16 April 2018, 19:17

I am exploring using the Mahara eportfolio for a customised e-portfolio for multiple users. It would be an educational portfolio for parents to document their children's learning. Older children may enter the information themselves. Has Mahara already been customised with similar specifications to the following?

1. Multiple user access through a front website
2. Ability to add menu and submenu buttons from Admin
3. Ability to insert new entry field from Admin for all users
4. Ability to insert entry fields from Admin in the form of tables in which users would type in their info
5. Drop down menu with 5 rating options to choose from when evaluating work entered, e.g.

• Excellent
• Good  
• Reasonable  
• Inconsistent
• Poor   

      Rating options turned into scores out of 5, e.g. 

• Excellent – 5
• Good – 4
• Reasonable – 3
• Inconsistent – 2
• Poor – 1 

6. Scores compiled each week, shown in tables and turned into diagrams like bar charts, line graphs, pie charts etc. to track progress
7. A customised front end website appearance
8. User calendar and tutorial guides (like current Mahara User Manuel) to access in each section for guidance when entering info (relevant guidance coming up in pop-up boxes
9. Users can edit /adapt their eportfolios from backend (settings); hide info and then present their eportfolio to be viewed by specific audiences who access from a link and login
10. Acalendar (from icon on pages) with reminders, appointments etc.; possible flashing calendar icon in advance as reminder
11. Archive facility to store past info entered which can be viewed later
12. A database or system for registering and emailing users from Admin
13. Online payment features for annual subscription payments by users, e.g. paypal or pay bank account
14. Personalised design options for pictures above top tool bar or customised colour scheme

Is anything similar currently available?

Is there anything available currently that can be easily adapted for this kind of usage?

Can anyone add the above customised features if not already available?

27 April 2018, 9:14

Hello Neal,

Thank you for your questions. I think some of the things you are asking for already exist in Mahara, whereas others can be developed to meet your needs if you have funding available.

1. Multiple user access through a front website: Mahara is designed to be used by more than one person. Accounts can be created in a multitude of ways to suit institution requirements.

2. Ability to add menu and submenu buttons from Admin: That depends. If you hide plugins or activate them and they have a navigation element, they are removed or added accordingly. If you want to re-arrange what the navigation looks like, you can do that through the code.

3. + 4. Ability to insert new entry field from Admin for all users: Do you mean additional profile fields? Then they would need to be entered in the code first. It's not yet possible to create new fields via the admin interface.

5. Drop down menu with 5 rating options to choose from when evaluating work entered: We have comment ratings that you can activate. Please see the "Commenting" section http://manual.mahara.org/en/17.10/portfolio/feedback.html for more information and a screenshot. Alternatively, if you want to assess a portfolio and have Moodle, you can do the assessment via Moodle and have all the typical assignment grading options available.

You can hook your portfolio into a competency framework and rate the individual portfolio pages. Please see https://slides.com/anitsirk/how-smart-is-your-portfolio-assessment for a presentation on SmartEvidence.

6. Scores compiled each week, shown in tables and turned into diagrams: This would be fantastic to have.

7. A customised front end website appearance: A theme can be developed for your Mahara site that suits your needs.

8. + 10. User calendar and tutorial guides: We don't yet have a calendar. The user manual is linked to the relevant section from each page in Mahara now with version 18.04.

9. Users can edit /adapt their eportfolios from backend (settings); hide info and then present their eportfolio to be viewed by specific audiences who access from a link and login: Mahara has an extensive permissions framework that allows students to decide with whom they want to share their portfolio. They can also decide what they want to share in the portfolios and what evidence they may only want to keep for themselves.

11. Archive facility to store past info entered which can be viewed later: Portfolios that are not needed anymore can be exported. If they are to stay on Mahara, they can be tagged with an "Archive" tag and thus more easily identified when looking at the list of portfolios that a student has in their account.

12. A database or system for registering and emailing users from Admin: Registration can happen via bulk upload, connecting to external authentication methods or self-registration. An admin can email all users by adding them to a group and setting up a forum to which everyone is auto-subscribed or by exporting a list of people and sending emails through regular means. Mahara does have the possibility to email individual people, but I wouldn't use that to email hundreds of people.

13. Online payment features: This is not yet available through Mahara core or a public third-party plugin that I'm aware of.

14. Personalised design options for pictures above top tool bar or customised colour scheme: Mahara has skins that can be activated to allow for a more individualized look, but if that is not extensive enough, changes can be made.

Mahara is flexible in its settings and can be customized in a lot of areas directly through the site whereas other customizations can be made in the code itself that you are using.

Cheers

Kristina