This document summarizes changes to the Mahara assignment plugin for Moodle. It discusses how the plugin allows teachers to assign student portfolios created in Mahara and assess them within Moodle. The updated plugin features a nicer interface, better support for drafts and exceptions, the ability to work with Mahara collections and unlock specific pages, and upcoming archiving capabilities. Instructors can use the plugin to assign portfolio work in Mahara and provide feedback and grades to students directly through Moodle.

1. Assessing Mahara
portfolios in Moodle:
Changes to the Mahara
assignment plugin
Presented by Aaron Wells, Catalyst IT // 3rd Oct 2014
Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0

2. Aaron Wells (Me)
@AaronTheMad on Twitter

3. About Catalyst

5. Mahara: What the &$%# is it?

6. Mahara: the facts
● An open-source ePortfolio for education
● mahara: to think, thinking, thought
● Originated in 2006 as a collaboration between Massey,
AUT, Open Poly, and Victoria Uni, with funding from the
New Zealand Tertiary Education Commission
● Today the project is mostly managed by Catalyst IT

7. What the &$%# is an e-Portfolio?
“Mahara is a fully featured web application to build your electronic
portfolio. You can create journals, upload files, embed social media
resources from the web and collaborate with other users in groups.”

8. My definition
ePortfolio: (noun) A multi-user content management system.

10. Mahara's features in outline
● Users create “Pages”, i.e. webpages
● Managing, and creating the content that goes in those
webpages: images, files, blogs, etc.
● Pages can be organized into “Collections”, i.e. mini-websites
● Social network functionality to let users collaborate and share
content (all content is Private until shared)
● User groups with forums and shared content
● Comments & group submissions for feedback & assessment

11. What the &$%# is it good for?
https://flic.kr/p/4L5DkD

12. Mahara + Moodle =
“Mahoodle” logo by Iñaki Arenaza (@iarenaza)

13. The magic of open source!

14. The 3 plugins of Mahoodle

15. As a student...

16. As a teacher...

17. Mahara assessment w/o Moodle

18. A proliferation of plugins...
● Catalyst 1.9 (mod/assignment)
https://gitorious.org/mahara-contrib/mdl19-mod-assignment-type-mahara
● Catalyst 2.0 (mod/assignment)
https://gitorious.org/mahara-contrib/mod-assignment-type-mahara
● Lancaster University (mod/assign)
https://github.com/lucisgit/assignsubmission_mahara
● Portland University (mod/assign)
https://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=assignsubmission_mahara
● Catalyst merged plugin (mod/assign)
https://github.com/catalyst/moodle-assignsubmission-mahara/tree/moodle26-merged

19. Synthesis!
● ← Nicer interface!
● Better support for
drafts & exceptions
● Collections
● Unlocking pages
● Leap2A archiving
(coming soon)

20. Your gateway to the Mahara ePortfolio:
The Mahara community website:
https://mahara.org
The Mahara wiki:
https://wiki.mahara.org
The Mahara Launchpad project:
http://bugs.launchpad.net/mahara
(but it's usually easier to just link there from mahara.org)

21. About Catalyst

22. Catalyst Clients

23. Open Source Technologies