23 May 2013, 23:13

Many of our tutors create controlled groups to which students submitted portfolios.  What I am currently wondering is how best to handle archiving of portfolios at the end of the session.  We have a requirement to keep assessed material for 7 years.

We are externally hosted and have an arrangement to receive a discrete archive of the whole site once or twice per annum.  However, individual tutors would like to be able to keep their own relevant archives.

The only thing I can think of is that they ask students to export an HTML copy of their portfolio pages/collections to a zip file which they then email to their tutor.  How do other institutions handle this issue?

Thanks

Marion

28 May 2013, 2:19

Original response deleted. I should have read the question better.

29 May 2013, 2:05

I've discovered that my own suggested solution of students handing over a zipped export doesn't meet the requirement to archive assessment material.  It works fine where files have been uploaded to Mahara but if the ePortfolio includes embedded video from external sources, there is no way to ensure the video remains on the external host for seven years.

Any suggestions?

Marion

29 May 2013, 14:13

Embedded video from external sources would be tricky. Basically, you'd need to download your own local copy of them and put that in the archive.

And YouTube, the big site for embedded video, doesn't provide any download link or API for their videos. In fact, it's in their Terms of Service that users agree not to download the videos, but only to stream them. (That said, there are Firefox plugins and such that make it easy to download YouTube videos.)

Some other sites make it easier. Vimeo.com, for instance, puts a download link on each video's page. Mahara doesn't have any code in place to automatically download the files and put them into the archive, though, so students would still need to manually attach the files before exporting.

Probably your best bet would be to just ban externally hosted videos, if everything needs to be archivable. Though I suppose you could still have a problem with externally hosted images. You might need to add a TinyMCE filter to prevent those.

Sorry I can't offer any easy solutions to this one.

Cheers,
Aaron

29 May 2013, 20:16

That's OK.  There's loads of issues to consider in relation to external files and video in particular.  Copyright, privacy etc etc.

I don't think the solution is a operational one, that is, I wouldn't expect that Mahara would provide a technical solution.   We do have a video streaming service but currently students can't upload to it but it seems to me that this shall have to be reviewed.  Those videos are at least are in-house, can be archived, can be private so all of these requirements are met.

Thanks

Marion