa Donaldson
@dubdonaldson
http://www.aaimproject.com