An overview of the ePortfolio application 6/12/2007

Introduction An electronic portfolio is an online collection of reflections and digital Artefacts (such as documents, images, blogs, résumés, multimedia, contact information). Students and staff can use an ePortfolio to demonstrate their learning, skills and development over time to selected audiences. Mahara (Te Reo Māori for ‘think’ or ‘thought’) has been developed as part of the eCDF ePortfolio Project, which is charged with creating an Open Source ePortfolio application and to provide implementation strategies for the New Zealand education sector.

Introduction to Mahara Mahara is currently being piloted by seven Tertiary organisations via My Portfolio: – Massey University – The Open Polytechnic of New Zealand – Auckland University of Technology – Victoria University of Wellington – Te Wānanga o Raukawa – Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology – Tai Poutini Polytechnic These organisations are preparing implementation case studies and along with implementation guidelines and full user documentation, these will be provided as part of the Mahara download package. Together with Mahara, My Portfolio ( and is designed to provide a life-long learning and social networking environment for New Zealand students and teachers.

Introduction to Mahara What sets Mahara apart from other existing open source ePortfolio platforms? – 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 – Social networking functionality – Flexibility to be used to create formal, informal, course related, personal and/or professional environments – Modular design, best practice programming and full documentation allows for new features and functionality to be easily integrated into the application – Language translation package based – Designed for scalability, security and interoperability – Strong consideration to pedagogy and policy during development

Mahara Framework In order to provide permissions of access control, Mahara is based on an Artefacts, Views and Access framework. Views are a collection of any number of Artefacts that exist in a user’s portfolio. Users can create any number of Views and assign View access to any number of individuals, Communities and/or Groups as they wish.

Mahara Framework This framework may be represented by the diagram below :

Mahara Framework For example:

Communities Communities are a reusable collection of users who may be added to the Community area by a number of different invitation mechanisms. Communities are designed to be a collaborative environment for members and will allow for sharing of ideas and information.

Creating Views ePortfolio owners create Views using a 4 step process: 1.Naming the View and providing access dates 2.Selecting a display template 3.Placing selected Artefacts within that View and 4.Assigning access to the desired Groups, Communities and individuals

View Templates A variety of templates are available that vary in colour, font and overall design. There are templates designed for specific Artefact types such as a Blog template and a template to display a gallery of images. Templates are associated with a category of use so that users can find the most appropriate template for their View.

View Access Users then assign access to their Views to the required Groups, Communities, individuals or they can make their View available to all their Friends, make it publicly available or keep it private. Each user or collection of users can be given access between a certain date and time window.

View Features ePortfolio owners can receive public or private feedback on their View and Artefacts within that View. Users accessing a View can report any objectionable material directly to the Site Administrator. Users can add Views and Artefacts within a View to their Watchlist and receive automated notifications of any changes or updates. ePortfolio owners can Submit a View for Assessment by a tutor or teacher allowing for a snapshot of the View and associated Artefacts on a certain date.

File Repository Mahara includes a file repository which allows users to: – 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.

Blogging A comprehensive blogging tool is provided, where blogs and blog postings are considered Artefacts and may be added to a View. The blogging tool allows users to: – Create blog posts using a WYSIWYG editor – Attach files to posts – Embed images into postings – Turn Comments on/off – Create draft postings for later publishing

Social Networking Mahara provides a social networking facility where users can create and maintain a list of Friends within the system. ePortfolio owners choose whether other users can add them to their Friends list automatically or by request and approval. An ePortfolio owner’s Friends lists shows those Views to which they have been assigned access.

Résumé Builder Mahara includes a résumé builder which allows users to create digital CV’s by entering information into a variety of optional fields including: – contact and personal information – employment and education history – certifications, accreditations and awards – books and publications, professional memberships – personal, academic and work skills and – personal, academic and career goals. Multiple résumés may be created for use within different Views for different audiences such as potential employers.

Profile Information Within Mahara users are able to share details through a variety of optional profile information fields including: – Preferred Name – Student ID – Postal address and contact phone numbers – Skype, MSN, Yahoo etc name – Introduction – Profile Icons images Each Profile field entry and Icon is an Artefact and therefore may be added to a View.

Account Options Users can customise their Account through a variety of options including contact and language preferences. Users can set Activity Preferences and specify how they wish to be contacted by the system and other users. They can also choose how they receive notification of Recent Activity on those Views and Artefacts they have added to their Watchlist.

Metadata All Artefacts have metadata which includes: – Title – Artefact Type – Owner – (Optional) Description – Date of creation – Date of last modification – File size or number of posts (blogs) Mahara also provides user defined, searchable tagging on all Artefacts.

Administration Administrators are able to customise Mahara via a number of configuration settings which include: – Language packages and themes – Virus protocol – Session and account lifetimes – Authentication methods Mahara contains a page editor which allows for customisation and dynamic editing of: – Terms and Conditions and Privacy Statement – Logged in and logged out Homepage – Copyright disclaimer – A public and logged in user Main Menu

Administration With the Modular plugin structure of Mahara, Artefact types may be configured, disabled or enabled, according to the organisation’s requirements. Users on the site may be associated with particular institutions which have their own configurable user settings. A Site Administrator may suspend a students account (for example while a claim of misconduct is being investigated)

Scalability Mahara has been designed as a web application with a plug-in architecture. This means it is possible to scale the application up by separating hardware for search, database, file storage and web servers. It is also possible to replicate each of these operational components to further scale the system upwards. In addition Mahara is designed to: – be load balanced across several web servers – have a share file data from a centralised file server – and have a separate database server. This hosting set-up has proven scalability for similar systems like Moodle.

Security Mahara automatically detects system settings that a pose security threat. Session key handling code has been tightly integrated with the core form/request APIs. Provides database abstraction that prevents any database injection attacks and input validation that prevents script injection attacks. User authentication can be tied to external systems such as student management systems or other databases such as their Student ID number.

Interoperability Mahara is built using PHP web scripting language and leverages PHP5's OO features. All plug-ins follow a consistent structure and inherit from a common base class (core functions of plug-ins are implemented once) Mahara currently supports plug-ins for Artefacts, Authentication and Search. Therefore interoperating with an existing product simply requires the development of a plug-in.

Moodle Integration The integration of the learning management system, Moodle and the ePortfolio system Mahara has now been developed and is currently undergoing testing. The use of Moodle is widespread both within a New Zealand education context as well as internationally. Users will have a seamless login between these two systems allowing them to showcase their learning and development within a course context.

My Portfolio and Moodle Users

ePortfolios for Staff Area for staff to demonstrate professional development – Published works and presentations – Individual development plans – Performance reviews Networking – Between colleagues both internal and external to organisation – Distribution of résumés, staff exchanges Research – Peer review and feedback – Sharing, distribution Teaching tool – Updating course material for electronic delivery – Reflective and critical review learning outcomes within assessment

ePortfolios for Students Student ownership and control of portfolio – Contents of unpublished ePortfolio private – Access control Area for showcasing work and reflection – Critical review of assessment items – Life-long learning and development tool Online résumé – Programme and course applications – Scholarship applications – CV for potential employers Social networking with other students – Collaborative projects – Peer review and feedback

Further Information Mahara.org ( – Roadmap, Download, Community, Support and Training etc Mahara Documents – ePortfolio Research Report – Student and staff userguides – Helpdesk Reference Guide – Implementation Guidelines – Case study questions Contact Meredith Henson on or (till 29 th