15 July 2012, 2:35

Hello,

In one of our Mahara installations, users would favor the term "Backup" to "Export" to be prompted more easily of what you can do there. Sometimes users delete content that they then wish to not have deleted, but they can't get it back easily. If they saw "Backup" as menu option they might click on it more and actually make a backup of their data for save keeping. "Export" doesn't seem to work so well for them.

I was wondering if others think the same and that we should change it to "Backup" in general.

Thanks already in advance for your input.

Cheers

Kristina

15 July 2012, 9:14

Hi Kristina,

My position is that I am awaiing from my institution to backup my data not me. Opening an account with my University as as student also gives them the obligation to protect my privacy and my data. So for me Backup is something on the institution side.

On the other hand, Export, is something I will do at the end of my relationship with the institution, when I leave it and want to take all my data with me (as a web site or as a transferable Leap2A file, and mabe later as ad PDF or Word document, as the roadmap will go).

I personnaly would give my voice for keeping Export in Mahara instead of Backup.

Cheers,

-dajan

18 July 2012, 20:37

Hello dajan,

Thank you for your feedback. The institutional backup is out of the question and should definitely happen. However, in this case it was users who deleted their pages and can't recover them now (unless you dig in the server backup). Backup instead of export seemed to be sparking their thoughts more of doing a backup themselves before deleting the page.

Cheers

Kristina

19 July 2012, 12:01

If it is a backup it also means they will be able to upload the backup things back into their portfolio. But until now they can't. Moreover they are able to reload what they have "backuped" so if they have exporter all their portfolio they can only recover their whole portfolio not only a part (a page they delete by mistatke for example).

For me it means that behind the question of changing the name of the button, it more changing the way Mahara does the things that is the center of the reflexion.

-dajan

19 July 2012, 19:46

I am with Kristina that users are more likely to develop a backup routine if the wording makes sense to them. Restoring from an institution backup is something most users will probably never even think about.

But I am also with you Dominique-Alain. A backup needs to be able to be restored in a convenient and effective way. Choosing of what needs to be restored from a backup and placing it into the existing portfolio would a great  feature to have.

For the time being and until all the great feature requests have been implemented, how about a button called 'Backup/Export' :)

20 July 2012, 8:38

Hello dajan and Dirk,

Thanks for your feedback. We already have some basic specs for the user's own import at https://blueprints.launchpad.net/mahara/+spec/improve-portfolio-import-export (goes to the wiki page for more info).

I'm totally with you that this would be a great enhancement.

Cheers

Kristina

22 July 2012, 21:16

Hi All

To me backup does suggest that the portfolio can be restored –currently the restore is not able to be done by the owner of the portfolio but it is still able to be done. This  reassures  the portfolio owner that  their portfolio pages  are safe if something goes wrong with them or they are deleted.

Export suggests that the portfolio is being converted into a different format which may not be able to be restored into Mahara. This is true if they choose the html format.

So maybe use the term Export for the html format and Backup for the LEAP2A format (most users probably don’t know what LEAP2A is but would know what backup is) .

I agree that making the restoration process easier would be a great feature.

Craig

23 July 2012, 1:21

As an admin in 1.5.1 I cannot even see a way of importing a LEAP2a "backup" to an existing account. 

The only place I can see Mahara accepting a LEAP2a file is on account creation.

I would consider the development of this functionality a high priority also.

23 July 2012, 21:16

Hello Shane,

Currently, we do not have the possibility to import into an existing account. What Craig meant was that a new account is created and then you copy the pages into the existing account manually.

Cheers

Kristina

23 July 2012, 0:58

Feedback from an academic review of our system (including our Mahara installation) recommended that the portfolio needs to be portable from one institution to another, that if we are promoting life long learning, we need to enable users to take their portfolio with them throughout thier career & therefore the term EXPORT is preferred.Cheers,Leanne, PLANE.