17 June 2009, 23:06

Hi guys - I made a video demonstrating the import/export functionality in Mahara 1.2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnFx0NHn4Ls

It has sound this time, unlike my last one. I'm slowly getting to grips with how to make videos, I'm sure the next ones will be better. Enjoy!

17 June 2009, 23:19

Nicely done video demo, Nigel.  The new import/export feature is fantastic.  I love the fact that it exports a vanilla HTML site that can be shown on any webserver.  Very cool.

BTW - when do you think we'll see 1.2 hit the street?  We're planning a large migration to Mahoodle with over 10,000 users, so any info is helpful as we plan our timeline.

Thx again to you and everyone at Catalyst for continuing to build a great product.

Chris : )

18 June 2009, 0:16

Thanks Chris. We have JISC/CETIS and the University of Glasgow to thank for stumping up with the vast majority of the funding required

As for when 1.2 is out - it's still a couple of months away I think. There's a lot of theme cleanup to do, and finishing the remainder of the import/export work, then there's a large number of bugs on the tracker that really should be squashed. We haven't even made it to beta status yet. But we're working as fast as we can, and we're even getting another developer on board to help out.

18 June 2009, 4:30

Hello Nigel,

 Thanks for the video, I think that it is quite clear, provided it works :-)

Portability is probably the most requested feature of any eportfolio software, and I don't think that, at the moment, there is any product  in the UK market which has managed to do that (unless the Open University has managed to move it forward with MyStuff).

Once learners are able to backup and export their work, the second step is: will they be able to export their work to other platforms rather than Mahara?

My experience from what it is happening here is that there are many  "domestic" eportfolio platforms  (Learner Assistant, Peebles, etc...), yet all of them have been customized for an specific education market (the UK in our case), and none of them have achieved yet that learnes will be able to export their work, if they  move to study to another EU country.

 Universities are therefore more likely to choose an eportfolio software that supports portability.

 

18 June 2009, 4:46

I'm agree with aricia's opinion, because if we want that people that are yet using other e-portfolio migrates to mahara system, that will be more easy is they have a funcionality to do it.

Antonio

18 June 2009, 4:59

Hi,

Mahara uses the LEAP2A standard (http://wiki.cetis.ac.uk/PIOP_Mahara) to do the import/export stuff. Any portfolio solution which supports this standard should be able to import the exported Mahara portfolio.

The existing feature looks cool, only the shared hosts will see problems because the export/import functin uses ZIP utility. Not all hosters have added this to their shared hosts.

Heinz

18 June 2009, 16:59

As Heinz says, we have support for the LEAP2A standard, which also has several UK portfolio system implementors, including the likes of PebblePad and ePet. So Mahara should be a strong contender in the ePortfolio market from 1.2, as the "most requested feature" will be built right in