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mcnrc August 13, 2013

Mahara: From Bucket List to Implementation

Contents

Summary

Part I

Platf orm

Part II Pedagogy Drive Technology

Evidence

Attachments/Supporting Documents:

SummaryAf ter creating our bucket list of items that we wanted in our ePortf olio, our talented team of programmerscustomized Mahara and created crit ical links to Banner f or us that made this platf orm work f or us in some keyways. Through Mahara, we were able to create a university-wide accepted platf orm that met the needs of avariety of stakeholders and was available to all students, even af ter graduation.

Mahara satis fie d many characte ris tics fro m o ur vast b ucke t-l is t, inc lud ing a We b 2.0 fe e l and theab il ity fo r s tud e nts to p o st artifacts fro m the ir acad e mics, care e r p re p aratio n, and co -curricular

activitie s.

Part I

Platform

Our platf orm is Mahara, version 1.7, an open-source tool out of New Zealand, which we have customized tomeet our unique needs. Some of the f eatures that we are most proud of are the clean interf ace, the Pacetemplate, and the web 2.0 look and f eel.

One o f o ur firs t e Te rns was savvy in we b d e sig n and was ab le to cre ate a custo mize d Pace the me fo r o urMahara instance .

While it ’s notperf ect in everyway, Maharahas really madeit possible f orPace to makethe leap f romscatteredePortf oliousage to amore universitywideacceptance ofePortf olios. Our c2L teamcredits Maharawith being oneof the keypieces to ourscaling upsuccess story,yet there arestill someissues that wegrapple with.

BecauseMahara is arobust ePortf olio tool, outside of our LMS, some users complain about having to learn and deal with aseparate system. In an ideal world, the LMS and ePortf olio platf orms would be closely linked and would allowf or f ile sharing and evaluation to happen between both. We have worked around this issue as best as can byproviding a way to access Mahara through Blackboard and by providing training f or f aculty and students on thebest uses of both tools.

Our Pace p ro g ramme rs we re ab le to install an e Po rtfo lio tab within Blackb o ard , e nab ling e asy-acce ss.

The other mainweakness isthe lack of aback end orassessmentarea. We havebuilt somerobustreportingf eatures in-house andhopef ully canbuild someassessmenttools as well inthe nearf uture. Fornow, wecontinue toexperiment andshare what welearn with ourMahara UserGroup(MUG), aninternational group of Mahara users that we f ormed 3 years ago to help share ideas and strategies f or usingMahara ef f ectively. The MUG community uses a Facebook group to communicate. It is a closed group, meaningthat only members see content, but we welcome new members.

http://i1.wp.com/pu.mcnrc.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2013/08/fb-screenshot.jpg

The fe e d b ack fe ature is use d fo r b o th instructo rs and fe llo w stud e nts to co mme nt o n ano the r use r’s e Po rtfo liowo rk.

There is a f eedback tool in Mahara that allows f or both private and public commenting and there is also aGroup f eature that allows f or group ePortf olio communities to share discussion f orums and f iles andcollections. All of these tools can be part of an inquiry-based social pedagogy approach.

For now, ourmain limitationis that theassessmentreview that isbeing done ishappeningoutside ofMahara. Facultyand staf freviewers userosters/rubricsin Excelspreadsheetswhen reviewing student work in Mahara. This involves going back and f orth between the Excel spreadsheet andMahara, and searching to f ind the student whose work is to be reviewed. Ratings are recorded in aspreadsheet. It would be nice to have a way of conducting assessment review within Mahara directly.

Support and Collaboration

ITS support is central to our ePortf olio project because it is an open-source tool that we have customized andthat we support locally. While there is no cost f or Mahara, the cost is in the people hours that are spentcustomizing, supporting and upgrading. This has certain benef its and certain drawbacks, but f or us it hasworked. The budget we have requested f or ePortf olio has been f or students (eTerns), f aculty development(teaching circles), awards and marketing.

Mahara does not link to our LMS (Blackboard), which is certainly a drawback, but we’re making it work. Ourprogrammers have created a link to our student inf ormation system (Banner) and our email system soaccounts are created automatically when users login and f aculty are able to easily access their students’ePortf olios in a “My students area”, once permissions have been set. We don’t have an assessment systemf or Mahara to t ie into currently.

We f eel that Mahara has been a key piece to our scaling up story because of its contemporary look and f eel. Ithas a “wall” and “f riends” and a list of users online, which are very similar to Facebook. This created anexcitement around ePortf olios that we didn’t f ind with previous platf orms that we tried.

Part II Pedagogy Drive TechnologyOur selection and eventual customization of Mahara was driven by our pedagogical bucket list. In that samespirit, we have tried to keep our ePortf olio work f ocused on the pedagogy, primarily through our sustainedteaching circle approach to f auclty development and in our recent ef f orts to target departmental use ofePortf olios. This is still an area we struggle with though because we do still have to f ocus on the technology,making sure it works and that our users (f aculty and student) f eel comf ortable.

Evidence

Mahara’s strength is as a ref lection and presentation ePortf olio. We love it f or those reasons at the sametime have been challenged by its lack of reporting and outcomes capabilit ies. As a result, we we have workedinternally to build monthly reports documenting usage by students, f auculty and staf f in terms of users,artif acts and hits. Our KPIs, which are posted monthly on Pace’s ITS site, show our dramatic growth beginningwith only 250 users in the Spring 2010 semester and as of Fall 2013, we have over 11,000 users.

Platform Selection – as a Process

We selected our platf orm in 2009 and implemented it in January 2010. Bef ore Mahara, we had experimentedwith a range of ePortf olio tools, including Epsilen, Google, and in-house solutions. In 2009, we f ormedan ePortf olio advisory board and under the guidance of our CIO, created a “bucket list” of what we wanted ourePortf olio tool to do and look like. We literally drew buckets and f illed them with categories. The advisoryboard consisted of about 25 f aculty and staf f f rom across the institution. While no students were involved inthis init ial selection and development process, students (eTerns) quickly joined our ePortf olio team and havemade a signif icant impact on our growth overall. Our CIO introduced us to Mahara and with the assistance of avery talented programmer we were able to realize our ePortf olio dreams. With Mahara, we had a tool thatlooked like a modern web 2.0 tool, had the 7 pages we wanted, included a course listing f or students, allowed avariety of permission setting and provided a way f or public/private comments and groups. To sum up theselection process, the pedagogy came bef ore the technology. We determined our needs f irst and thenselected Mahara based on that, and that was crit ical.

While we haven’t switched platf orms in the past 3 years, we did a major upgrade in the Summer of 2012 andanother upgrade in Summer 2013, and that has given us many good new f eatures including the ability to createcollections (multiple ePortf olios). The upgrade did create a need f or more training and documentation right atthe beginning of the semester, but it was more work behind the scenes with the testing of the new version andf inding the right t ime to make the switch. Fortunately, our IT department is very supportive of ePortf olios andwe were able to get this to be a high priority item. Going f orward, we plan on upgrading 2 versions every May tostay current.

We did connect with colleagues f rom Pratt Institute during Making Connections because they were also usingMahara and those early conversations were a great help in the early use days. Those conversations really ledto our interest in f orming a user group with other schools because we saw how helpf ul it could be to shareideas and issues with colleagues f rom dif f erent places.

Student Engagement

ePortf olio is extremely important self -assessment tool f or students. They need to experience and see thatePortf olio is their space to create a dynamic documentation of their academic career. If taken seriously thestudents quickly understand the benef its. We see some students that just “get it” and their ePortf olios aremagnif icent. However, some students struggle with the technical aspect and get discouraged. The f reshmanexperience survey told us that many students f elt Mahara was not- intuit ive. Other students don’t sense thepurpose or ownership and we see their ePortf olios look like just another assignment they had to do. We try tomake students f eel ownership in a number of ways.

1. By displaying best student samples on our landing page – recognizing their great work.

2. By making eTerns the center of our training ef f orts f or classroom and online tutorials.

3. By holding student contests to motivate students.

4. By asking f or student f eedback on the platf orm.

Based on some of the core survey results, we’re concerned that some students don’t f ind the platf orm userf riendly enough. But we know f rom other students that once they invest t ime and own the process theyexceed even our own expectations of what can be done in Mahara.

eTerns have been a key part of our scaling up success. Our f irst eTern (Sam Egan) led the way by usingePortf olio in outstanding ways as a student and now as a f ull t ime staf f member in ITS, she supervises a teamof 7 eTerns who assist with training, outreach, marketing, and support. We wouldn’t have an ePortf olioprogram without them! They are f unded in part by ITS and in part by this grant and some internal grants thatwe have received. In f act, we presented on the success of our eTerns at the Spring 2013 NERCOMPconf erence in Providence Rhode Island.

At this point, ePortf olios are af f ecting pedagogy f or a small percentage of f aculty. Many f aculty still think ofePortf olios as an add-on rather than a built- in part of their course. Through our teaching circles, we are tryingto expand f aculty use of ePortf olios to be more integrated, more social and more ref lective. We are alsotrying to do this outreach at the department level in English and Biology. We’re hoping that by incorporatingdepartments there will be a deepened appreciation of ePortf olio and the use will catch on more amongcolleagues in the same discipline.

The electronic part of ePortf olio is essential f or several reasons. One reason is that it makes it more publicand theref ore, more authentic in the students’ eyes. Many f aculty and some students are still rooted in thepaper portf olio pedagogy and so stressing the importance of electronic is key. ePortf olios make it easier toshare and access f or assessment, showcases and contests. But the most important reason f or advocatingf or the electronic use of portf olios is that it can be continually reviewed and revised. A paper portf olio givesthe impression of being complete once submitted, whereas an electronic portf olio is always ready to beenriched and changed.

Professional Development and Training

Some of our ePortf olio training is f ocused on the technology, but we do try to lead with a pedagogicalf ramework. While we f eel that it is not dif f icult f or f aculty to become basic to moderate users of Mahara,some probably would debate this claim. Our English department, who is now requiring instructors to useePortf olios, has experienced pushback f rom f aculty who f ind Mahara to be dif f icult to navigate. We do ourbest in trainings to break down the basic inf ormation of accessing, uploading, and changing permissions. There are more complex tasks that f aculty can choose, however these 3 steps are all that is needed to createan ePortf olio. We strongly encourage all f aculty to become ePortf olio users f irst, bef ore incorporating theminto their courses, and some do. As a backup we of f er strong eTern and helpdesk support to handle the bulkof the technology troubleshooting issues f or the classes using ePortf olios.

Support takes dif f erent f orms f or students and f aculty including workshops, teaching circles, one-on-onetraining, online tutorials and online documentation (static and recorded videos). We try to customize all of ourtraining options to meet the various needs of our users.

Despite our training ef f orts, in some cases Mahara’s limitaions causes stakeholders to look elsewhere f ortheir needs. We were disappointed to learn that our School of Education has adopted LiveText f or students touse to meet New York State teacher training portf olio requirements.

Outcomes Assessment

While our platf orm doesn’t directly support assessment work, we wouldn’t say it ’s a hindrance to assessmentwork either. Mahara is an open source tool so with the right programming support, assessment f unctionalitycan be built in. We are taking slow steps in this direction through our assessment pilot work. We hope to eitherbe able to build in what we need f or Mahara or else inf luence the user community to have more of anassessment end built into core Mahara in f uture upgrades.

Conclusion

It is dif f icult to predict the f uture of Mahara, though we are trying to stay current by keeping engaged with theMahara open source community (Mahara.org) as well as our Mahara User Group (MUG). What’s excit ing aboutthis platf orm is that we potentially can be part of the f uture. We are active with Mahara users regionally, aswell as internationally, and through that group we can exchange ideas about Mahara and hopef ully have animpact on the f uture of ePortf olios.

Attachments/Supporting Documents:

1. See Pace University’s ePortf olio page and Pace University’s ePortf olio Tutorials page

2. View our thumbnail slideshow here!

3. See our Mahara community website here. And the Mahara User Group Facebook Page

4. Here is sample poster f or ePortf olio at Pace:

5. This is our logo:

This logo was created by one of our f irst eTerns!