2. Introduction — Mahara 19.

10 manual

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Table of Contents

2. Introduction
2.1. What is Mahara?
2.2. Using a metaphor
2.2.1. The gallery or museum
2.2.2. The performance
2.3. The Mahara framework
2.4. How does Mahara fit in to the e-learning landscape?
2.5. What if Mahara does not support a feature I want?
2.6. Other things to do
2.7. Where can I get ideas of how to use Mahara?
2.8. Getting help
2.9. Mahara and accessibility
2.10. Which version of Mahara do I have?

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2. Introduction
Welcome to the Mahara manual. This manual is designed to provide documentation for people who use
Mahara on a day-to-day basis. It covers the functionalities of Mahara to provide you with information about
what you see on the screen.

Without further ado, let’s begin!

2.1. What is Mahara?

If you’re wondering what Mahara or an ePortfolio is, why you might want one and what it can do for you,
then read on. You’re about to find out.

At the simplest level, Mahara is two things: an ePortfolio and a social networking system combined. An
ePortfolio is a system in which students can record “evidence of lifelong learning” – such as essays,
artwork or other such things they produce that can be stored digitally. Such things are known as artefacts
in Mahara. Social networking systems give a way for people to interact with their friends and create their
own online communities.

But Mahara is much more than just a place to store files. Mahara also includes blogging, a résumé builder,
and web services to integrate with other platforms.

  Here’s a short video by Domi Sinclair, formerly at University College London. She explains
what Mahara (called “MyPortfolio” at UCL) is and for what it can be used.

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2.2. Using a metaphor

It often helps to use a metaphor to explain a new concept. There are many metaphors used for portfolios.
Here are two of them to give you an idea of how you could explain portfolios to your learners.

  Kate Coleman explores the idea of using metaphors for portfolio work in her PhD thesis.

Would you use any of these metaphors? Do you have your own?

2.2.1. The gallery or museum

The gallery or museum metaphor

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  This metaphor is used by Mandia Mentis at Massey University in New Zealand. She shared
her idea in the Mahara Newsletter January 2018.

The basement is the common storage space of all the artefacts that the gallery owns or has leased.
Artefacts are organized and catalogued to be found more easily later on when they are needed. A curator
may shuffle artefacts around and add new ones as they come in. There is constant movement as artefacts
are acquired, catalogued, brought up to the gallery for an exhibition, or returned to storage when a
particular exhibition has finished.

The different media are used as artefacts. They can be text, images, audio, video, sculptures, or a mix of
them.

The exhibition spaces can be small or large and are centred around a common theme each. The curator
selected the artefacts to be shown carefully for the story that they want to tell. Not all artefacts that the
gallery owns on a particular topic are exhibited so as not to overwhelm the viewer. Sometimes only one or
two pieces represent a larger body of work.

The curator provides insight into the collection by adding explanatory notes, meta information, and also
interpretation to the artefacts for the viewer to be guided through the exhibit and made aware of the
differences between the artefacts.

Some of the exhibits are closed to the general public and require either an entrance fee or prior approval.
In those cases, only authorized persons can enter the exhibit and view the artefacts.

Viewers wander the gallery on their own or in groups and point out what they see or feel, discuss the
artefacts and the wider collection, and engage with the curator or even the artists in discussions. They
leave feedback or sign a visitor book to voice their opinion. They also overhear other people talking about
the artefacts and learn from these interactions.

Some of the exhibits are permanent while others are temporary allowing people to come back as often as
they like or only during a specified time frame. At any time that they are in the exhibits, they can leave
feedback, draw their own conclusions, and learn from the artefacts and the interpretations that they have
seen.

The gallery’s management team wants to keep everyone safe and also gather data which exhibits are the
most popular, when people are coming to the gallery and how often, and what it costs to keep the gallery
running. The team runs regular reports and makes changes to the gallery as a result of that.

This translates to:

Basement: Mahara content area where you can upload files and create other learning evidence such
as journal entries, plans, notes, etc.

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Artefacts: The pieces of learning evidence that illustrate a skill gained, a competency accomplished, a
step made in a longer process or material referenced for learning purposes.
Organizing and cataloguing: Putting files into folders and using tags on artefacts to retrieve them
again later on.
Curator: Portfolio author
Exhibition spaces: Portfolio pages (small portfolios) or portfolio collections (large portfolios consisting
of multiple pages).
Insight into artefacts: Reflections and explanatory commentary.
Entrance fee / prior approval: Assigning access permissions to portfolios based on who should be
allowed to view the particular page or collection.
Viewers: Portfolio Viewers; they can come on their own or in groups.
Permanent / temporary: For how long the portfolio is available. Some portfolios may only be shared
for a short amount of time with somebody else.
Management team: The people running the site and offering the service.
Feedback: Feedback left and comments made by viewers on someone’s portfolio, reflections or
learning evidence.

2.2.2. The performance

The performance metaphor

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  This metaphor was introduced by Hazel Owen on her website. She shared her idea in the
Mahara Newsletter January 2018.

An important aspect in this metaphor is the human element and that activities happen in communities and
are not just things. In the performance metaphor we see that people interact in all matters from the
preparation to the final performance and learn from each other.

In the backstage area, projects are discussed and conceptualised, changed, and finalised. A team is often
involved in these processes giving feedback, and inviting newcomers / apprentices to try things out and
learn from more experienced staff.

Depending on the director, a performance in one theatre may vary widely from that in another as a play can
be interpreted many different ways, kept in its classic form, modernised or completely re-imagined. It is up
to the company to settle on their interpretation and the way forward, which can include changes to the
language, the mood, the back drops, and props used during the performance.

The backstage is only accessible to a group of authorised staff. Outsiders need a pass to be invited into
this space.

Rehearsals play a fundamental role when preparing for a performance as they give the performer the time
to practice their art, receive feedback from a teacher or also peers. They can practice in a safe space that
is not accessible to an audience and thus don’t have to fear premature comments that would only be based
on a small extract of the performance rather than its entirety.

Once the performance is deemed to be ready to be shown, often a dress rehearsal is scheduled to invite
a select group of people for feedback and giving the troupe a chance to make final adjustments before the
show is taken live.

Many different performances can take place within a building attracting different audiences, which in turn
have different experiences that they bring to the events and see them through different eyes.

Some performances may require an entrance fee whereas others can be free. Some may also invite
people to participate more fully in the performance itself rather than only sit and watch.

In Mahara this translates to:

Backstage: Artefact upload and creation and portfolio setup space before the learning evidence is
shared with a wider group; portfolios can be created by individuals or in groups collaboratively.
Interpretations: Personalisation of each portfolio author in how they want to display their learning
evidence, reflections, etc.

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Rehearsals: Access given to a teacher or peers for feedback; not a one-time thing but iterative and
supports growth of the portfolio author
Different performances: Being able to set up a variety of portfolios that serve different purposes and
may or may not be connected
Entrance fee: Access permissions governing who can see which portfolio

2.3. The Mahara framework

With Mahara, you control which items and what information within your portfolio other users see. Such
items and information are termed artefacts. To facilitate this access control, all artefacts you wish to show
to other users need to be arranged into one area. In Mahara this compilation of selected artefacts is called
a ‘page’. You can have as many pages as you like, each with a different number of artefacts, intended
purpose and audience. Your audience, or the people you wish to give access to your page, can be added
as individuals or as a member of a group. It can even be made publicly available.

For example you could create:

a page for your friends and family that includes holiday photos and a personal journal
a page for your tutor, which includes assessments and your reflective learning journal
a page to showcase your best pieces of work and your résumé for potential employers
…

A single page or a collection of pages can make up your portfolio. Unless artefacts are placed in a page,
they are not visible to anybody but you. You can use files that you uploaded or journal entries you wrote in
as many pages as you wish. You only need one copy of your artefact.

Imagine you collected all your artefacts in a shoe box. Whenever you have a new artefact, you add it to the
shoe box. When you are ready to create your portfolio, you take a look at the artefacts in your shoe box
and choose those that you want to make available on a portfolio page. You can arrange the artefacts on
that page to your liking.

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Portfolio work with Mahara

The diagram below of example artefacts, pages and groups illustrates how content in Mahara can be
shared and reused in different contexts and for different audiences.

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Mahara framework

2.4. How does Mahara fit in to the e-learning

landscape?
If you think of LMSs such as Moodle, Canvas, OLAT, and Blackboard as the formal, structured side of e-
learning, then Mahara is the social, reflective side. An LMS and an ePortfolio complement one another in
an online learning environment.

Mahara supports LTI allowing to connect to an LMS following that standard. It also has a wider web
services suite available to make deeper integrations possible.

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2.5. What if Mahara does not support a feature I

want?
Mahara has been designed from the ground up to be an open, pluggable system. Creating new artefacts,
authenticating against a custom system and much more can be implemented simply through writing a
plugin that uses the appropriate core API. What this means is that it is free and easy for you to customise
almost anything about Mahara to suit your needs. Paid support is available through a network of Mahara
Partners should you require it.

2.6. Other things to do

Now you have a basic idea of what Mahara is, you could:

Read the list of features that Mahara comes with.

Explore the demo or download Mahara for yourself to play with.
Sign up to the mahara.org community and begin asking questions and contributing in the forums.
Continue reading this user guide.

2.7. Where can I get ideas of how to use Mahara?

The Mahara newsletter features individuals and institutions and their use of Mahara. You can subscribe to
it or read it online. It is published four times a year, and you can contribute your ideas as well.

You may wish to check the list of books or papers that have been published on Mahara or what users talk
about in conference presentations.

2.8. Getting help

Contextual help is available throughout Mahara via the Help icon  . Click on it to find out more about
the action you are about to perform.
You can also ask questions in the forums.

2.9. Mahara and accessibility

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Mahara aims to be usable by as many individuals as possible, including those with disabilities or special
needs. Creating accessible web content is a requirement in many countries. In order to provide
international guidelines, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) were created. There are three
conformance levels under the WCAG 2.0, the latest edition of the guidelines: A, AA, and AAA. Each level
requires conformance with previous levels and includes its own specific guidelines for how websites should
be made accessible.

With version 1.9, Mahara has reached level AA for user-facing areas of the system. The administration of
Mahara is predominantly on level AA as well. We endeavour to keep up level AA to continue to provide
good navigation of the site to everybody.

The Mahara project can only control the accessibility of the navigation and overall platform. People
uploading or creating content are responsible themselves to make their content accessible.

If you come across accessibility issues, please file a report in our bug tracker and tag the item
“accessibility”.

If you are a screen reader user, you can use the following access keys to navigate the main menu items in
Mahara:

Regular user interface:

d:Dashboard
c: Content
p: Portfolio
g: Groups
a: Administration

Administrator interface:

a: Admin home
c: Configure site
u: Users
g: Groups
i: Institutions
e: Extensions

2.10. Which version of Mahara do I have?

If you do not have access to the administration area, you do not see immediately which version of Mahara

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you use. Knowing the Mahara version has a couple of advantages:

1. You can make sure to refer to the correct manual.

2. You can find out whether you are on a currently supported version of Mahara or on an older one.
3. If you are on an older version of Mahara, you can check the manual for the new features.
4. When you report a bug, you are often asked to specify the version of Mahara in which you noticed the
problem.

You can find out easily which version of Mahara you use by looking at the site’s HTML source. It’s not as
scary as it sounds.

The HTML source reveals the Mahara version number

Firefox and Chrome / Chromium:

1. In your browser, make a right-mouse click in any of your Mahara pages.

2. Select the option “View Page Source”.
3. Look for the meta tag “generator”.

Safari:

1. Make the “Develop menu” visible: Safari → Preferences → Advanced → select “Show develop
menu in menu bar”.
2. Make a right-mouse click in any of your Mahara pages.
3. Select the option “Show Page Source”.
4. Look for the meta tag “generator”.

  Only the major version number of Mahara is displayed for security purposes. The minor
version number is only visible to the administrator on Administration menu → Admin home.
We recommend you keep Mahara up-to-date with security updates to ensure that your
instance is not vulnerable to known security issues.

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The Mahara manual is licensed under your choice of Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 unported or GNU General Public License
version 3 or later 2011-2020 Catalyst IT and others.
Last updated on Apr 12, 2020.
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