04 July 2024, 2:29

Hi all,

I just read up about the new Outcomes portfolios and initially, I was really excited about this feature: it would open up a lot of possibilities for 'Programmatic Assessment' type portfolios, where a student has to associate n artifacts with any given learning outcome in a programme or study module.

Unfortunately, I also read there's no useable UI for admins to create these Outcome sets, which for now have to be uploaded through a command line php script. Will there be a UI available for those organisations that don't have command line / terminal / SSH access to their Mahara instances, but would like to use this feature?

05 July 2024, 16:02

Hi Joost,

At the time, the admin interface was not important because the subjects and outcome types were assumed to be fixed and could thus be added by an admin in one go without needing constant changes. That's why we focused on the portfolio specific changes that the client required. Their use case also didn't require the copying of outcome portfolios so that a group of students would have the same available because each student would have personalised outcomes.

We did receive the same question about an admin interface though from another institution just the other day. So we drafted high level requirements.

Goal

A site and institution administrator wants to set up outcome subjects and outcome types in the administration area instead of having to upload a CSV file to make the management of the outcome subjects and types easier.

Requirements

• An administration screen is created where the institution can be selected if an administrator has access to more than one institution as outcome subjects and types are set up and managed per institution.
• An overview screen displays the subject categories in one tab and the type categories in another tab.
• Once a category is set up, sub categories, i.e. subjects or types can be associated with it via the 'Management' screen.
• A subject or type can only be edited if nobody is using it so as not to alter assessment data.
• A category's name and description can be edited at all times.
• A subject or type can be added to an existing category.
• A category can only be deleted when it is not used in a portfolio.
• When a category was updated, the username of the person who's done the update is displayed on the overview page.

Mock-up of the overview screen in the admin area:

Mock-up of the screen where subjects can be added to a category. The screen for outcome types would be similar.

If you like, I can share your details with them.

Cheers

Kristina