by Andrew Bartlett In November 2021, Samba and Microsoft did a coordinated release of a <a href="https://www.cert.govt.nz/it-specialists/advisories/critical-vulnerability-in-windows-kerberos-protocol/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">critical security issue</a> that I like to call the “Doller ticket” attack on Active Directory Kerberos.In this blog I wanted to share some of the lessons from that year that led up to that final release in late 2021.<h3 data-block-key="8j4ia">Staying curious and trusting your gut</h3>My first worries about this issue came about when patches to add support for a curious additional alias were included into Samba’s KDC – the central Kerberos component in our Active Directory. Computers in Active Directory have accounts in the domain, ending with a $. My colleague on the Samba Team Stefan Metzmacher added <a href="https://git.samba.org/?p=samba.git;a=commitdiff;h=61de10240e26f6edf4961841206347d0652c40d9" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">support</a> for a Kerberos login with the name computer to match an account with name computer$. This work was done to match Microsoft’s windows and to fix a <a href="https://bugzilla.samba.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11130" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">bug</a> in Samba.And so it sat, with this feeling of &quot;this is not quite right&quot; but nothing more. Thankfully on the Active Directory side, at the KDC, an exact match always wins.<h3 data-block-key="56gea">The idle mind and turning over rocks</h3>At the end of 2020, a work stream at Catalyst came to an end, and I was helping with the specifications for some testing work that Catalyst was planning, a job we were very pleased to have sponsored by our long-time client LMAX Group. The trailing-$ question came up again, and I started thinking again, this time turning my attention to traditional ‘MIT Style’ Kerberos – a system that has always been well specified in terms of string-based names, not the unique and numeric “SIDs” used in Active Directory.I realised that nothing in Active Directory would prevent an unprivileged user from creating an account called called root$ and to then present a ticket with that name to a traditional MIT style Kerberos-accepting services and have them read as root (the main administrative user on Linux).(The unprivileged bit comes from an Active Directory mis-feature known as MachineAccountQuota. Samba doesn’t implement this.)<h3 data-block-key="31edr">Talk to and listen to experts</h3>I reached out to Microsoft via our good friends at the Protocols Interoperability team, and got a call with Microsoft’s Kerberos Lead after the summer, the agenda of which was to tell me that this was exactly by design, and that nothing would be done.Samba has since <a href="https://www.samba.org/samba/security/CVE-2020-25717.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">warned</a>, about this behaviour, as it remains the case that unprivileged users in Active Directory can create such accounts via the MachineAccountQuota feature.However the call did not go as planned – as we continued the call our thought-experiments came to other ways that this issue could cause trouble, and by the end I thought a security process had started.This wasn’t the only time just talking it over mattered, later in the year, as we coordinated with Microsoft, some off-hand remarks alerted me to other critical issues we had missed in Samba, and we are very grateful to have been able to fix them as the same time.<h3 data-block-key="dfbgb">Nothing starts until a case is lodged, with a full scripted exploit</h3>An important lesson I learnt is how to interact professionally with MSRC, the Microsoft Security Response Centre.Busy and stressed as I was, and on the back of a successful call with Microsoft’s engineers, I thought that a simple text-based walk-though and some hand-waving would then get the process started. Instead, it just lead to confused triage engineers and stalled cases.What turned things around was the incredibly fine work of Joseph Sutton, who joined Catalyst in 2022 and quickly became quite skilled at building Kerberos testsuites.Joseph built the infrastructure, and then full working exploits for the issues we knew about, and then was able to explore some new, even more dangerous ideas. At the time we only knew of an exploit via the RODC codepath, but with the tooling we were able to exploit any domain, to the full admin user, via another Kerberos feature S4U2Self, or Kerberos impersonation.Flipping the attack above around, we instead got a ticket for a normal, unprivileged user DC, but were able to get the KDC to treat it as if it was DC$, the deeply trusted account of the domain controller.This, as you might expect, got Microsoft’s attention.<h3 data-block-key="a132i">Who to share with?</h3>Holding in our now literally shaking hands was an exploit that could blow open any default-configuration AD domain currently in deployment, with only a user account.I had tried to keep the issues quiet, even on the Samba Team, due to the concern, but developers who have not been told about the issue, confidentially, can’t fix the issue either. In the end I shared exploits with fellow Samba Team members who needed it, and the details with the broader team in line with our normal security handling.Thankfully a group of developers from a number of Samba supporting companies, Red Hat, SuSE, SerNet and Symas joined Catalyst in the work upstream. I do want to make an extra thanks to Symas, who provided long-time team member Nadezhda Ivanova to the effort, despite not currently having a Samba product under support.Later we would similarly take care in the reveal of the issues first to vendors, and then to the broader public, even then never publishing the full exploit.<h3 data-block-key="8sbpo">Calling on a good friends, and making more.</h3>At this stage we had a big issue, but no funding to fix it. Thankfully a Catalyst client was willing to fund a significant chunk of the work for the AD DC, but their use case didn’t extend to the fileserver, nor to the RODC, where we initially found the issue.For the fileserver issues the broader Samba Team stepped up, but for the RODC issue I needed outside funding assistance. It was at this point when I called on a good friend, Arvid Requate of Univention. Univention was really awesome in supporting the required fixes for Samba’s AD DC at an early stage when we were deliberately vague in describing the full impact, and I greatly appreciate the trust they put in me.Likewise, as mentioned above it looked for a time like we would need to revise the Access Control layer in Samba’s AD DC. This code is complex and while well tested, it hasn’t had a lot of work over the past few years, so few developers understand it really well. I was incredibly appriciative when Nadezhda Ivanova, a good friend and the original author of this feature was supported by her employer to return to Samba development to assist in this area.Friends matter, and in security friends really matter and I thank all my good friends, both old and the new friends I made at Microsoft during the time.<h3 data-block-key="bh77r">The challenge of timing, and not saving the world</h3>As weeks turned to months and deadlines were (thankfully) extended, we all were pretty exhausted. I had esimated the task, but with all the extra issues found along the way, I was incredibly grateful when the October deadline was moved to November. Even so, I’m reminded why my PM always asks me to triple my initial estimates, as we really pushed hard to get the patches all integrated and released.In the end we made it, with less notice to our vendors than we would have liked, but everybody got patches, including back-ported patches for those who had commissioned those, before Microsoft released and the issue was disclosed.But we couldn’t do everything. I mentioned above about a root$ -&gt; root mapping that is still possible particularly in Microsoft Windows Active Directory, and I still wish that there was a practical way we might have been able to do coordinated disclosure and avoid that issue. In the end this has been left for each deployment to address, with few overarching mitigations possible.Sadly as I was told early in 2021, this is pretty much “by design” in the protocols.In the end I had to choose that while the number of deployments mixing Active Directory, MIT-style Kerberos and Linux (but not using Samba) is important, that I held in my hand an exploit all the way to Domain Administrator. We needed to fix that, and to fix that we had to disclose.As someone who likes to ‘solve for everything’ and takes an outlook on life of choosing what is best for others, for the world, this was perhaps the hardest thing.I also knew that after the 2021 we all went though that I couldn’t still be doing this work at this pace in 2022.<h3 data-block-key="3f7pi">Final thoughts</h3>Everything I ‘discovered’ and disclosed in this area is actually in public documentation. There is a great article on MachineAccountQuota at <a href="https://www.netspi.com/blog/technical/network-penetration-testing/machineaccountquota-is-useful-sometimes/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">NetSPI</a> and the problematic lookup algorithm is public in <a href="https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/windows_protocols/ms-kile/6435d3fb-8cf6-4df5-a156-1277690ed59c" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">MS-ADTS</a>. The default non-canonicalisation feature is standard Kerberos per <a href="https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc4120.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">RFC4120</a> and presumably all of this has been this was since Windows 2000 first introduced Active Directory. I wonder how many others found this before me, how many networks were already 0wned.Thankfully it look a full month before security twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/cnotin/status/1468638572781649927?t=ufO8XH9OMLf2jz87b1R7aw&amp;s=19" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">joined the dots</a> between the coordinated releases. Hopefully some domains were patched by then. <a href="https://cloudbrothers.info/en/exploit-kerberos-samaccountname-spoofing/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Exploits</a> have now been <a href="https://exploit.ph/cve-2021-42287-cve-2021-42278-weaponisation.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">written</a>.

In November 2021, Samba and Microsoft did a coordinated release of a <a href="https://www.cert.govt.nz/it-specialists/advisories/critical-vulnerability-in-windows-kerberos-protocol/">critical security issue</a> that I like to call the “Doller ticket” attack on Active Directory Kerberos.

stay-curious-doller-ticket-security-issue

On 27 April 2022, the Catalyst team released <a href="https://mahara.org/interaction/forum/topic.php?id=9097" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mahara 22.04</a>, the latest version of the popular open source ePortfolio platform. This version of Mahara contains a variety of new features, in particular around searching for content and supporting learners more efficiently while they create their portfolios and use Mahara sites. For example, organisations can automatically upload files into learner accounts, portfolios submitted to Moodle can be passed to Ouriginal (formerly Urkund) for a similarity check, and accounts can be moved between organisations seamlessly via the SAML authentication option.<div>
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In its capacity as maintainer of the Mahara project, Catalyst publishes a new version of Mahara on behalf of the community every six months, with new features and enhancements to existing features. Catalyst, its clients, and other community members contribute to these new features and enhancements, translate the software into many languages, and support each other in the implementation of ePortfolios using Mahara.The Catalyst Mahara team is proud to work with its clients and the wider community to provide Mahara and improve it continuously to meet the requirements of a diverse group of organisations all using ePortfolios, from schools and tertiary institutions to accreditation organisations and workplaces.Watch the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR1lx-8zYqA" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">feature release video</a> for a quick overview of highlighted new features and get in touch with us if you&#x27;d like to discuss how portfolios can fit into your organisation&#x27;s learning ecosystem and see Mahara in action.

Mahara 22.04 was released at the end of April by the Catalyst team. It contains a variety of new features, in particular around searching for content and supporting learners more efficiently

mahara-2204-search-and-support

by Maia MillerThere can be a lot to consider when designing an accessible website. After all, 1.1 million people in New Zealand identify as disabled, so creating experiences to suit their needs requires thoughtful consideration of your designs.But don’t be overwhelmed! While the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) covers a total of 50 criteria to make a website compliant, there are some low-hanging fruit that are easy to implement right away.One of our favourite quick tips: make your designs responsive!Several WCAG criteria cover a user’s ability to zoom in, scroll or change the orientation of a screen. This is to help people with low vision, physical restrictions, dyslexia or other cognitive challenges. For example, being able to change the size of a page’s text (WCAG criteria 1.4.4) means that users with weak vision can magnify text to the point where they can see it.Other criteria relevant to responsive design? 1.4.10 Reflow means there is no horizontal scroll introduced when a screen is zoomed in, something that is automatically achieved when we design mobile-first. 1.3.4 Orientation dictates that a web page shouldn’t be locked to a viewport (ie, portrait view only). This enables people who want or need to see something on a different screen size – like a landscape tablet – to do so without impairing their ability to use the site. Designing responsively can also tick off criteria 1.4.12 Text Spacing and 1.4.5 Images of Text.So, go forth and build responsively – and accessibly!<h3 data-block-key="fpf6v">Catalyst Accessibility Services can support you through your entire web accessibility journey. <a href="https://accessibility.catalyst.net.nz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Click here</a> for more information or to request a free consult.</h3>

There can be a lot to consider when designing an accessible website, but there are some low-hanging fruit that are easy to implement right away.

quick-tip-accessible-websites

by Daniel Southward-EllisOver the summer break between 2021 and 2022 I was offered the opportunity to work as a cloud native intern at Catalyst. The position would involve improving Cove, Catalyst&#x27;s platform as a service built on top of Kubernetes. The project was fascinating but I had never worked with Kubernetes before. To make things more challenging, I couldn&#x27;t find a simple explanation of what Kubernetes was or how it worked. Luckily it turned out to be easier to learn than I&#x27;d feared it would be.<h2 data-block-key="36qvc">What I knew going in</h2>Before the job I knew that containers were lightweight virtual machines that programs could be installed into and then run from. This avoids the end user needing to install the program themselves which means less work for them. From my research before starting, I knew that Kubernetes was a system that could organize containers running code seamlessly over several machines. It does this by creating and destroying containers and changing how they are connected to bring the whole cluster towards a desired state. So with this understanding I started working on Cove.<h2 data-block-key="d7cbq">Upgrading an Ingress Controller</h2>After getting settled in at Catalyst my first task was to upgrade the version of the ingress controller installed with Cove. This seemed like a simple task (I just needed to change a version number) but it would help me get to grips with how Kubernetes worked.First I had to figure out how networking works in a Kubernetes cluster and where the ingress controller fit in. I discovered that ingresses are used to direct web traffic to different apps depending on the URL. So if you ran a food blog, you could setup one ingress to send traffic from a recipe page to one service and traffic for the blog list to a different one.In practice the upgrade turned out to involve a lot more than just changing a number. Upgrading the controller required upgrading other programs that used it. One of these programs had hardcoded a change in recent versions that broke in Cove. Fixing it ended up introducing me to another tool in Cove, Kyverno.<h2 data-block-key="2avem">Resources and Kyverno</h2>Everything in Kubernetes, even the machines the cluster runs on, are represented as resources. These describe the state I&#x27;d read about before I started. They&#x27;re written and stored as YAML files which describe a type and all the settings and data needed to create the resource. A big part of getting familiar with Kubernetes was learning all the different resource types and what they did.Kyverno is a tool that runs in the cluster and can automatically validate or modify resources when they&#x27;re created or updated. The rules for this are called policies and are also resources in the cluster. Because Kubernetes uses resources for everything, I could write policies to change the values on resources created by another application.While this turned out to be a less than ideal way to solve the problem, it was a great introduction to how Kubernetes operates. When the state Kubernetes is trying to match changes in quick succession it doesn&#x27;t try to follow through the changes, it only ever tries to match the current state. This makes testing and development far easier, you only have to worry about what the state looks like now.<h2 data-block-key="qk0g">Working at Catalyst</h2>Catalyst was a great introduction to different ways to manage software development. While I&#x27;d heard of Agile before I started, my internship was a great introduction to this style of working. The team would start each day with a short meeting where we&#x27;d share our progress during the previous day and outline our plans for today. These meetings were great to get up to speed on what was happening. While I was working in the office for most of my internship, covid restrictions required that people work from home some days. While this was happening, these meetings and the team&#x27;s willingness to help out made sure I didn&#x27;t get lost or stuck.<h2 data-block-key="d40bv">A different approach to development</h2>Working in the cloud native team was very different to other development work I&#x27;d done in the past. Because I was working on systems meant to operate in a cloud environment nothing could be run or tested locally. Everything needed access to the APIs operated by cloud providers to operate. It took me a while to realize that this is part of what &quot;cloud native&quot; means, software purpose built to run in the cloud.Still there was plenty that I did recognise, Git, merge requests, and tracking down strange bugs. Once I&#x27;d learned how things worked and learned all the different languages I found it wasn&#x27;t so different from the style of programming I was used to. The team were amazing and incredibly helpful as I tried to find my way around the project. Contributing to Cove has been a great experience and I&#x27;ve learned so much from it.

Daniel Southward-Ellis is standing in front of some ferns wearing a blue button up shirt and smiling at the camera.

Daniel&#x27;s experience as a cloud native intern.

containers-to-kubernetes-catalyst-intern

by Maia MillerWeb accessibility is critical for providing users with a robust, complete and usable web experience. Yet according to an accessibility evaluation of one million homepages conducted by the <a href="https://webaim.org/projects/million/2021" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">WebAIM Million Project</a>, 97.4% of homepages had detected accessibility failures!Is your organisation’s homepage one of those 974,000 inaccessible sites?According to the WebAIM Million Project, most conformance failures fall into just a few categories. The most common WCAG failure? Low contrast text.This means that there is not enough contrast between the colour of a given piece of text on a website and its background colour, so people with weak vision can&#x27;t easily read it. This can impact all types of users, too – when we’re outside looking at our phones in the sun, it’s useful to increase the brightness on our phones because it raises the contrast of what’s on screen. Insufficient contrast can make it difficult or impossible for some users to see text on the screen.While this is a pervasive problem, it’s not a hard one to solve. There are lots of free and simple tools out there that allow you to test colour contrast. Just search for “colour contrast checker” and pick the one you like best.Our personal favourite is WebAIM’s <a href="https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">colour contrast checker</a>: it tells us which WCAG levels and criteria pass or fail and has a slider feature to allow us to adjust the colour until we’ve reached compliant contrast levels.The aim is to hit a contrast of at least 3:1 for large text and 4.5:1 for regular text.Of course, it becomes harder to make changes to colours once a design is finalised, so be sure to consider colour contrast as early as possible in your project.Go ahead and test the colours of a recent or current project of yours. If it doesn’t pass the colour contrast test, suggest some changes to your team so your homepage can be one of the few on the right side of accessibility!

A laptop on a desk in front of a white brick wall with a coffee cup next to it, showing the WebAIM colour contrast checker tool.

The most common WCAG failure? Low contrast text.

are-you-making-this-accessibility-mistake

Congratulations to Catalyst’s Andrew Bartlett, who was recently on the <a href="https://msrc-blog.microsoft.com/2022/02/01/congratulations-to-the-top-msrc-2021-q4-security-researchers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">2021 Q4 Security Reseacher Leader-board</a> at Microsoft, for his work with Samba and Microsoft’s Active Directory.Samba is an open source authentication and user management and interoperability suite for Linux and Unix servers. Samba does many things, but at Catalyst we are core developers on the feature that replaces Microsoft Active Directory in Windows environments. Sometimes the Samba team discovers oddities in testing: things that work in ways they shouldn’t.While always working to be compatible, the Samba team also independently decides if something is secure and if it’s not then they report the issue to Microsoft.The Samba team at Catalyst have an excellent relationship with Microsoft and can talk to their engineers about problems they discover, and then go in and patch it at the same time.The issue Andrew found turned out to be a critical vulnerability in the <a href="https://www.cert.govt.nz/it-specialists/advisories/critical-vulnerability-in-windows-kerberos-protocol/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Windows Kerberos protocol</a>, where a normal account was enough to take over the whole domain. The only thing more serious would be if you didn’t need an account at all. The security issue was disclosed to Microsoft around May 2021, the teams both inside Microsoft and from around Samba spent about six months working hard to make sure it all came together.Catalyst took on much of the effort to fix the issue in Samba and in turn Catalyst thanks <a href="https://www.univention.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Univention</a> who helped pay for some of the work to fix this security issue.A particularly important role was taken by Joseph Sutton, another Samba developer here at Catalyst, who built scripts that fully automated the exploitation of the issue, to ease reproduction, as well as following up with the automated testing of the fixes for the issues.This isn’t the first issue Andrew has found in Windows: around six years ago Andrew found another issue with the machine account quota, which is a feature in the Active Directory that allows normal users to create accounts. Andrew found that you could create 10 machine accounts, which could then create 10 machine accounts, and so on. Ideally it shouldn’t be possible to create an account in central trusted database without being administrator but Microsoft’s Windows allowed it. Andrew reported this issue to Microsoft and then worked closely with Microsoft’s engineers to ensure the problem was fixed completely.Likewise on this most recent issue, Andrew worked closely with Microsoft, and even with some of the same engineers, while he coordinated the work to ensure the fixes would be complete and compatible – so they didn’t end up fixing the problem differently.The Catalyst Samba team has a very good ongoing relationship with Microsoft’s engineers and we will continue to work together when we find flaws.The expert Catalyst Samba team provides industry-leading support and development services with a special focus on the Samba Active Directory Domain Controller. We use Samba to integrate our solutions with enterprise networks built on Microsoft&#x27;s Windows to enable seamless interoperability.

person with laptop and icons representing security

Congratulations to Catalyst’s Andrew Bartlett, who was recently on the 2021 Q4 Security Reseacher Leader-board at Microsoft, for his work with Samba and Microsoft’s Active Directory.

samba-team-fixes-microsoft-security-issue

Since 2016 Catalyst has supported computer science students with Open Source Scholarships, awarding two scholarships each year. This year there was such a fantastic candidate selection, we couldn’t narrow it down to just two, so we have awarded the scholarship to five recipients! The students each receive $6000 over the course of a three year degree.Catalyst believes in supporting juniors and new graduates in the tech industry, and actions this in a variety of ways, such as running the Open Source Academy, hiring juniors, internships, and the Open Source Scholarships. The scholarships team was very impressed with the calibre of applications and is delighted to offer support to five more students starting their university journeys this year.“We have been blown away by the quality of our local students,” says Catalyst managing director Don Christie. “This suggests that the digital future of Aotearoa will be in good hands.”This year&#x27;s successful scholarship recipients are: Hanan Fokkens, Ruby Campbell-Stokes, Niamh Avery, Ocean Steer, and Sophia Halapchuk.Sophia Halapchuk is studying computer science at the University of Auckland, and plans to work as a software developer. Sophia is interested in the fundamentals of computer software, like the mechanisms and processes behind algorithms, programming languages, and software engineering, as well as human-computer interactions and the human behaviour inherent in technology. Sophia attended Catalyst’s 2021 <a href="https://www.catalyst.net.nz/open-source-academy" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Open Source Academy</a> and has created <a href="https://mathslog.nz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://mathslog.nz/</a>, an interactive web app for New Zealand parents and students to locate tailored maths resources, as well as book consultations and lessons with an experienced maths tutor.Hanan Fokkens is studying software engineering at the University of Canterbury, and hopes to contribute to projects that make a positive difference in the world. Hanan loves using programming to help people and to solve real-world problems. Hanan has created two open source projects while at high school, including a Flask image search plugin. This was created to help find images of vintage radios on the website vintageradio.co.nz so that site users can find a radio without having to know a lot about vintage radios.Ruby Campbell-Stokes is also studying software engineering at the University of Canterbury, and hopes to eventually get into the space industry through potential software engineering related roles such as developing flight plans and embedding software systems in missions and satellites. Ruby was awarded the UC Engineering Top Achievers Scholarship for school leavers, placing her in the top 20 engineering students at UoC. She also attended Catalyst’s 2021 Open Source Academy.Niamh Avery is studying data science and finance at the University of Otago, and is interested in working as a data scientist or business analyst in the fields of data science or information security. Niamh is passionate about problem solving and research and development and hopes to use technology to make the world more efficient, equitable, and sustainable. She has volunteered at a primary school code club and was a finalist in a Girlboss NZ competition with her proposal for an investment portfolio app for female investors, and in the future would like to create her own platform to make data science more accessible to young people.Ocean Steer is studying software engineering at Victoria University of Wellington, and plans to work as a software engineer. Ocean enjoys the whole process from planning to developing code to bringing a project to completion. Seeing your own programme working without flaws makes all the work worth it, he says. Ocean was head student at Wainuiomata High School and has received several academic awards.

Since 2016 Catalyst has supported computer science students with Open Source Scholarships, awarding two scholarships each year. This year there was such a fantastic candidate selection, we couldn’t narrow it down to just two, so we have awarded the scholarship to five recipients!

five-recipients-awarded-open-source-scholarships

by Chloe Gunn<h3 data-block-key="8zgz1">Intro</h3>After three years at Catalyst, I have made the tough decision to leave for my dream role. It&#x27;s bittersweet because I was very happy here, but I know the new role is right for me. So I wanted to share my experience here and talk a little about the culture and experiences I had.Catalyst was my first job in a tech environment. I knew nothing – maybe less than nothing – about technology (my A-level in IT did not serve me well). I remember my first week at Catalyst clearly; I got my buddy – who has now been a close friend for three years – and I was welcomed into the Catalyst family. Everyone was lovely, and even the developers were nice enough to look up from their coding to greet me and introduce themselves.<h3 data-block-key="fwmfa"></h3><h3 data-block-key="t40ga">Comms</h3>I joined Catalyst as a Communications Adviser; at that point, the comms team was me and my manager, Jason.Jason took the time to help me grow my skills; his office door was always open (literally and metaphorically). I had all these ideas for campaigns and he gave me free rein to go for them all. Jason gave me complete trust and freedom, allowing me to make the role and my impact my own.After a year, the comms team grew with people joining our comms team in Australia and the UK. It was great to see our presence grow across the globe.<h3 data-block-key="3qq97">Growth</h3>After two years in my comms role, I grew more curious about User Experience consulting. The culture and people at Catalyst meant I was comfortable to voice this, and once I did, I was able to train with the team. When a role came free, I went for it with full support from Jason. I think this speaks volumes to the attitude at Catalyst: encouraging growth and passion – allowing us to thrive and do our best work.<h3 data-block-key="z1b21">BA/UX</h3>So I joined the User Experience team. At Catalyst, we combine Business Analysts and User Experience into one role, allowing us to cover all requirements and design thoroughly.The team was so welcoming, patient, and really supported me in my growth. No question was ever silly, and no interruption was ever met with eye rolls. It felt like a family that I got to work with.Not to mention my manager, Sarah, who has talked me down off many self-doubt ledges, showing compassion and empathy – picking me back up and supporting me going forward. This is priceless to me.<h3 data-block-key="wf57q">Culture</h3>A few things I want to talk frankly about: many companies say they have a good culture but in daily life that doesn&#x27;t pan out. That&#x27;s not the case at Catalyst.I was struggling with my brain at one point and found out I had ADHD at 27 – it was a bit of a shock. I was completely transparent with Sarah and explained I was about to start medication, and it could be a rough ride at first. What is more shocking than finding out you have ADHD at 27? The response from Sarah and my team. I was met with nothing but patience, understanding, and compassion. I was never pressured and was given any flexibility I needed.I also want to highlight that Catalyst is pushing to create a space where we honour and provide a safe place for Māori people. The company is making moves and progressing in a direction that reassures me. Catalyst will continue to thrive.So that&#x27;s it, my love letter to Catalyst. Without the growth I was provided here, I would not have been able to get the role of my dreams, so I am forever grateful.

Chloe holding up t-shirt and saying farewell

by Chloe Gunn: A reflection on my time at Catalyst.

farewell-love-letter-catalyst

by Alex BuckleyKeeping your Koha catalogue up to date with what’s actually on the shelves is easy using the dedicated Inventory tool. As usual with Koha, there are several different ways of using the Inventory tool. The method you choose comes down to whether your library has a portable scanner or not.<h2 data-block-key="fq4uy">Method 1: Create a shelf list</h2>This method is suitable if your library does not have a portable scanner then you can use.This method generates a shelf list, which you can compare against what’s on the library shelves.You can either:<ol><li data-block-key="nwchs">Export shelf list to CSV file. Print the CSV file. Cross out items on the paper list. Return to your desk. Search for items on the list which you could not locate on the library shelves. Mark those items as ‘Missing’.</li><li data-block-key="fp8y5">Use a tablet. Visit the Koha staff client. Navigate to the inventory tool. Enter ‘Item location filters’, but do not click ‘Export to CSV file’. The shelving location will display on the screen. When you see an item on the shelf click the ‘Seen’ checkbox for it. Click the ‘Mark seen and quit’ or ‘Mark seen and continue’ buttons to update the 952$r (Date last seen) for ticked items.</li></ol><a href="https://youtu.be/m_Q8KrhWJiM" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Watch a tutorial</a> by Bywater Solutions.<h3 data-block-key="9sz8p">Inventory tool</h3>Navigate to Tools &gt; Inventory, and ignore the ‘Use a barcode file’, ‘Or scan items one by one’ and ‘Parameters’ sections.Set what items you want returned in the ‘Item location filters’ (letters for each input below correspond to the letters in the screenshot):<ul><li data-block-key="4mqdb">A: The ‘Location’ radio buttons allow you to choose if you want to retrieve items based on their home library (952$a) or current library (952$b)</li><li data-block-key="5j4a9">B: Choose a branch in the ‘Library’ dropdown</li><li data-block-key="bfw0l">C: Choose a shelving location in the ‘Shelving location’ dropdown</li><li data-block-key="12vup">D: If you want to get more specific you can enter a callnumber range as well – this is useful if you don’t think you’ll have time to get through a whole shelving location. Note: This needs the whole callnumber in the starting and ending callnumber fields. It does not accept part of a callnumber.</li></ul>‘Optional filters for inventory list or comparing barcodes’These filters will retrieve ONLY the items in Koha that match the filters you’ve set. For example, if you tick the ‘Long Overdue (Lost)’ checkbox then the inventory tool will ONLY return ‘Long Overdue (Lost)’ items for the defined library branch and shelving location. If you do not change the defaults in the ‘Optional filters’ then all items for the defined library and shelving location will be returned.<ul><li data-block-key="hlufa">E: ‘Last inventory date’ – This will not return items marked as seen since a date you specify. This is useful if you’re stocktaking a shelving location over multiple days and only want to fetch items not sighted since starting the stocktake.</li><li data-block-key="3wlpo">F: ‘Skip items on loan’ – This will not return items that Koha records as on loan, as these items should not be on your library shelves</li></ul>You can then choose to ‘Export to a CSV file’ if you want to print out the inventory list from a spreadsheet.After you&#x27;ve completed your selections, click ‘Submit’.<h3 data-block-key="3bhu5">Next page loaded</h3>If you did not click ‘Export to a CSV file’ then the shelving list will be displayed on the screen.<ul><li data-block-key="drb16">Each item has a checkbox next to it. Tick it to mark an item as &#x27;seen&#x27;.</li><li data-block-key="avmx4">There is a search field so you can search for an item you see on your shelf to find it in your inventory list, then mark it as &#x27;seen&#x27;.</li><li data-block-key="6mzuk">‘Mark seen and quit’ – Once you’ve ticked all the items in the shelving location you would click this to update the 952$r (Date last seen) item field.</li><li data-block-key="dggje">‘Mark seen and continue to’ – If you have multiple pages of inventory list to go through, and you’ve marked everything you can see as seen on the current page, and you want to check the next page of inventory list.</li><li data-block-key="zjh7w">‘Continue without marking’ – If you just want to browse through to the next page of inventory list without marking any item as seen.</li></ul><h3 data-block-key="5a7ht">At the end of the stocktake</h3>If you want to view all items not sighted during the stocktake – so you can mark them as ‘Lost’/’Missing’, or change their shelving locations:Navigate to Tools &gt; Inventory, and ignore the ‘Use a barcode file’ and ‘Or scan items one by one’ sections.Select your ‘Item location filters’ criteria, such as a branch and shelving location. Under ‘Optional filters for inventory list or comparing barcodes’, set the ‘Last Inventory date’ to the first date of the stocktake so only items NOT sighted during the whole stocktake will be returned. Tick the &#x27;skip items on loan&#x27; field so checked out items aren’t returned. Ensure you tick the &#x27;Export to CSV file&#x27; option as we’ll want to copy the barcode list in order to modify the items. After you&#x27;ve completed your selections, click ‘Submit’.Once results are returned, download and view the CSV file in a spreadsheet program. Copy up to 1000 values from the ‘barcode’ column.Back in the Koha staff client, navigate to Tools &gt; Batch item modification. Paste the copied barcodes into the ‘Barcode list’ field. Do not tick the ‘Populate fields with default values from default framework’ option, and click ‘Continue’.Koha will display a table of all items matching the barcodes you entered. Change the value in the ‘1 – Lost status’ or ‘c – Shelving location’ to whatever value you want, and click ‘Save’.Repeat this process for the next 1000 barcodes.Note: If you want to mark items as Lost then you should set up the Lost system preferences. <a href="https://bywatersolutions.com/education/an-overview-of-item-statuses" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Find out more about item statuses</a>.<h2 data-block-key="ckmgw">Method 2: Scan barcodes and compare to shelf list</h2>This method is suitable if your library does have a portable scanner that you can use.Essentially you go through a specific library shelving location/call number range scanning all the item barcodes into the Koha Inventory tool.You then generate a Koha shelving list, as in method 1, defining the filters for the items that Koha will retrieve.Koha then compares the items you scanned vs. the shelving list of items available in the catalogue. Any discrepancies between the barcode list and the shelf list are flagged.Note: Do not scan more than 1000 item barcodes at a time. Any more than 1000 barcodes may cause the Inventory tool to time out.<a href="https://youtu.be/zwGZ8lUnqdk" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Watch a tutorial</a> by Bywater Solutions.<h3 data-block-key="voys6">Inventory tool</h3>Navigate to Tools &gt; Inventory. If you have a file of barcodes, then in the ‘Use a barcode file’ box click ‘Browse...’ to upload your file. Alternatively, you can use your portable scanner to scan barcodes straight into the ‘Or scan items one by one’ section.Under ‘Parameters’ (the letters for each input correspond to letters in the below screenshot):<ul><li data-block-key="3d219">A: ‘Set inventory date to’: This is the date you want to be set in the 952$r (Date last seen) of the scanned items. This defaults to today’s date.</li><li data-block-key="8h24i">B: Tick the ‘Compare barcodes list to results’ checkbox: This is telling Koha that you scanned a specific library shelving location, and that you want to compare the scanned items vs. what Koha shows as available for that shelving location. This is a useful way of quickly identifying items on the shelves which are not listed as available in Koha and visa versa.</li><li data-block-key="dpv6b">C: Tick ‘Do not return items scanned during inventory’: This is to make sure items are not marked as returned by running the inventory tool. It’s recommended that you tick this checkbox otherwise items that have been checked out to patrons, after you scanned the shelves, will then be automatically checked in – creating something of a problem!</li><li data-block-key="tj5i0">D: Tick ‘Check barcodes list for items shelved out of order’: This will make Koha check and flag up if any of the items you scanned were out of order.</li></ul>Under ‘Item location filters’, as with method 1, you need to choose the ‘Location’, ‘Library’, ‘Shelving location’, and call number range to generate a shelving list. Make sure that you set the filters to match the area of the library that you scanned. For example, if you scanned ‘Branch A’, and shelving location ‘Non-Fiction’ then make sure you set the filters to ‘Library’ = ‘Branch A’ and ‘Shelving location’=’Non-Fiction’.Do not click ‘Export to CSV file’. Submit your selection.<h3 data-block-key="q9wkf">Next page loaded</h3>All items that you scanned AND were in the shelving location have had their 952$r (Date last seen) automatically updated to what you set in the ‘Set inventory date to’ field. Koha informs you how many items have been updated on this page – in the blue box in the below screenshot. If you scanned an item with a Lost status in Koha, then that Lost status will be automatically removed and Koha will show the item as available.A table of problematic items will be displayed. There is a ‘Problems’ column on the right hand side of this table explaining the reason why Koha has flagged the item as problematic (highlighted yellow in the below screenshot). These reasons include:<ul><li data-block-key="ykcrd">‘Missing (not scanned)’: The item was in the shelving list, but you did not scan it, i.e. Koha shows it as available, but in reality it was not on the library shelves. If you wish to mark this item as ‘Missing’ or ‘Lost’ in Koha you must click on the record title link in the table and edit the item. The inventory tool does not automatically mark items as ‘Missing’ or ‘Lost’.</li><li data-block-key="yq6gv">‘Found in wrong place’: You scanned the item, but it is not in the shelving list. i.e. Koha does not expect the item to be in the area of the library that you scanned.</li><li data-block-key="wg7x6">‘Still checked out’: You scanned this item, but it was checked out to a patron subsequently. Because you checked the ‘Do not return items scanned during inventory’ checkbox that means the item was not automatically returned by Koha.</li><li data-block-key="svrxh">‘No barcode’: An item in the shelf list does not have a barcode.</li><li data-block-key="3tgwc">‘Unknown not-for-loan status’: If an item has a not for loan status that is not defined in your: Administration &gt; Authorized values &gt; NOT_LOAN</li><li data-block-key="rptr6">‘Item may be shelved out of order’: This may be returned if you selected the ‘Check barcodes list for items shelved out of order’ parameter. It’s a useful tip telling you that you might need to re-shelve the flagged item(s).</li></ul>Written by Alex Buckley, Catalyst Koha Developer.<h3 data-block-key="2bc1n">Catalyst Koha</h3>If you have any questions or comments about this News item, or would like some support with your Koha instance, you are welcome to email us at <a href="mailto:koha@catalyst.net.nz">koha@catalyst.net.nz</a> (New Zealand) or <a href="mailto:koha-support@catalyst-au.net">koha-support@catalyst-au.net</a> (Australia).Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/catalystkoha" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Catalyst Koha on Twitter</a>!

by Alex BuckleyKeeping your Koha catalogue up to date with what’s actually on the shelves is easy using the dedicated Inventory tool. There are several different ways of using the tool.

how-do-stocktake-koha

by Alex Buckley and Aleisha AmohiaLibraries have evolved in a big way since their inception. Nowadays, you can access all types of resources through the library – books, magazines, journals, as well as electronic files. Koha provides a useful tool that allows libraries to upload their own electronic files. This tutorial aims to make the process more straightforward so your library can link PDFs and articles easily to your catalogue.<h2 data-block-key="wnbc1">How to upload a file</h2>Step 1: Start by accessing the Upload feature. It can be found in the staff client, under the Additional Tools section of the Tools module.Step 2: When uploading new files, we recommend you select an upload category, otherwise the upload will be marked as temporary. The category dropdown will not show if your Koha has none stored.Upload categories are populated from the UPLOAD authorised value category. New authorised values can be added to the UPLOAD category under Koha Administration &gt; Authorised values.Note: You can still choose to upload a temporary file by leaving the category option empty, however temporary files may be wiped upon server reboot, and automatically cleaned out by the cleanup_database.pl cronjob.Step 3: Browse to select the file you would like to upload, choose an upload category, and tick the &#x27;Allow public downloads&#x27; checkbox. This checkbox must be checked if you’d like the upload to be accessible via the OPAC.Step 4: Once the upload is complete, you’ll see the file has been allocated a hashvalue. This hashvalue is the unique identifier you will use to access the uploaded file around Koha. There will also be a public link that can be used to access the file that looks like /cgi-bin/koha/opac-retrieve-file.pl?id=235782b6aae58d51e3ce61a25cbbd115. This needs to be added onto the end of your OPAC base URL. Clicking ‘Yes’ will copy the link to your clipboard so you can paste it where you need to use it.<h2 data-block-key="ia5sm">Using your upload</h2>If you need to find your upload’s hashvalue or public link again, you can search for the file. Using the search field in the Upload tool, you can search for the file by its filename and its hashvalue.You can use the uploaded file in a news item or HTML customisation which shows on the OPAC homepage. The file can be inserted as an image or a hyperlink.You can catalogue a bibliographic record with your uploaded file linked in the 856$u field. You can also link the uploaded file to a particular item, in the Uniform Resource Identifier field.Koha gives you the flexibility to provide access to your own files in your catalogue and on your homepage.Written by Alex Buckley and Aleisha Amohia, Catalyst Koha Developers.<h3 data-block-key="zce3d">Catalyst Koha</h3>If you have any questions or comments about this News item, or would like some support with your Koha instance, you are welcome to email us at <a href="mailto:koha@catalyst.net.nz">koha@catalyst.net.nz</a> (New Zealand) or <a href="mailto:koha-support@catalyst-au.net">koha-support@catalyst-au.net</a> (Australia).Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/catalystkoha" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Catalyst Koha on Twitter</a>!

by Alex Buckley and Aleisha AmohiaYou can access all types of resources through the library – books, magazines, journals, as well as electronic files. Koha provides a useful tool that allows libraries to upload their own electronic files. This tutorial aims to make the process more straightforward so your library can link PDFs and articles easily to your catalogue.

fill-your-koha-your-files

by Aleisha AmohiaKoha librarians have the power to completely customise their public catalogue (OPAC). Koha provides a range of functionality to style the OPAC’s theme so it will align with the library’s organisational branding. Here are some ways you can customise your Koha catalogue. After redesigning your OPAC, you may be interested in <a href="https://www.catalyst.net.nz/blog/increasing-clicks-your-koha" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">increasing clicks to your Koha</a>.<h2 data-block-key="iipgh">Put custom content on the homepage</h2>The OPAC is divided into sections which can hold custom content or be edited.In Koha 21.05 and earlier, the tools to edit these sections can all be found in the staff client, under ‘Tools’ &gt; ‘News’.In Koha 21.11, the tools to edit these sections can still be found in the staff client, however most sections have been separated out to ‘Tools’ &gt; ‘HTML customisations’. You may also use the tools ‘Tools’ &gt; ‘News’ and ‘Tools’ &gt; ‘Quote editor’.The ‘HTML customisations’ and ‘News’ tools provide a WYSIWYG editor so tables and images can be simply inserted or text can be easily formatted, and a text editor for those who are more comfortable with writing HTML.The editable regions on the OPAC are commonly used by Koha libraries for different reasons.<h3 data-block-key="39rn7">The header</h3>One of the regions available for HTML customisation is opacheader. The header appears between the top navigation bar (where the Cart and Lists menu live) and the catalogue search bar. This section is typically used to show a company banner or logo. Any opacheader customisations will show across the whole OPAC, not just the homepage.<h3 data-block-key="9ssmt">The custom search</h3>OpacCustomSearch is the region to work with if your library would like to make changes to the catalogue search bar. These changes will be applied to every page where the catalogue search bar shows. We often develop HTML customisations in OpacCustomSearch when changing how patrons can conduct searches, such as implementing a way to search EBSCO’s Discovery Service without integrating a plugin.<h3 data-block-key="nk1ik">Navigation</h3>There are three different sections that can be treated as navigation menus – OpacNav, OpacNavBottom, and OpacNavRight.OpacNav and OpacNavBottom make up the left sidebar of the homepage. Unfortunately these sections can still only be edited in system preferences, which means there is only a text editor available, and they are not easily translatable. However, plenty of Koha libraries use these sections to link to other useful websites and resources, such as instructional user guides or information about other services that the library’s wider organisation provides.OpacNavRight sits on the right sidebar of the homepage. This section can be edited in the ‘HTML customisations’ tool. OpacNavRight is another great area to supply helpful links, or display useful information such as the library’s contact information or library tips.<h3 data-block-key="vd78l">The main user block</h3>OpacMainUserBlock holds the key creative content your library may use to grab the attention of patrons. This section can be edited in the ‘HTML customisations’ tool, and plenty of libraries have multiple OpacMainUserBlocks!Koha libraries use OpacMainUserBlock in a range of ways. Many start with a welcome message, and a blurb about the library and what it offers. OpacMainUserBlock has also been used to showcase interesting articles, reviews, and blog posts written by the library.Some libraries choose to display interactive, catalogue-centred content, such as sliders or carousels. Sliders can display book covers from lists and reports made within Koha, so the library has full flexibility and power to include whichever records they’d like. Titles which have been recently added to the catalogue, or titles by New Zealand authors, or even simply images of the library, are some examples of slider themes we’ve seen on Koha homepages.<h3 data-block-key="sroe7">The footer</h3>The footer on all pages of your library’s OPAC can be edited using the opaccredits region. This is a great place to include information or links that your patrons might like to access easily at any point. Many Koha libraries use the footer to display their opening hours, contact information, and social media links.<h3 data-block-key="ifrsz">Login instructions</h3>The OpacLoginInstructions section is useful to provide further detail to patrons about how to access the library’s catalogue and their library information. This section has been used to describe how to log in to the OPAC, use the library’s single sign-on service, or access the library’s self-checkout platform.<h3 data-block-key="kw7wd">News</h3>Koha provides an awesome feature for libraries to post news items, found under ‘Tools’ &gt; ‘News’. News items are best used for announcements that only need to appear for a specified amount of time. For example, notices about how a library will operate during a lockdown.These news items can be configured to display on the staff client, or the OPAC, or both. They can also have date settings, so they can be scheduled to publish on a chosen date, or expired and hidden after a chosen date.<h3 data-block-key="lvnp9">Quote of the day</h3>If the library is interested in displaying quotes, there is a cool feature that can be enabled using the QuoteOfTheDay system preference. The ‘Quote editor’ tool in the staff client can be used to add and edit quotes for Koha to display on the staff client, or the OPAC, or both!<h2 data-block-key="c3h1o">Reach your patrons in their language</h2>Custom OPAC content that can be edited under ‘Tools’ &gt; ‘HTML customisations’ and ‘Tools’ &gt; ‘News’ can be uploaded in any language installed for your Koha. The languages available to view the OPAC are set using the OPACLanguages system preference. The ‘HTML customisations’ and ‘News’ tools will allow you to create custom content in any of the languages checked in OPACLanguages.This feature makes your Koha more accessible to your patrons. Your library can display your welcome message in English, and Spanish, and Korean, and any other language you would have installed.A tip: even if you don’t have it translated, you should still create sections in all of your installed languages to hold your custom content. If there is no content set in one of the available languages, then when the OPAC is switched to display that language, no content will show.<h2 data-block-key="9vii9">OPAC system preferences</h2>Additional to the OPAC editable regions for putting custom content on the homepage, preferences can be set to further configure the way the OPAC looks and behaves, and how patrons might interact with it. These global system preferences can be found in the ‘Koha administration’ module in the staff client. There are plenty of preferences specifically for the OPAC, but there are a few that are commonly used and worth highlighting.<h3 data-block-key="b6qyg">Colours, fonts, and other display properties</h3>There are a few ways for libraries to control the styles applied across the OPAC. This means libraries can make changes to the way everything looks – colours, fonts, font sizes, images, backgrounds, or completely hide elements. Style properties can also be applied when an element is hovered over, or clicked.The best way to apply styles across many different elements is to link an external stylesheet in the OpacAdditionalStylesheet system preference. It makes it easier to modify things again as all of the applied changes are in one place.If the library can’t link to an external stylesheet, the OpacUserCSS system preference can be used for style fixes.There is also an OpacUserJS system preference that can be used to apply JavaScript to the OPAC. JavaScript is useful for a huge range of things – we often use OpacUserJS to add new HTML elements to the pages such as dropdown menus, buttons, and links. We also use JavaScript to hide and show elements that patrons shouldn’t see or have access to, and to animate features such as sliders.<h3 data-block-key="70hgp">Other system preferences</h3><ul><li data-block-key="2rmcq">OPACUserSummary – Show a summary of a patron’s checkouts, overdues, holds and charges on the OPAC homepage</li><li data-block-key="j80uo">OPACReportProblem – Allow patrons to submit problems found in the OPAC interface to KohaAdminEmailAddress</li><li data-block-key="k6yj0">OPACHiddenItems – Define rules to hide items from OPAC</li><li data-block-key="svkmc">OPACHiddenItemsExceptions – Allow specified patron categories to see otherwise hidden items</li><li data-block-key="1q9xf">OPACAdvSearchOptions – Hide options from the OPAC advanced search page</li><li data-block-key="e1gbt">OPACSuggestionsUnwantedFields – Hide fields from OPAC suggestion page</li><li data-block-key="p000h">hidelostitems – Hide lost items from search and detail pages</li><li data-block-key="qw9wv">HighlightOwnItemsOnOPAC &amp; HighlightOwnItemsOnOPACWhich – Move items to the front and increase font size from patron’s home library</li><li data-block-key="s1d4y">OPACHighlightedWords – Choose if patron&#x27;s search terms are highlighted in result and detail pages</li><li data-block-key="zlpo5">NotHighlightedWords – Define stopwords that should never be highlighted</li><li data-block-key="pvx4m">OPACMySummaryHTML – Add a column in the tables on the &#x27;My summary&#x27; and &#x27;My checkout history&#x27; pages for logged in OPAC users</li><li data-block-key="ll43t">OPACNoResultsFound – Add HTML to be displayed when no results are found for an OPAC search.</li></ul><h3 data-block-key="fu6u5">If your Koha library would like assistance implementing any of these ideas, or if you’re wondering if another idea can be done with Koha, feel free to contact our <a href="mailto:koha-support@catalyst.net.nz">New Zealand</a> or <a href="mailto:koha-support@catalyst-au.net">Australian</a> Koha teams.</h3>

by Aleisha AmohiaKoha librarians have the power to completely customise their public catalogue (OPAC). Koha provides a range of functionality to style the OPAC’s theme so it will align with the library’s organisational branding. Here are some ways you can customise your Koha catalogue.

customising-your-koha-catalogue

by Tosca WaereaIn October 2019, Tonga opened its first-ever public library in the village of Kolovai. When Catalyst representatives met the woman behind this project, they were very happy to sponsor Kolovai Library Tonga through a hosted Koha installation free of charge for the next five years.When Tonga experienced its worst storm in years due to Cyclone Gita, Kahoa and Brendon Corbett saw that schools were in need of books. This inspired their effort to source, collect and ship books across to Kolovai. On one of their trips home to Tonga, Kahoa noticed an unused fale in the village and took the opportunity to ask about using it for a library. They were able to send their first shipment to Tonga in May 2018 thanks to the assistance of their local New Zealand library. Since then, the library collection has grown to include over 20,000 items and has received donations in the form of laptops, bikes for hire, paint, and hands-on help from members of the local community. Kahoa notes, “It was a tough job collecting books in the last 19 months, juggling with helping babysit our six mokopuna, and working full time, but I was so determined to make it happen – to have the library started and up and running for the community.” With plans to meet with government officials, Kahoa is already looking to extend library services to Nuku’alofa next year with a second branch. “We already have enough books shipped over and they are currently stored in our family home.”  Kathryn Tyree, Project and Account Manager at Catalyst, met Kahoa Corbett at the 2019 LIANZA conference in Manukau. Inspired by Kahoa’s drive, they discussed the suitability of Koha as the library management system to support the volunteer-led effort to bring public library services to Tonga. Kathryn notes, “I am so thrilled we could do this for their project. I have so much admiration for what they have achieved.”DonationsKolovai Library Tonga is accepting donations. All received funds and items will contribute to the ongoing development and maintenance of collections and building.Bank account name: Kolovai Community Public Library Bank account number: ANZ BANK 1935024Postal address: PO Box 1118 Nuku&#x27;alofa, Tongatapu, Tonga IslandKolovaiKolovai, with a population of approximately 4,267 people, is a village on the Tongan island of Tongatapu. Situated approximately 18km west of Nuku’alofa, Kolovai is home to a colony of flying foxes, the traditional lakalaka dance of Tonga, and the koka tree which is said to be where Tu’i Kanokupolu title (recognised ruler) would be conferred.About Koha:The Koha community supports free and open source library management software for approximately 15,000 libraries worldwide and has been translated into more than 40 languages, including te reo Māori. Catalyst IT has a dedicated Koha team who implement and support Koha for libraries in Aotearoa, and contribute their expertise to the global Koha community project and development team.Links:<ul><li data-block-key="78mq8"><a href="https://kolovailibrary.mykoha.co.nz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Kolovai Library</a></li><li data-block-key="mikuo"><a href="koha-library-management">Catalyst Koha Library Management</a></li><li data-block-key="lyq8x"><a href="https://koha-community.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Koha Community</a></li></ul> Follow Catalyst on <a href="https://twitter.com/catalystnz?lang=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/catalyst-it-limited/?originalSubdomain=nz" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">LinkedIn</a> to stay up to with all of our opportunities and news.<hr/>Catalyst is a New Zealand owned and operated company where openness, long term relationships, community and diversity are essential characteristics of how we do business. Since 1997, Catalyst has been enabling success with expert open source solutions, and clients all over the world trust us with their mission-critical systems.

by Tosca WaereaIn October 2019, Tonga opened its first-ever public library in the village of Kolovai. Catalyst representatives met the woman behind this project and were very happy to sponsor Kolovai Library Tonga through a hosted Koha installation free of charge for the next five years.

new-zealand%E2%80%99s-newest-koha-library-kolovai-library-tonga

by Charlotte WestonAnh Duong came to Catalyst in 2020 for an accessibility internship after finishing university. She says she knew nothing about web accessibility before joining Catalyst, but as she was researching things that might come up in the interview, she felt like accessibility was something she’d like to work on. “I’m the kind of person who feels like we can move forward better if we can help each other,” Anh says.Anh joined Catalyst during a tumultuous time: just after the first New Zealand lockdown. Anh is Vietnamese, and has only been back to Vietnam once since coming to New Zealand, due to the travel restrictions now familiar to all of us. The day she came back from Vietnam was the day New Zealand had its first case of Covid-19, and she feels lucky she was able to make it back to New Zealand to finish her study. Anh has a business degree with a double major in Business Analysis and Marketing. After finishing the internship Anh was offered a permanent role at Catalyst as a Business Analyst and Accessibility Specialist.These days, Anh does accessibility audits and consultations for private and public sector clients, and conducts in-depth courses to help people understand web accessibility, and the techniques for making web content accessible and WCAG 2.1 AA (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) compliant. Anh’s passion for accessibility is clear when she is teaching a course. “In my training, as soon as the participant is thinking about, or empathising with the user, then my training is successful.” Before taking the course, she says, “it wouldn’t take more than 10 seconds for a developer to add an image to their website. But afterwards they would think about the purpose of images and how they can make them more accessible.”“I love what I do and find it meaningful,” Anh says. For a while she worked with Julius Serrano, an accessibility specialist, who is blind and uses a screen reader. “Seeing the obstacles Julius faced made me even more interested in accessibility. I started talking to others at Catalyst and found out we have more people who have invisible disabilities or challenges, like dyslexia or colour-blindness, or people who have children who are affected by this. When Julius walks around with a cane, you know he’s blind, but you can’t always tell if a person has low vision if you pass them in the street.”Before coming to Catalyst and immersing herself in accessibility, Anh says she was in an environment where none of her friends had disabilities. “When you’re more aware of disabled people, you want to know how to treat them, to be aware of your surroundings, to empathise more with others and what they’re going through, and use technology that can help,” Anh says. “We’re living in a world that is catered towards ‘able’ people, and it’s the environment that disables people. It’s OK if you don’t know these things, but the moment you’re aware of it, you want to learn and improve yourself, and improve things in the community.”When she came to New Zealand, Anh found there was not much representation of Vietnam in the community. She feels that she would like to represent her home country, “to talk about us as Vietnamese.” Recently she stopped using the English name she’d drawn randomly out of a hat when learning English in Vietnam, and is now reclaiming her Vietnamese name in her New Zealand life. “When I asked people at Catalyst to refer to me as my Vietnamese name, it was a big deal for me. As Asian people we often feel like we need to Westernise our identity, but we shouldn’t,” Anh says.In a recent email to let everyone in the company know about the name change, Anh said, “a lot of folks from a non-English-speaking country use their English name just to make it easier for others. But I think it&#x27;s important for me personally to be known as ‘Anh’, because it represents my nationality, my identity and the appreciation I have for my family (each word in my full name represents a family member).”Anh’s experience moving to a new country helps inform her work in accessibility. “As soon as you’re acknowledging something, you’ll be more aware of it in your surroundings. I’ve always liked taking care of people,” she says. “What my Mum taught me is to be aware of your surroundings, to pay attention to things.” Her goal is to be helpful, and to be part of a community where people of all abilities can participate. “It’s a step-by-step process, but you keep learning, and trying to make things better.”

Anh Duong smiling and talking about accessibility

by Charlotte WestonAnh Duong&#x27;s experience moving to NZ from Vietnam and working in web accessibility at Catalyst.

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Catalyst Security and Operations teams have been reviewing and patching potentially vulnerable systems. As at the time of this publication, no Catalyst systems, or any systems hosted or managed by Catalyst, have been compromised. As we continue to monitor our and client systems, we are seeing attempts to exploit the vulnerability now that knowledge about it is widespread. We expect these attempts will only increase in frequency over the coming days. Our current priority is to continue to monitor our systems, and where short term remediations were initially implemented, to apply longer term fixes. This work will continue over the next several days. If you have specific questions about one of your systems managed by Catalyst, please contact your account manager. More information about the vulnerability, and mitigations, is on the CERTNZ website: <a href="https://www.cert.govt.nz/it-specialists/advisories/log4j-rce-0-day-actively-exploited/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://www.cert.govt.nz/it-specialists/advisories/log4j-rce-0-day-actively-exploited/</a>

As at the time of this publication, no Catalyst systems, or any systems hosted or managed by Catalyst, have been compromised.

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The widely-used java logging library, log4j, has an <a href="https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2021-44228" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">unauthenticated RCE vulnerability</a> that is being actively exploited in the wild.As of the time of publication of this advisory, Catalyst is not aware of any of its systems, or of any systems we host or manage for our clients,  as having been compromised.We have prioritised client systems according to their criticality and risk, and are patching them to mitigate the potential for the exploit.Please be aware that systems behind WAFs (Web Application Firewalls), like those provided by Cloudflare and Fastly, are also implementing mitigations.More information about the vulnerability, and mitigations, is on the CERTNZ website:<a href="https://www.cert.govt.nz/it-specialists/advisories/log4j-rce-0-day-actively-exploited/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://www.cert.govt.nz/it-specialists/advisories/log4j-rce-0-day-actively-exploited/</a>

As of the time of publication of this advisory, Catalyst is not aware of any of its systems, or of any systems we host or manage for our clients,  as having been compromised.

advisory-log4j-vulnerability

by Charlotte WestonA recent survey of Catalyst employees found that nearly 80% of respondents were in favour of the Wellington City Council plan to build a connected network of cycleways.In September this year Wellington City councillors approved the plan to build a $226 million, 147km cycleway network over the next decade.Image from <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/columnists/108699492/wellingtons-on-the-right-track-thanks-to-councils-cycle-lane-plans" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Stuff</a>There are many factors that influence how people travel to and from work, such as the weather, the distance between home to office, and the hilly nature of Wellington’s geography. However, the top reason given for what stops people cycling to work was that it isn’t safe.&quot;Around 30% of people said the main reason they don&#x27;t cycle is because it is too dangerous. As an experienced cyclist, I guess this is something that I have come to terms with and accept as part and parcel of commuting and I assumed people don&#x27;t ride because they don&#x27;t want to get sweaty etc.,&quot; said Russel Garlick, Catalyst&#x27;s Agile Coach, co-owner of <a href="https://www.joyride.co.nz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Joyride,</a> and trail education leader of <a href="https://www.trailfund.org.nz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Trail Fund NZ.</a> &quot;Any plan that attempts to make cycling safer is ace and will hopefully lead to more people on bikes which is a good thing.&quot;The Catalyst office is on Willis Street in the central city, and currently less than a quarter of Catalyst’s Wellington staff cycle to work. A handful of dedicated cyclists bike every day they’re in the office, and others cycle some of the time. A better network of cycleways would make even more respondents consider cycling to work, with another 26% saying it may make a difference.Wellington has the highest rate of public transport use in the country, and 58% of Catalyst employees indicated they used public transport. The next most popular form of commuting to work was walking, with 44% of survey respondents walking either as their sole method of getting to work, or in conjunction with using public transport. Private vehicles came in third, and cycling or another form of wheels (e.g. scooter or skateboard) came in last.Catalyst has previously shown a commitment to supporting staff members who cycle to work by providing shower facilities and secure bike parking onsite, and subsidising Catalyst branded cycling gear. Catalyst employees have participated in the Lake Taupō Cycle Challenge as a group in past years.The 2008 Catalyst cycling team at the Lake Taupō Cycling ChallengeA protected and connected network of cycleways could improve the liveability of the city and make it a more attractive place to live and work, which would benefit all Wellington businesses, including ours.Catalyst is a community-minded company and a network of cycleways aligns with our long-term vision and values of inclusion and sustainability.

by Charlotte WestonA recent survey of Catalyst employees found that nearly 80% of respondents were in favour of the Wellington City Council plan to build a connected network of cycleways.

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We are featuring the finalists from each category in the 2021 <a href="https://nzosa.org.nz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">New Zealand Open Source Awards</a>, in the lead up to the <a href="https://nzosa.org.nz/news-and-media/nzosa-gala-dinner-postponed/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">February 2022 gala dinner</a> and award announcements. Congratulations to all the finalists, and we look forward to celebrating all your valuable work at the gala dinner!<h2 data-block-key="apia4">Open Source People&#x27;s Choice award Te Kōwhiri a te Iwi</h2><h3 data-block-key="d6k93"><a href="https://www.chillu.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Ingo Schommer</a>: A pillar of the open-source <a href="https://www.silverstripe.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Silverstripe</a> CMS</h3>You can&#x27;t have a discussion about the force of people behind the creation and custodianship of Silverstripe CMS without giving significant credit to Ingo Schommer.Ingo has always had a significant passion for fostering the open source community. He authored the first book on using Silverstripe CMS in 2009 and even had a sabbatical to return to his home country of Germany where he, in his words, &quot;applied my skills in the local market and expanded Silverstripe&#x27;s reach into the European community&quot;.Whether he&#x27;s monitoring the health of the community through identifying trends in the millions of interactions points over the past decades, hosting Silverstripe CMS Meetups, or spending time to catch a beer with a Silverstripe CMS community member to hear their feedback, he pours his heart into this open-source software.<h3 data-block-key="ndllw"><a href="https://gitlab.com/jsutton24" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Joseph Sutton</a>&#x27;s contribution to the Samba Project</h3>Joseph Sutton joined the Samba project as a developer in early 2021; by June he had contributed 74 complex patches to the open source file and printer sharing protocol.Samba is a large and complex open source software project, and it takes years to learn it well. Likewise the protocols that Samba implements, for example the infamous Kerberos, are complex and interwoven. Joseph has not allowed this to daunt him, instead he has thrived on carefully and deliberately adding tests and fixing issues he has found.Joseph works well with the upstream Samba Team, and has the eye of an experienced Samba developer; when finding issues he is always looking to fix them properly.<h3 data-block-key="uox23">Julian Oliver with <a href="https://www.urbandreambrokerage.org.nz/electromagnetic-geographies" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Electromagnetic Geographies</a></h3>With Electromagnetic Geographies, Julian Oliver invited artists to a one-week workshop in which he introduced open source tools to reveal the invisible electromagnetic spectrum in Wellington and guided participants through building their own devices to discover unseen infrastructure.The workshop was followed by an exhibition in an inner-city space utilising the diverse electronic networks traversing through the city to create a wider awareness of the spectral infrastructures being used to study us, and how this domain can be employed as a material in creative and critical practices.At the heart of the workshop and the exhibition sits the Linux-based operating system “Electromagnetic Geographies” that allowed the participants from a diversity of backgrounds to engage with highly complex material in an accessible manner, celebrating open-source technology as a means to advance artistic production and activism in the radio spectrum.<h3 data-block-key="bcw49"><a href="https://kolovailibrary.mykoha.co.nz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Kolovai Library</a>, Kingdom of Tonga for their use of Koha in providing <a href="https://kolovaicpl.wordpress.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">community access to information and knowledge</a></h3>Kolovai Library use Koha Library Management System to provide materials and services to help community members gather information and knowledge to meet their personal, educational, and cultural needs.The library is dedicated to enriching the lives of its community by fostering the spirit of exploration and lifelong learning for all ages.Over the span of 2 years, Kolovai Library founders turned an unused village fale into a public library and sourced, collected, and shipped over 20,000 items (including donations of laptops, bikes for hire, paint, and hands-on help from local people).<h3 data-block-key="awis6">Manawatū-Whanganui Local Authority Shared Services Ltd for <a href="https://archivescentral.org.nz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Archives Central</a></h3>Archives Central is a physical and digital repository for a consortium of central-North Island councils. The site was recently rebuilt onto Islandora 8, an open source digital repository system including Drupal 8, Fedora Commons Repository, Apache Solr, and numerous other FOSS components. Over 200,000 records were migrated.The new system introduced a responsive design, a revised data model using the latest archival data standards, and showcases digital records to make them more discoverable and enjoyable. The records have been modelled as a knowledge graph (linked data) using the new Records in Contexts (RiCO) ontology. As such, AC is one of the first applications of RiC around the world, and is particularly noteworthy because it is using &quot;commodity&quot; applications (as compared to fully bespoke software) to implement data standards that have the potential to transform data use and reuse throughout the GLAM (Galleries Libraries Archives Museums) sector.The combination of open data standards backed by open software is a powerful strategy for ensuring the long-term integrity and viability of the archive.<h3 data-block-key="0bqyc"><a href="https://foundation.vodafone.co.nz/thriving-rangatahi-population-explorer/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Thriving Rangatahi Population Explorer</a></h3>This work is about democratising data, so community organisations have the information they need, for free, when working to support our rangatahi in Aotearoa in NZ.This mahi used R in Stats NZ Integrated Data Infrastructure, to compile information about rangatahi in local areas throughout Aotearoa, centred around a framework of Māori wellbeing. It was then hosted in an R Shiny app, so community organisations can access this data safely, and for free.Nicholson Consulting led the work, and thought long and hard about their use of open source data and technology, to ensure they did it safely, carefully, and recognised the areas of associated risk. They have tried to mitigate these by using approaches from te ao Māori and influenced by the Principles of Māori Data Sovereignty.Their thinking about open source extended far beyond technology, to engagement and partnership with Māori community organisations and care and protection of the data itself.

The finalists in the Open Source People&#x27;s Choice awards category for the NZ Open Source Awards.

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We are featuring the finalists from each category in the 2021 <a href="https://nzosa.org.nz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">New Zealand Open Source Awards</a>, in the lead up to the <a href="https://nzosa.org.nz/news-and-media/nzosa-gala-dinner-postponed/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">February 2022 gala dinner</a> and award announcements. Congratulations to all the finalists, and we look forward to celebrating all your valuable work at the gala dinner!<h2 data-block-key="hzgz9">Open Source use in the Arts Whakamahi Pūmanawa Herekore i Ngā Toi</h2><h3 data-block-key="9ob19">Julian Oliver with <a href="https://www.urbandreambrokerage.org.nz/electromagnetic-geographies" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Electromagnetic Geographies</a></h3>With Electromagnetic Geographies, Julian Oliver invited artists to a one-week workshop in which he introduced open source tools to reveal the invisible electromagnetic spectrum in Wellington and guided participants through building their own devices to discover unseen infrastructure.The workshop was followed by an exhibition in an inner-city space utilising the diverse electronic networks traversing through the city to create a wider awareness of the spectral infrastructures being used to study us, and how this domain can be employed as a material in creative and critical practices.At the heart of the workshop and the exhibition sits the Linux-based operating system “Electromagnetic Geographies” that allowed the participants from a diversity of backgrounds to engage with highly complex material in an accessible manner, celebrating open-source technology as a means to advance artistic production and activism in the radio spectrum.<h3 data-block-key="2wz0y"><a href="http://portfolio.tabreturn.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Tristan Bunn</a> with <a href="http://pyde.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">PYDE.ORG</a></h3>PYDE.ORG (<a href="http://pyde.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">http://pyde.org</a>) hosts a collection of code examples and other resources for the popular Processing Python Mode (Processing.py) creative coding environment: a static website generator that transpiles Python examples into JavaScript for display in any web browser.This innovation means that users can view and run example code online without copy-pasting it into the Processing IDE.Tristan also created the first Processing Python Mode &#x27;cheat sheet&#x27;—a printable document to assist beginner-to-intermediate users—using open-source design software and releasing the source files for anybody to modify.<h3 data-block-key="6djs8"><a href="http://digitalsmith.nz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Vicki Smith</a> and Breathe, an Artist contribution to <a href="https://www.nelson.govt.nz/assets/Environment/Downloads/project-maitai/te-wairepo-york-stream/Te-Wairepo-Breathe-Resource-document-17-Jan-2018-A1898678.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">urban waterway engagement</a></h3>Breathe is an art, science and technology collaboration which takes the form of a visual representation of the temperature of water along the length of Te Wairepo (York Stream), a local canalised stream, via a series of internet-connected fish replicas displayed in a public venue.Water temperature directly relates to the amount of dissolved oxygen it carries, and to the ability for fish to breathe. The project seeks to encourage the groups involved to practise kaitiakitanga (guardianship) of their part of the waterway, taking direct action to reduce the temperature and therefore improve fish habitat. Breathe engages with a pressing issue, the health of New Zealand freshwater streams and the wellbeing of its connected ecosystems. Smith engages with this often perceived abstract topic through a combination of art and science, inviting an interested public to understand the effect of human activity on our waterways.The project combines a participatory approach that is suitable for children, using open source software to create a networked art project that is available to be copied and further developed for other streams.

The finalists in the Open Source use in the Arts category for the NZ Open Source Awards.

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We are featuring the finalists from each category in the 2021 <a href="https://nzosa.org.nz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">New Zealand Open Source Awards</a>, in the lead up to the <a href="https://nzosa.org.nz/news-and-media/nzosa-gala-dinner-postponed/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">February 2022 gala dinner</a> and award announcements. Congratulations to all the finalists, and we look forward to celebrating all your valuable work at the gala dinner!<h2 data-block-key="wf5gq">Open Source use in Science Whakamahi Pūmanawa Herekore i te Pūtaiao</h2><h3 data-block-key="k406l"><a href="https://www.avianz.net/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">AviaNZ</a>: Making Sure Our Birds Are Heard</h3>The AviaNZ project is a collaboration between mathematicians, data scientists, and conservation biologists, to enable acoustic recordings of birdsong to be turned into reliable estimates of abundance.The free open source software is designed to let the user analyse birdsong either manually or automatically. AviaNZ works with many groups, from Ngapuhi, through the Department of Conservation and Nga Whenua Rahui, to local community groups in many areas. The software used by the project is FOSS, making it accessible to the broadest range of New Zealanders.The software has been trained for NZ species, but can be readily adapted for any other birds, and those filters can be contributed back to the project for use by anyone, anywhere.The project combines ecology and conservation, working with tangata whenua and local communities, and is powered by open source software.<h3 data-block-key="f44hc"><a href="https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/science/our-research/research-institutes-and-centres/centre-for-computational-evolution.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Centre for Computational Evolution</a> for <a href="http://https://www.beast2.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">BEAST 2</a></h3>BEAST 2 is an open source cross-platform program for inferring family trees (phylogenies) from molecular sequences.It is used by scientists all over the world in diverse fields, but particularly in genomic research.BEAST 2 is used by scientists all round the world. Having open source code means results can more easily be verified and errors can be reasoned about. Results can more easily be reproduced independently.BEAST 2’s analysis of the family trees of viruses has come into its own over the last two years, to the point that New Zealand is recognised as a world centre of phylogenetic research.<h3 data-block-key="ftoo2">Irene Wallis&#x27; development of the <a href="https://github.com/ICWallis/fractoolbox" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">fractoolbox</a> Python library</h3>Irene Wallis has developed an open-source Python library for researchers and engineers to performed advanced fracture analysis in deep geothermal wells.The library, called Fractoolbox, helps reservoir engineers to visualise data from very deep geothermal wells, allowing them to operate these renewable resources in a sustainable and economic manner.Although proprietary versions of this kind of software have been around in the Oil &amp; Gas industry for a while, they are generally priced out of reach of geothermal companies. Irene&#x27;s open source library is helping to mainstream advanced fracture analysis in geothermal wells.

The finalists in the Open Source use in Science category for the NZ Open Source Awards.

nzosa-finalists-part-6-open-source-use-science

Over the next two months we&#x27;ll be featuring the finalists from each category in the 2021 <a href="https://nzosa.org.nz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">New Zealand Open Source Awards</a>, preceding the <a href="https://nzosa.org.nz/news-and-media/nzosa-gala-dinner-postponed/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">February 2022 gala dinner</a> and award announcements. Congratulations to all the finalists, and we look forward to celebrating all your valuable work at the gala dinner!<h2 data-block-key="j12qz">Open Source in Education, Social Services and Youth Pūmanawa Herekore i te Mātauranga, ngā Ratonga Pāpori me te Rangatahi</h2><h3 data-block-key="5b7d6"></h3><h3 data-block-key="ywaqv"><a href="https://www.nzslshare.nz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">NZSL Share</a> by <a href="https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/lals/centres-and-institutes/dsru" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Deaf studies Research Unit</a>, Victoria University of Wellington and <a href="https://www.ackama.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Ackama</a> partnering with<a href="https://www.jrmckenzie.org.nz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> JR McKenzie Trust</a>&#x27;s Deaf Development Fund and MSD <a href="https://www.odi.govt.nz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Office for Disability Issues</a></h3>The Deaf Studies Research Unit and Ackama designed and developed a solution to the need for the New Zealand deaf community and sign language users to communicate about new and previously undocumented signs.NZSL Share is an open source software project, operating alongside the NZSL online dictionary, free NZSL e-learning material and other online initiatives that support the New Zealand Sign Language Board’s strategic objectives.As NZSL expands into new areas of use, there is an increasing demand for new sign vocabulary. NZSL Share was developed in response to a need for a community-controlled online space where the Deaf community can discuss newly emerging or previously unrecorded signs. NZSL Share also meets the needs of non-Deaf NZSL users (such as interpreters or parents of deaf children) to have access to up-to-date language developments, by enabling them to view the discussion, save selected signs in folders, or upload their own signs to a private space.The NZSL Share platform is being used for ongoing research by the Deaf Studies Research Unit, providing for direct, interactive input by Deaf NZSL users into language documentation and expansion of the NZSL dictionary. Alongside increased status and visibility of NZSL in the public domain, there is now a growing demand for translation and interpreting of information into NZSL. The immediate need to translate and simultaneously interpret public health information during the Covid-19 pandemic response in New Zealand is an example of an event that has rapidly generated and disseminated new terms in NZSL.<h3 data-block-key="y8y1w"><a href="https://oerfoundation.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">OER Foundation</a> for Higher education built on Open Educational Resources</h3>The OER Foundation coordinates a global network of 40+ higher education institutions and funding provider partners, which together form the Open Education Resource universitas or OERu.The OERu offers tertiary or university level open source courses to any learner, worldwide, if they have access to an internet connected device. The courses are free to take. The only cost for learners is incurred by those who want formal academic credit for their mastery of course materials, payable to an OERu partner institution for assessment-only services.One of the OERu&#x27;s greatest achievements it creating a system of micro-courses which can be taken and assessed independently by partners, as well as a system of transnational course credit articulation agreements that allow learners who meet assessment requirements to convert that success to formal transcript credit across the various higher educations systems around the world.The OER Foundation is an incorporated charitable foundation based in Dunedin, New Zealand, and is owned by Otago Polytechnic, Ltd. The OER Foundation is a “radically open organisation”. OERu planning meetings are open, streamed online, and minutes published under a CC-BY-SA license.The Foundation&#x27;s terms of reference require that its staff use Free and Open Source software where-ever possible: internally, to build its courses and their resources, to deliver all of its courses to learners, as well as to support learner and educator collaboration.<h3 data-block-key="61pel"><a href="https://www.somar.co.nz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Somar Digital</a> for designing and building the<a href="https://www.cab.org.nz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> Citizens Advice Bureau</a> NZ website and intranet</h3>Somar Digital designed and built the Citizens Advice Bureau’s public website backed by a powerful knowledge base search, along with a full intranet for their 2,600 trained volunteers using the open-source Silverstripe CMS, which helps to make sure all New Zealanders know what their rights are and how to access services they need no matter what the issue is.Somar Digital utilized the Silverstripe CMS to its fullest potential to bring this highly complex and multi-tiered solution to the Citizens Advice Bureau. As a not-for-profit, CAB’s digital offerings are free to anyone who wants to use the website in order to understand their rights, or who just want to find some information about any issues they are having specific to New Zealand.Since its release, CAB travelled across NZ to get volunteers up to speed with the new system and get any feedback. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Volunteers noted that it was a &quot;quantum leap forward&quot; and a &quot;dream to use compared with the old site.&quot;<h3 data-block-key="rlzeu">University of Canterbury for <a href="https://www.canterbury.ac.nz/news/2020/ace-system-supports-success-of-all-first-year-students-at-uc.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Analytics for Course Engagement (ACE)</a></h3>Launched in April 2020, the Analytics for Course Engagement (ACE) initiative is a collaborative endeavour between IT and the Student Success programme, combining technology with proactive outreach.Focusing directly on first-years, ACE takes a variety of information about students, combines this with data directly related to engagement in the online learning environment.Using open source and Artificial Intelligence, ACE predicts and proactively supports students at risk of disengaging, via an organisation wide response plan. A personalised dashboard (embedded in the Learning Management System) enables self-direction in study behaviour, as students can monitor their own engagement relative to their peers in the same course.This level of transparency has been shown to be a powerful tool, in particular with our Māori, Pacific, low decile and First-in-Family students. During the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown ACE enabled the university to monitor and support our first-years, many of whom had little experience with University study prior to the shift to fully online.

The finalists in the Open Source in Education, Social Services and Youth category for the NZ Open Source Awards.

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Over the next two months we&#x27;ll be featuring the finalists from each category in the 2021 <a href="https://nzosa.org.nz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">New Zealand Open Source Awards</a>, preceding the <a href="https://nzosa.org.nz/news-and-media/nzosa-gala-dinner-postponed/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">February 2022 gala dinner</a> and award announcements. Congratulations to all the finalists, and we look forward to celebrating all your valuable work at the gala dinner!<h2 data-block-key="ez14l">Open Source Contributor</h2><h2 data-block-key="emifp">Kaikoha Pūmanawa Herekore</h2><h3 data-block-key="qi62y">Evonne Cheung&#x27;s contributions to the <a href="https://mahara.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mahara</a> project: Graphically designing an open source project</h3>Evonne is the Mahara team member who has been the longest on the project, now for close to 15 years. She established and shaped the brand for the Mahara project, keeping it contemporary and relevant.We often celebrate open source from the coding perspective, but Evonne is an equally critical contributor to the project because graphic design is incredibly important for any modern web application. It can&#x27;t just work functionally, but must also look good to be attractive to individuals and organisations.Over the years, Evonne has adapted the brand and given it a major refresh, which was launched in January 2017. She also creates additional graphic visualisations that support the project maintainer team, such as 6-monthly Mahara themed thank you cards, social media templates, logos for user groups and conferences, and not to forget Mahara themes that follow modern guidelines of responsiveness and accessibility.Besides being chiefly responsible for the look of the Mahara project, she also creates the actual CSS and performs a lot of the front-end work for Mahara. This synergy between graphic design and front-end has been working very well for the Mahara project because Evonne knows how far she can push a design and where the limitations are.<h3 data-block-key="auoe5">Samuel Williams’ contributions to the Ruby programming language</h3><a href="https://www.codeotaku.com/index" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://www.codeotaku.com/index</a><a href="https://github.com/socketry" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://github.com/socketry</a>Samuel’s contributions to the Ruby programming language and the Async toolkit will enable Ruby developers to continue using their favourite language in new ways, where in the past they might have left the ecosystem.In addition to providing Ruby core language improvements and a suite of open source tools, Samuel’s advancements with his open source async toolkit and concurrency primitives in the Ruby ecosystem make Ruby suitable for for highly scalable web development.One of his recent achievements was the release of Ruby 3.0 with native support for Fibers.<h3 data-block-key="3ue94"><a href="https://github.com/purcell/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Steve Purcell</a>&#x27;s contributions to <a href="https://github.com/melpa/melpa" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">MELPA</a>; The most widely used Emacs package repository</h3>For close to a decade, Steve Purcell has developed, maintained and stewarded the MELPA project. MELPA is a package repository for extensions to Emacs, one of the two most popular code editors in existence.Steve&#x27;s work on MELPA shows astounding dedication and humility. Along with his fellow maintainers, Steve provides code review for all packages submitted to the repository, often going so far as to collaborate with new package authors and to help them maintain packages he has no stake in.This also provides a level of security and reliability far above what is normal of public package repositories in any context, and reflects Steve&#x27;s selfless dedication to the Emacs community. His work is a large part of why Emacs has a reputation as one of the most powerful and flexible operating systems in the open source world.

The finalists in the Open Source Contributor category for the NZ Open Source Awards.

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Over the next two months we&#x27;ll be featuring the finalists from each category in the 2021 <a href="https://nzosa.org.nz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">New Zealand Open Source Awards</a>, preceding the <a href="https://nzosa.org.nz/news-and-media/nzosa-gala-dinner-postponed/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">February 2022 gala dinner</a> and award announcements. Congratulations to all the finalists, and we look forward to celebrating all your valuable work at the gala dinner!<h2 data-block-key="b4awd">Open Source Software Project Kaupapa Pūmanawa Herekore</h2><h3 data-block-key="84g7b"><a href="https://mahara.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mahara Project</a></h3>The Mahara ePortfolio project celebrates its 15th anniversary in 2021. The project has grown from humble beginnings to an open source project in use around the world by institutions of learning and increasingly other organisations who support the project with new features.The Mahara project is an example of an open source platform created and still largely maintained in Aotearoa New Zealand that has travelled the world and can be found on all continents (except Antarctica).In Aotearoa, Mahara is used in the tertiary sector in at least four major universities (Massey University, University of Waikato, AUT, University of Auckland), several polytechnics, e.g. Open Polytechnic, Weltec Whitireia, Wintec, Otago Polytechnic, and numerous district health boards across the country. Internationally, the Mahara project has been in use for many years in secondary and tertiary institutions in Europe, Canada and the U.S.A., Japan, Australia, South Africa, and many other countries.<h3 data-block-key="g3tnc">Silverstripe CMS for the <a href="https://www.silverstripe.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Silverstripe CMS</a></h3>Silverstripe CMS continues to be the pillar for many digital channels across the private and public sector in New Zealand. Its open source and free to use software means it can be used to create a website in a matter of hours for a small or not-for-profit organisation; while it&#x27;s also trusted by enterprise-sized companies like a number of NZ banks.Since 2013 it continues to be the first choice for the public sector in NZ – now making up over 200 websites, serving the needs of NZ citizens. This software is responsible for a lot across the New Zealand government’s Common Web Platform, including over half a million published pages, 850,000 form submissions, supporting the shift to digital channels throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, and allowing over 13,900 authors to publish to the web.<h3 data-block-key="rl9aj">Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand <a href="https://basemaps.linz.govt.nz" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Basemap</a> Service</h3>Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand is the public service department of New Zealand charged with geographical information and surveying functions as well as handling land titles, and managing Crown land and property.LINZ is developing a free, open source, high quality basemap service providing an authoritative source of up-to-date New Zealand aerial imagery, as well as soon-to-be-integrated NZ Topo50/250 maps.The code is released under an MIT licence, and all of the content is released under Creative Commons. The code is being developed &#x27;in the open&#x27; using modern code management tools to mitigate vulnerabilities and security issues.

The finalists in the Open Source Software Project category for the NZ Open Source Awards.

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by Kristina HoeppnerIn this second part of our mini series on <a href="https://mahara.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mahara</a>, I am looking at how features and other improvements make it into the software. (See <a href="https://www.catalyst.net.nz/blog/building-bridge-ple-and-integration-other-tools-assessment-purposes" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Part 1 here</a>.)When the project started in 2006, a dedicated project team undertook the initial analysis, conducted research into personal learning environments, electronic portfolios, and usability. This work was and still is incredibly important because it laid the foundation for a number of concepts that are still used today.After the project phase finished, Catalyst took on the responsibility of maintaining the software on behalf of the community. In the beginning this was done together with another company, Flexible Learning Network, who supported the strategic vision of the project. Since around 2012 Catalyst has taken on more and more responsibilities, resulting in becoming the company that leads the development of the Mahara software and also manages the community.Don Christie, Managing Director at Catalyst, says,&quot;One of the reasons we keep going is that the job isn’t complete. In that the education system still doesn’t value the individual student as it should. The education model is about getting thousands of bums on seats and churning them through the system. It’s not the fault of the institutions, it’s just how the financing works. It doesn’t necessarily create the creative, confident learners that we need in our businesses, in our communities. So there’s still a job to be done here, and Mahara is working with institutions to get that change to take place.&quot;While Catalyst does the majority of the development work, we don&#x27;t come up with new features and changes to Mahara in a vacuum. Together with our clients and the wider community, we learn what students, educators, and professionals looking to use portfolios want to see in a contemporary ePortfolio platform. Through a joint effort, either by our clients commissioning changes or other community members contributing improvements themselves, the software evolves.For example, the idea for SmartEvidence, our representation of a competency framework in Mahara, was born out of a <a href="https://www.slideshare.net/maharahuinz/maharahui-kirby-nuessler20140320" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">presentation</a> that Misty Kirby and Shane Nuessler from the University of Canberra gave at the <a href="https://mahara.org/group/kiwimug/welcome-to-mahara-hui-2014" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">first Mahara Hui</a> in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington in 2014. A group of us then got together on the community day during Mahara Hui to consider more use cases and delve deeper into the idea of bringing competency frameworks to Mahara. This eventually resulted in a business analysis project where we worked with the University on designing the final product, which was then implemented by Catalyst in 2016.Other clients supported research into simplifying workflows in Mahara and making it easier for portfolio authors to create and maintain their work. That included, for example, the support of instructions on pages, better templating options, easier editing, and rearranging of navigation menu items, to name but a few.Over the years, lots of people and <a href="https://wiki.mahara.org/index.php/Contributors" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">organisations</a> have participated in making Mahara what it is today. All of them are contributors, not just the software developers. We celebrate them with every release of Mahara, as it takes a lot of people to develop the final product, support the community, and maintain the project infrastructure.Read Part 1 in this series on the history of Mahara here: <a href="https://www.catalyst.net.nz/blog/building-bridge-ple-and-integration-other-tools-assessment-purposes" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Building a bridge: PLE and integration with other tools for assessment purposes</a>And read Part 3 here: <a href="https://www.catalyst.net.nz/blog/whats-future-mahara" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">What&#x27;s in the future of Mahara?</a>

by Kristina HoeppnerWhile Catalyst does the majority of the development work, we don&#x27;t come up with new features and changes to Mahara in a vacuum. Together with our clients and the wider community, we learn what students, educators, and professionals looking to use portfolios want to see in a contemporary ePortfolio platform.

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by Kristina HoeppnerIn 2006, a new software project was created that made learners the centre of attention. Mahara was developed not to replace learning management systems (LMS) but to complement them, and to provide learners with the opportunity to collect what was important to them out of all the learning they did. Sixteen years later, this is still true. Working with portfolios and personal learning environments has changed over the years, and Mahara has evolved and continues to be relevant. Some of these evolutions include easier mapping of learning evidence to a competency framework, better integration with LMS, improved management of large groups of learners, and scaffolding their use of portfolios.Each half-yearly release of Mahara includes changes in five areas:<ul><li data-block-key="jerl3">Usability: simplify the user interface, keep up with the changing world of how people interact with web applications and thus expect from Mahara.</li><li data-block-key="ulzpn">New features: offer tools to learners that they need to create the portfolios they want or are required to set up.</li><li data-block-key="zlm9x">Technical updates: update third-party libraries and search for new ways to continuously improve the usability of the site.</li><li data-block-key="lgbqn">Issue resolution: fix problems that the community has come across.</li><li data-block-key="vcu7o">Infrastructure updates: facilitate the smooth running of the project and the server infrastructure that hosts community sites.</li></ul>Through conversations in the community, research being conducted in organisations using Mahara, and also organisations more broadly using portfolios, we keep up to date with trends in the field of electronic portfolios to help us continue to evolve Mahara over the coming years.We&#x27;d like to invite you to share your requirements for portfolios in your organisation – be that an education provider, organisation working in registration and compliance, or company – to think about how you support your learners and staff on their learning journey and professional development beyond merely ticking boxes, and how you gather, showcase, and reflect on learning.As Mahara is open source software, we can tailor it to your requirements, integrate it with other tools already available in your learning ecosystem, and support your organisational goals.Read Part 1 in this series on the history of Mahara here: <a href="https://www.catalyst.net.nz/blog/building-bridge-ple-and-integration-other-tools-assessment-purposes" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Building a bridge: PLE and integration with other tools for assessment purposes</a>And read Part 2 here: <a href="https://www.catalyst.net.nz/blog/mahara-it-takes-village" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mahara: It takes a village</a>

by Kristina HoeppnerLooking to the future of Mahara, in the final part of this Mahara series.

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by Kristina Hoeppner<a href="https://www.catalyst.net.nz/news/mahara-celebrating-15-years-supporting-learners" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Sixteen years ago</a>, the Mahara project initiators had the idea to create an ePortfolio application to support people in their lifelong learning journey. It would need to work for students, teachers, and professionals in the workplace. That required flexibility and also handing the controls to the learner to decide with whom they wanted to share their learning evidence and to what extent. Mahara is often contrasted to learning management systems (LMS) stating that the LMS is &#x27;theirs&#x27;, meaning the teacher&#x27;s and the institution&#x27;s, whereas Mahara is &#x27;yours&#x27;, meaning the learner&#x27;s own space where they have the decision power.This idea of an ePortfolio as a personal learning environment still holds true today for many uses of Mahara. Ultimately, it is the learner&#x27;s choice with whom they want to share a specific portfolio. They can also create many different portfolios and tailor them to their audiences. That is also where the strength of Mahara lies: it can be used for many different types of portfolios. Learners can showcase their achievements and summarise their learning and at the same time they can also demonstrate their learning journey with critical reflections on their development.When portfolios became more established at schools and in tertiary education, it became clear that some form of assessment would be beneficial so that educators could stay with Mahara as a portfolio platform and fulfil institutional requirements for students to receive grades. Therefore, offering integration possibilities with learning management systems was important. At the time, Moodle was the preferred LMS for many organisations and being open source, it followed open protocols that Mahara could also work with. From an early age, &#x27;Mahoodle&#x27;, the integration of Mahara and Moodle, became popular at many organisations because students could click a link in Moodle and be taken directly into their portfolio area without having to deal with complicated external single sign-on processes or an additional login. Furthermore, a plugin for Moodle allowed the submission of portfolios as assignment evidence into Moodle, allowing teachers to use their regular grading methods to assess student work.Over the years, more assessment features were implemented in Mahara to make the application more versatile to use and also to provide much needed support for learners who often had never worked with portfolios before and appreciated a guiding hand. That means that templates can be created in Mahara that students can copy into their own account. From there they can add their content to the template as is or modify the base structure if they wish.Four years ago, the Catalyst team focused on the implementation of Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI). This opened up a number of additional opportunities to connect to different LMS that support this technology standard for connecting LMS to external applications. Now it&#x27;s easier than ever to use any LMS that supports LTI and connect it with Mahara for easy authentication and portfolio assignment submission. This integration is crucial for a vast number of organisations using Mahara because it makes the process of gathering student work, submitting it for assessment, and keeping a record for the institution easy.Even when students create portfolios for assessment purposes, they have the freedom to inject their personalities into their portfolios, which brings us back to the fundamental principles that were established at the start of the Mahara project where the learner is in control. I like to call a portfolio template an invitation. Learners can still influence what the end product will look like. If you think about a house, a portfolio template is not a turnkey property where you just bring your furniture and clothes, it is a house in an unfinished state. You have the foundation, the roof, the walls, and the windows, but you can decide whether to have an open plan kitchen or a closed one, what wallpaper you want to put into your living room, what flooring options to use, what the outside cladding will be, and how your garden will look. You could even still decide to change the size of the rooms.Leaving it up to the learners to decide what learning evidence they want to share and how they want to share it means learners can harness digital technologies to be creative in their expression. Be that in the written word, as illustration or photo collage, or an audio or video recording, speaking their reflections and thoughts on what they learned from the experience. Using an electronic portfolio such as Mahara, learners can upload that learning evidence into their portfolio or even just link to it if it already lives online. Giving learners that freedom of expression also invites them to share as much or as little of themselves as they choose in ways that they are comfortable with and happy to share in, supporting inclusive teaching practices.A few years ago, templates had already been successfully employed in our part of the world, the Pacific region, but they were not yet so widespread in the Northern Hemisphere. This made for an interesting start to my presentation at the second Mahara Hui in 2015 when the presenter before me said they didn’t like using templates. It was only a short time later though that our friends in the Northern Hemisphere started using templates themselves and realised the benefits for learners. Watch the original <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvzs4hcUrl0" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">presentation on scaffolding portfolios</a> through the use of templates for that bit of Mahara history.Read Part 2 in this series of Mahara history here: <a href="https://www.catalyst.net.nz/blog/mahara-it-takes-village" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mahara: It takes a village</a>And Part 3 here: <a href="https://www.catalyst.net.nz/blog/whats-future-mahara" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">What&#x27;s in the future of Mahara?</a>

by Kristina HoeppnerMahara is an ePortfolio platform where learners have control over their own learning journeys. It can also connect to learning management systems for assessment purposes.

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Over the next two months we&#x27;ll be featuring the finalists from each category in the 2021 <a href="https://nzosa.org.nz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">New Zealand Open Source Awards</a>, preceding the <a href="https://nzosa.org.nz/news-and-media/nzosa-gala-dinner-postponed/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">February 2022 gala dinner</a> and award announcements. Congratulations to all the finalists, and we look forward to celebrating all your valuable work at the gala dinner!<h2 data-block-key="pbg37">Open Source Use in Business Whakamahi Pūmanawa Herekore i te Pakihi</h2><h3 data-block-key="5jcp9">Shane Alcock and <a href="https://openli.nz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The OpenLI Project</a></h3>OpenLI is the world&#x27;s only open source software for Lawful Interception (LI). LI is the process where law enforcement agencies with a warrant or court order can require telecommunications operators to selectively wiretap individual subscribers and pass the subscriber’s communications to the law enforcement agency.This project has enabled all ISPs to be able to meet requirements of New Zealand&#x27;s TICSA (Telecommunications Interception Capability and Security Act ) legislation without the need to spend massive amounts on vendor specific solutions.Using Open Source provides confidence to network operators and their subscribers that the system is doing what it should. Only traffic covered by the warrant is being intercepted and the intercepted traffic is forwarded solely to the law enforcement agency that requested it, not to any other third-parties.OpenLI is developed by the WAND network research group at the University of Waikato. The project has been sponsored by a range of Internet Service Providers and related companies in New Zealand. The project is run by Richard Nelson. Lead developer is Shane Alcock.<h3 data-block-key="nasj5"><a href="https://tehiku.nz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Te Hiku Media</a> and <a href="https://wharekōrero.nz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Whare Kōrero</a></h3>Whare Kōrero is an API, website, and now an app built and used by Te Hiku Media to make te reo Māori and Māori content available to all.Whare Kōrero allows a way for Māori content to be created, curated, and delivered to people that would otherwise be unable to access it. It gets local stories out, and keeps local mita (dialects) alive.It is all built on open source software and is now being used by other iwi radio stations. Using this technology, Te Hiku have recently released an app that allows people to listen to and watch content from all the Iwi radio and TV stations in one place.A significant step towards helping to nurture the taonga that is te reo Māori.<h3 data-block-key="pykkz"><a href="https://www.amazee.io/about-us/people/thom-toogood" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Thom Toogood</a> and <a href="https://www.amazee.io/lagoon/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Lagoon</a></h3>Lagoon is an Open Source delivery platform for Kubernetes, developed by amazee.io. Lagoon equips developers with better deployment processes, the freedom of local development, and the flexibility of a Docker-based environment.The platform continuously evolves with new features, functionality, and contributions from the open source community. It is also compatible with any open source framework.Thom has been instrumental in growing amazee.io into a global Open Source company and establishing amazee.io’s presence in New Zealand. He has also been one of the founding members of the DrupalSouth committee over the last two years. Thom truly understands open source, and has spoken of his belief that though we in the open source world may work for different companies, we’re actually all on the same team. He brings his enthusiasm for the movement to every project and works to guide and promote open source adoption throughout the APAC region.

The finalists in the Open Source Use in Business category for the NZ Open Source Awards.

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Over the next two months we&#x27;ll be featuring the finalists from each category in the 2021 <a href="https://nzosa.org.nz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">New Zealand Open Source Awards</a>, preceding the <a href="https://nzosa.org.nz/news-and-media/nzosa-gala-dinner-postponed/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">February 2022 gala dinner</a> and award announcements. Congratulations to all the finalists, and we look forward to celebrating all your valuable work at the gala dinner!<h2 data-block-key="j2s14">Open Source in Government Whakamahi Pūmanawa Herekore i te Kāwanatanga</h2><h3 data-block-key="jmugm"><a href="https://www.dia.govt.nz/COVID-19#Foreign-nationals" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Department of Internal Affairs for the Covid-19 Foreign Nationals Assistance Tool</a></h3>In mid-June 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic took hold around the world, the New Zealand Government announced a programme to provide in-kind <a href="https://www.redcross.org.nz/stories/new-zealand/visitor-care-manaaki-manuhiri-release/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">assistance to foreign nationals</a> experiencing serious hardship who were stranded in New Zealand. The Department of Internal Affairs were tasked with implementing this initiative in association with New Zealand Red Cross.Within DIA the responsibility for designing and delivering the online tool fell to the Life Events team. In the previous four years the team has designed and delivered a range of “Life Event Services” including SmartStart, Birth Registration Online, Bereaved Parents, and End of Life, all using open source technologies.Leveraging the power of open source, the tool was designed and built in two weeks, after the first lockdown. The Foreign Nationals Assistance Tool went live on time on the 1st of July and within minutes the first applications were being received.The programme ran for five months, finally concluding in December with just over 12,000 people provided with various forms of assistance.An object lesson in how government can move swiftly, and deliver critical services, when unencumbered by restrictive software licensing.<h3 data-block-key="692zb"><a href="https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-resources-and-tools/nz-covid-tracer-app/about-nz-covid-tracer-app/open-source-release-nz-covid-tracer" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Ministry of Health for the NZ COVID Tracer application</a></h3>The NZ COVID Tracer is an app that New Zealanders can use to keep a private, digital diary of where they have been to speed up contact tracing in the event of an outbreak of Covid-19.Users scan QR codes to record where they’ve been and can enable Bluetooth tracing to anonymously log who they have been near. Users are only asked to share their diary and Bluetooth data if they test positive for Covid-19.This information helps contact tracers quickly identify locations of interest and alert people who may have been exposed to the virus, and stop the virus from spreading. Public trust is key to the uptake of the app; it is designed to preserve privacy and was open sourced in December 2020.The Ministry of Health used the NZGOAL-SE framework to guide the selection of license and settings, and engaged with the open source community to ensure that they were going about it the right way.They have also made contributions upstream to the international open source projects that made the Bluetooth tracing feature possible.<h3 data-block-key="f5bnv"><a href="https://www.nicholsonconsulting.co.nz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nicholson Consulting</a> in partnership with <a href="https://www.eeca.govt.nz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Energy Efficiency &amp; Conservation Authority</a> for <a href="https://www.eeca.govt.nz/insights/new-zealand-energy-scenarios-times-nz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">New Zealand Energy Scenarios TIMES-NZ 2.0 Data Visualisation App</a></h3>This application takes forecast emissions in Aotearoa under two scenarios of climate action and makes this accessible to the public in an open-source dashboard built in R Shiny.Now, every person in Aotearoa can access ‘what if’ scenarios.For example, if we act collectively to save our environment, this tool gives people and businesses the information they need to understand how change may affect them in their business sectors and communities.The information was previously held by EECA (Energy Efficiency &amp; Conservation Authority) and hard for others to access. Now, anyone can access this information for free thanks to open source tools making this possible.This open-source dashboard was completed by Nicholson Consulting, for EECA and the BusinessNZ Energy Council.

The finalists in the Open Source in Government category for the NZ Open Source Awards.

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by Kris WehipeihanaWe&#x27;re probably all familiar with the legend of Koha (that it is a web-based library system created in response to the Y2K bug, still going strong 21 years later) but do we know why &#x27;Koha&#x27;?The Catalyst Koha team have been thinking about this during September. It&#x27;s a month that focuses on the use of te reo Māori (the Māori language) which is the Indigenous language of Aotearoa New Zealand. Koha is a Māori word and is most often translated as &#x27;gift&#x27;. It was chosen as the name for the new library system &quot;because it&#x27;s our gift to the library community&quot; said Rosalie Blake in 2000, as the then-head librarian of Horowhenua Library Trust. It also has a deeper meaning which suits both libraries and the open source environment – reciprocity and social relationships.A koha is a gift that comes with or fulfils an obligation. It implies that there is an ongoing relationship between the gift giver and the gift receiver and that this will be an exchange at various stages during the relationship. As a community we accept responsibility to nurture and care for the  code. We collaborate with each other to fix bugs or create enhancements or update documentation.&#x27;Koha&#x27; may be a Māori word but the values and philosophy behind it translate to an international community.You can <a href="https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?idiom=&amp;phrase=&amp;proverb=&amp;loan=&amp;histLoanWords=&amp;keywords=koha" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">hear how the New Zealand team pronounce &#x27;koha&#x27; via the Māori Dictionary</a>.<h4 data-block-key="8hehc">Catalyst Koha</h4>If you have any questions or comments about this News item, or would like some support with your Koha instance, you are welcome to email us at <a href="mailto:koha@catalyst.net.nz">koha@catalyst.net.nz</a> (New Zealand) or <a href="mailto:koha-support@catalyst-au.net">koha-support@catalyst-au.net</a> (Australia).Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/catalystkoha" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Catalyst Koha on Twitter</a>!

by Kris WehipeihanaWe&#x27;re probably all familiar with the legend of Koha (that it is a web-based library system created in response to the Y2K bug, still going strong 21 years later) but do we know why &#x27;Koha&#x27;?

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I joined the Koha team at Catalyst IT in the Wellington office in January this year, as an intern. My university friend Aleisha told me about the opportunity and I jumped at the chance.Around this time, I had just started using a <a href="https://blindlowvision.org.nz/how-we-can-help/getting-around/make-the-world-safer-with-a-cane/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">white cane</a> as an aid for my <a href="https://www.health.govt.nz/your-health/conditions-and-treatments/disabilities/low-vision" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">low vision.</a>I have always had severe <a href="https://www.health.govt.nz/your-health/conditions-and-treatments/diseases-and-illnesses/eye-and-vision-problems/refractive-eye-conditions-problems-focusing-your-eyes/short-sightedness-myopia-or-nearsightedness" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">myopia</a> (short-sightedness) and was able to drive for a few years, but in the last few years my sight has deteriorated immensely and I now struggle to do simple daily tasks. I rely a lot on my partner to help me.My partner and I were living in Hamilton when I got offered the internship in Wellington. My partner had a job that he couldn’t leave right away so I had to move to Wellington by myself.It was a struggle living on my own as a disabled person, but it was probably one of the best things I could have ever done. I became so much more independent, confident and capable which was amazing for my mental health and self-confidence.<h3 data-block-key="u829a"></h3><h3 data-block-key="7973v">Starting at Catalyst – Accessibility Advocate</h3>When I started my internship at Catalyst I was encouraged by my team to seek out other parts of the company that I was interested in. I was quite passionate about accessibility and so I became a Catalyst Accessibility Advocate.The position of the Accessibility Advocate was to support the <a href="https://www.catalyst.net.nz/content/ba-ux-accessibility-services" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Accessibility Team</a> to promote and advocate for web accessibility and accessibility in general.During my time at Catalyst as an Accessibility Advocate, I have helped to plan and present forums, helped plan and run a series of activities on <a href="https://www.catalyst.net.nz/blog/global-accessibility-awareness-day-event" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Global Accessibility Awareness Day</a> and ran an Accessible Building Tour through Catalyst House.I also learnt a lot about <a href="https://www.digital.govt.nz/standards-and-guidance/design-and-ux/accessibility/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)</a> and what the best approach is when making websites or web content more accessible.<h3 data-block-key="jgk38"></h3><h3 data-block-key="hvz6u">Starting in Koha</h3>I wanted to use my new knowledge of web accessibility and WCAG to improve Koha.Koha is an <a href="https://opensource.org/docs/osd" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">open source</a> library system. The Koha community and the software is maintained by people and organisations around the world. In the Koha team at Catalyst, we host and maintain client Koha sites.I started off by exploring Koha’s <a href="https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Bugzilla</a>, the platform where Koha users can <a href="https://koha-community.org/support/search-bugs/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">report any bugs</a> that they discover.Then I had a browse through the bugs and looked at some simple ones that I could comprehend. These were things such as spelling mistakes on Koha pages.Learning how to <a href="https://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Sign_off_on_patches" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">sign off patches</a> was the next step. This is where I would look at the small chunks of code that people had uploaded to fix the bug, and then add my “signature” to show that I think this is a good piece of code and that it fixes the bug.I then had a look through the Koha site and took note of certain aspects of the site where the accessibility could be improved.These accessibility issues were logged as bugs on Bugzilla.I then wrote and <a href="https://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Submitting_A_Patch" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">submitted patches</a> for these accessibility bugs, which is where I changed the code in Koha to fix these bugs and improve the accessibility of Koha. You can see patches in the attachments box in the bug reports.I also presented at one of the <a href="https://www.meetup.com/GLAMR-Wellington/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">GLAMR Wellington Meetups</a> about accessibility in Koha and what simple things I have done to Koha to make it more accessible, and how others can use these ideas to make their own websites more accessible.<h3 data-block-key="gd4lr"></h3><h3 data-block-key="g5di6">Koha Community Release Maintenance</h3>Once I became a permanent member of the Koha team at Catalyst, I volunteered to become a Koha community <a href="https://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Release_maintenance" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Release Maintainer</a> for the <a href="https://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Roles_for_21.11" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Koha 21.11</a> release.I am in charge of an old version of the Koha software (<a href="https://git.koha-community.org/Koha-community/Koha/commits/branch/19.11.x" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">19.11 branch</a>) that came out in November 2019. My job is to keep it stable and unbroken while sometimes back-porting bug fixes that might be useful for those using Koha 19.11 version. Every month I help to release a new 19.11 package to the world. You can check out <a href="https://koha-community.org/koha-19-11-21-released/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">my latest 19.11 Koha blog post with release notes</a>.<h3 data-block-key="3vig5"></h3><h3 data-block-key="c8kqw">Koha client upgrades</h3>Once I got the hang of things, I started doing minor point upgrades where I take packages that are put out by the release maintainers and apply them to our client sites on Koha so that they have the most up to date version.This helped me to gain a better understanding of open source as I was able to be on both sides of the releases: creating the release and sharing it with the world and then using the release to put it on Catalyst Koha’s client sites.<h3 data-block-key="36t9e">Open source culture</h3>I love the open source culture at Catalyst and the unique way the Koha team works, enabling me to try out many different types of work such as upgrades, developing a device booking system, customer support and learning my way around Koha. I am also lucky that my team continues to support me being an Accessibility Advocate and working with accessibility.In addition to my amazing job and opportunities that have come along with it, this year I also graduated with a Bachelor of Science (majoring in Computer Science) from Victoria University of Wellington, I turned 25 years old, and also got engaged!To learn more about me and my disability, you can check out my zine I was asked to create for Wellington Zinefest “Wainui’s Low Vision Algorithm” <a href="https://www.wellingtonzinefest.com/disabilityzineproject" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">here</a>.

by Wainui Witika-ParkWainui&#x27;s year so far with Koha, web accessibility, graduation, and more.

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by Charlotte WestonAs I write this, Aotearoa is in the midst of a nationwide lockdown, so it seems strange to look at these photos of people in rooms together. In the distant heady days of a month ago, before the most recent lockdown, we held our annual Catathon. If you’ve wondered what it’s like to work here, welcome to one of the (many) cool things about life at Catalyst.Catathon began in 2017, as a way of celebrating <a href="https://www.catalyst.net.nz/blog/20-years-ago" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Catalyst’s 20th birthday</a>. The company has grown from its five founders in Wellington in 1997, to around 370 staff in multiple offices across New Zealand, Australia, the UK, Ireland, and Canada, supporting organisations with a wide variety of products and expertise, all while holding fast to the principles of open source technology. Two decades of fantastic work was well worth celebrating, and so Catathon was born.The idea was simple: staff could work on anything they liked for a day. While a standard hackathon is a coding event that brings programmers together to improve or build new software, at Catalyst we also have non-technical staff who wanted to participate in a company-wide event. Besides which, although we love tech, it’s not the sum total of who we are, as the individuals who make up the collective.Catathon is an opportunity to learn new things, such as juggling, cross stitch, and Bhangra dance. The annual event has evolved over the last four years (although last year’s one was unfortunately cancelled due to Covid-19). The July 2021 Catathon featured a huge range of activities, punctuated in the middle by pizza, and at the end by a Bhangra dance performance and our usual Friday beverage o’clock. Below are a few photos of some of the activities from our Auckland, Christchurch, and Wellington offices.Painting landscapes in the Christchurch office.Putting together a jigsaw in the Auckland office.The following photos are all in Wellington.Former barista Doris teaching the art of espresso.Dungeons and Dragons.Combined cross stitch and crochet events.Liam juggling.Many plants, cuttings, and seeds were shared.Alasdair teaching knot-tying.Cecilia cross stitching.Coding did still happen as well!Playing board games.Harpuneet teaching Bhangra dance.Sanjay running the Lego train engineering.

by Charlotte WestonCatathon began in 2017, as a way of celebrating Catalyst’s 20th birthday. The idea was simple: staff could work on anything they liked for a day. See photos of our 2021 Catathon event.

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by Maia MillerThis article is an adapted version of Maia&#x27;s talk at the nz.js(con); 2021 in Wellington, New Zealand.As technical people, we often find ourselves in situations where we’re explaining things. This might be in social settings, client meetings, or to our less technical or less experienced co-workers.The analogy – explaining an unfamiliar concept in terms of a familiar one – is a tool that we can use in our communication tool kit to enhance our ability to explain things to others.Why analogies? There are several reasons, all of which relate to giving people new ways of thinking about a concept. Have an idea you’re struggling to get across? An analogy can be the thing that helps things “click”. They can be useful in training and teaching, inspiring and breathing life into something possibly dry. Additionally, employing an analogy to a situation can help people think creatively about a problem that they’re stuck on.Maia speaking at the nz.js(con); 2021Here are some tips for how to give an effective analogy:1) Familiarity is your friend!Grounding your imagery to something familiar is key to being successful at analogies. The more familiar, the easier it is for your listener to conjure up an image. Moreover, it means less upfront explanation required by you. It’s cross-cultural, too – regardless of your background, everyone knows what a house, car or human body is. Other good starting off points are often frequented places (homes, offices, neighbourhoods); common tasks or chores (grocery shopping); or simplified physical systems (plumbing, walking).2) Keep it concreteIt’s best to work off something the listener can visualise. What we want to avoid is explaining an abstract idea with another abstract idea – understanding a new technical concept by likening it to a theoretical mathematical model probably won’t help the learner very much (unless they are a theoretical math whiz, in which case maybe it’s the perfect analogy!). The problem in this scenario is the cognitive load. Our listener is already doing a lot of mental work trying to understand the new thing we’re explaining, so we want to avoid saddling them with more concepts to hold on to. Specifically, visualisations make use of the right side of the brain – people are using the left side of their brain to understand what you’re saying, so allowing them to use the right side of their brain will lighten the cognitive load.This applies to jargon, too – avoid it as much as you can, as it’s one more thing for people to remember. Leaving out the jargon is beneficial cross-culturally as well, as it encourages you to use language that everyone understands.3) Get it 80% accurateAnalogies are a compromise between storytelling and accuracy. You want to identify the broad principle you’re trying to explain, rather than get into the small details right away. If you’re explaining something 100% accurately, it means you’re essentially just explaining the thing itself. Instead, what we want is to take a step back, help our listener understand the broad strokes, and then zoom in on the details once the main concept has come across.4) StorytellingAs mentioned, analogies are a bit like storytelling. With that, we want to deliver them in a way that is most effective.When telling an analogy, there are two steps: first, start with the familiar. Explain how that works, starting your listener off on comfortable ground and have them build the mental image first. Second, make the connections between your concept and the familiar.As knowledge bearers, it’s our job to communicate information to others. The nature of our jobs and our knowledge means that others can’t always meet us halfway. So it’s our responsibility to meet them where they are with language, images and tools that they understand.

by Maia MillerEver try to tell someone what you do or what you&#x27;re working on, and see their eyes glaze over in the middle of your explanation? Be better at explaining complicated, technical concepts using a handy communication tool: the analogy.

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by Charlotte WestonPeople doing their jobs at Catalyst is, of course, what we’re here for. But what about the support crew: the CataPets? Now that people are working from home more often, pets also feature more prominently in our work lives.Whether your cat is sitting in front of your computer screen like the rightful owner of everything you have and do, your dog is demanding you take a break from your desk to go for a walk, or your goat participates in a video meeting (yes, really), our pets are important members of the team. Or at least they like to think so.Here is a selection of Catalyst pets who show up for us in their own special ways.Some might be larking about at the beach, like Macy and Brooklyn:Or Ru, who is enjoying his time at the beach now that he has this vest. People think he’s training to be a service dog, but actually he’s just sick of people patting him. Fair enough, Ru!Charlie takes some time for herself, watching her favourite movie, The Lion King, even though the hyenas are scary:Biddy is living her best life, now that she’s discovered the lid of the new compost heap slopes:Justin is here to remind you not to shirk your responsibilities:Pepper likes to surreptitiously lean on modifier keys. One day it&#x27;s Shift, next it might be Ctrl. Is it companionship, or sabotage?Annie would like to book in a consultation. She&#x27;s unsure if this is how you wear it?Luna steadfastly guards some laptops against intruders. Steady on, Luna. The sleeping look is a masterful disguise, really she&#x27;s prepared to attack and defend at any moment:Elvis is teaching new little sister Daisy about self-care. Would like to remind us all that taking breaks is important. Stop peeking, Daisy, it’s nap time!Scoresby sees your file management system and raises you his display of treasures. He lined them up neatly like that himself to show you. Hopes you like them.Dusty the horse attends a networking event with the neighbours’ alpacas. Made some new contacts:Lucy, Daisy, and Diana are sorry to spam everyone, but did you know they have a new single coming out? It’s a cover of the classic song, Goat Your Own Way.Big Lez the dog facilitates a meeting with the chickens Tuppen, Sparrow, Sunny, JK, and Penguin. Oden the cat comes in late. That&#x27;s ok, Oden, good to have you along.Occasionally it’s necessary to send a delegate to a human meeting. Communication is a work in progress:Juniper makes it clear when she thinks it&#x27;s time to stop for the day:

by Charlotte WestonA selection of Catalyst pets who show up for us in their own special ways.

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by Aleisha AmohiaOne of the many reasons Koha is the best library system in the world is because it is so customisable – libraries can easily style their OPAC with a custom theme that matches their organisation’s colours, or post news items to keep patrons updated on library events and messages, or maintain sliders that showcase popular titles in an interactive, animated way. But how can we encourage our patrons to visit and enjoy our OPAC? Here are a few tips for marketing Koha to your users and increasing traffic to your library site.<h2 data-block-key="6c3sz">Translate your content</h2>Koha provides multiple ways to show custom content in different areas of your OPAC, using the News Tool. You can now translate the content in your main user block, navigation bars, search box, footer, news items, and login box, and Koha will show whichever version of the content specified for the OPAC language being used.For example, a New Zealand library might have two different news items for their main user block – one in New Zealand English, and one in Te Reo Māori. If a patron using the OPAC uses English, they will see the English news item. If they use the language selector to change their OPAC to Te Reo Māori, the page will reload and display the Te Reo Māori news item instead. This makes the OPAC more accessible, because value isn’t being lost due to a language barrier.When the user selects English, Koha will show the custom content the library has provided for that language.When the user selects Te Reo Māori, Koha will show the custom content the library has provided for that language.<h2 data-block-key="hgv2p">Create ‘how to’ videos</h2>Recording and uploading short tutorial videos which teach patrons how to use different features of your OPAC will not only increase the usability and familiarity of your site, but also enables library users to share the videos with their friends and could increase your patronage. These videos don’t need to be highly detailed or show anything complex – they could be just two to three minutes long, showing a patron how to update their password, or submit a purchase suggestion, or pay fines online, or browse items in a list, or even create their own list!Videos create value by educating patrons about how to use your OPAC and empowering them to use the different features, while also being shareable beyond your patrons. You could even use open source screen recording software such as <a href="https://obsproject.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Open Broadcaster Software</a> to create this video content. These videos are best uploaded anywhere your users might find them, such as your organisation&#x27;s website and streaming sites.<h2 data-block-key="zj55n">Be active on social media</h2>Having a social media presence is one of the most cost-effective ways to generate clicks to your Koha. Use social media to link to different parts of your OPAC, such as the news items promoting events at your library, or lists of recent titles, or book recommendations. Social media also allows you to interact with your patrons – you can create polls, have conversations, and receive feedback directly from users.Ensure that every tweet or post has a link to your OPAC to guarantee that it is the first place a user will go for more information. If you use hashtags or tag other accounts or locations, it will be even easier for people to find your posts, and they could be shared or re-posted by others! You should also ensure your organisation supports your social media strategy and re-shares your posts from their separate account, if they have one.<h2 data-block-key="y1fg8">Use patron attribute types</h2>Extended patron attributes can be used for collecting statistical data about patrons. Attributes can store any information you might like to know about your patrons, and the data can be used to inform your marketing strategy. They are highly customisable – attributes can be repeatable within the patron record, a unique identifier amongst all your patrons, searchable via the staff patron search, only applicable for specific branches or a specific patron category, and configurable to be shown or editable by the patron in the OPAC.You can define a patron attribute to store whether your patron would like to receive a newsletter, or if they are interested in specific services your library provides, or events your library organises. You can then run a report, group patrons by that patron attribute, and generate a mailing list for your newsletter or notices.<h2 data-block-key="h95wi">Use reports or lists to generate displays</h2>Koha has a reports feature in the staff client that allows librarians to access their database directly. Libraries can use reports to create lists based on statistical or time-relevant data, such as the most recently added records, or the most popular items that month, or items that haven’t been checked out in the last year.Libraries can use clever HTML (in the Koha News Tool) and styles (in the system preference OPACUserCSS) to create a display for the OPAC using the records fetched in their report. They can also use JavaScript (in the system preference OPACUserJS) to animate their display. Alternatively, libraries can install plugins such as the <a href="https://github.com/bywatersolutions/koha-plugin-coverflow" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Koha Coverflow Plugin</a> to simply configure a slider to display the report on their OPAC.Some slider plugins take Koha lists as input rather than a report, such as the <a href="https://inlibro.com/en/carousel-instructions/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Book Carousel</a>. You can add items directly from your search results to a public list, and configure your plugin to build a carousel (or slider) using that list.Sliders and carousels are an interactive, animated way to draw attention to your OPAC, allowing you to customise the view by showcasing some of your catalogue, and maximising the potential of many different Koha modules. However, they are just one option for turning reporting into content for your users. We can use Koha reporting to pull out any set of data for targeting a particular audience. If you’ve got something in mind, we’d love to hear your ideas and help bring them to life.<h3 data-block-key="kwkfr">If your Koha library would like assistance implementing any of these ideas, or if you’re wondering if another idea can be done with Koha, feel free to contact our <a href="mailto:koha-support@catalyst.net.nz">New Zealand</a> or <a href="mailto:koha-support@catalyst-au.net">Australian</a> Koha teams.</h3>

by Aleisha AmohiaOne of the many reasons Koha is the best library system in the world is because it is so customisable. But how can we encourage our patrons to visit and enjoy our OPAC? Here are a few tips for marketing Koha to your users and increasing traffic to your library site.

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by Charlotte WestonHere at Catalyst we take digital accessibility seriously, embedding it into our development projects from the beginning.Web accessibility helps people with disabilities to perceive, understand, navigate, interact with, and contribute to the web. It is also a characteristic of a good website and is easy to implement with the proper knowledge and tools. Catalyst is the first supplier in New Zealand to be approved by the Department of Internal Affairs on the New Zealand Marketplace for Web Accessibility.This Thursday the 20th of May is Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD). The purpose of GAAD is to get everyone talking, thinking, and learning about digital access and inclusion for the more than one billion people with disabilities/impairments.Catalyst’s Accessibility Team is organising an event on Global Accessibility Awareness Day for staff at Catalyst to raise awareness of and empathy for different types of disabilities. The drop-in activities will include navigating a screen reader while blindfolded, folding origami with an arm in a sling, and filling in a transcript for a video on low volume/mute. While it&#x27;s not possible to fully simulate the struggles of those belonging to the disabled and chronically ill communities, the interactive games will attempt to show how frustrating it can be to access regular daily activities when you are impaired in some way.Here are some tips for a disability-friendly workplace:<ul><li data-block-key="atvr5">Push your chairs in to the tables in kitchens, meeting rooms and at your desks. These are a hazard for everyone, but in particular those who have low vision or are visually impaired.</li><li data-block-key="9dl2e">Be mindful when walking in and out of doors and lifts; walking towards people can be intimidating as some people are unable to get out of your way.</li><li data-block-key="goi4i">Try not to rely on visual cues when communicating with others.</li><li data-block-key="6j8co">Likewise, don’t rely solely on spoken cues.</li><li data-block-key="57kef">Speak as clearly as possible.</li><li data-block-key="4qxz7">Accessibility is a process, not a project. Embed accessibility practices at the beginning of your projects to be the most resource and cost effective.</li><li data-block-key="6gcz7">Above all, be kind and considerate. Many people have hidden disabilities and/or chronic illnesses.</li></ul>

by Charlotte WestonCatalyst’s Accessibility Team is organising an event on Global Accessibility Awareness Day for staff at Catalyst to raise awareness of and empathy for different types of disabilities.

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by Sarah YoungWe are excited to announce that we are the first supplier in New Zealand to be approved by the Department of Internal Affairs on the New Zealand Marketplace for <a href="https://www.catalyst.net.nz/web-accessibility-services" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Web Accessibility</a>.The Marketplace is an online market that makes it easy for agencies to view innovative digital products and services and communicate with their vendors.For a vendor to qualify for Web Accessibility, it must prove its proficiency in applying and providing solutions for accessibility according to the NZ Government Standards Act. Catalyst IT is currently the only NZ company that has been able to demonstrate a thorough and accurate understanding of the standards. Don Christie, Catalyst&#x27;s Managing Director, said “To be the first New Zealand Web Accessibility supplier registered on the Department of Internal Affairs on the Marketplace is fantastic and we are so excited to be in the process of building a workflow that ensures every project that leaves Catalyst is accessible.”Catalyst is an open source IT company with offices in Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin, Australia and Europe. At Catalyst, creating websites that are accessible to all is fundamental to Catalyst&#x27;s ethos of open source. Building websites that meet WCAG standards means you are building websites that are accessible to all. Building to WCAG standards is not only creating sites for people who are visually impaired or hard of hearing, but also for people who use a mobile phone in the sunshine or watch a video on the train.Catalyst can help you with accessibility audits, consultancy services and training. As an IT company, we take accessibility seriously, embedding it into our development projects from the beginning, right from requirements gathering, wireframing, acceptance criteria through to development and QA. If you need help with accessibility check out our <a href="https://www.catalyst.net.nz/web-accessibility-services" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Accessibility page</a>, or you can <a href="mailto:accessibility@catalyst.net.nz,%20enquiries@catalyst.net.nz">get in touch</a>.

by Sarah YoungCatalyst IT is excited to announce that we are the first supplier in New Zealand to be approved by the Department of Internal Affairs on the New Zealand Marketplace for Web Accessibility.

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by Andrew BartlettThe old test suite the Samba team are replacing is similar to sand in the way that each time the team touched it or what was already built on, it just crumbled, because it was overly sensitive. This is often a good thing in a test suite, but it was too sensitive to be practical in this case. We hope that others can build on this, leading to more secure Kerberos protocol features and finally to Windows 2012 Functional Level support.Now let’s get technical. Samba as an Active Directory DC is intimately entangled with the Kerberos protocol and in particular the two major Kerberos implementations for Unix systems, Heimdal Kerberos and (later) MIT Kerberos.Samba has embedded (known also as vendoring) a patched version of Heimdal Kerberos, which has sadly not been kept up to date. While known security issues are addressed via backports, this is a significant technical debt that needs to be addressed.Samba is also a project that places a very high value on protocol-level testing, and we have therefore developed tests for our Kerberos KDC that rely deeply on the Heimdal Kerberos library we include.While these tests were an incredible step up in terms of coverage, and they have done much to avoid regressions in our KDC, they have also become a Gordian knot – the tests became incredibly sensitive not only to the behaviour of the KDC but also to the library on which they were based.For example; the tests would intercept the packet stream issued by the library, and in some cases even modify those packets. Improvements to Kerberos security broke the modifications and changes to packet orders broke the tests badly.In attempting to import a new version of Heimdal we have had to find a way to cut this knot. The approach that the Samba team has chosen to take is to re-implement our Kerberos test suite in Python, directly building the ASN.1 packets and calling Python, not the Kerberos cryptographic functions.This allows Samba to test protocol elements not exposed by Unix Kerberos libraries, as well as ensuring that behaviour is identical (or at least known not to be) regardless of which implementation or version Samba uses.This approach was demonstrated initially by fellow Samba Team member Stefan Metzmacher of SerNet and is now being extended thanks to funding from Catalyst client <a href="http://www.lmax.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">LMAX</a> Group, leading independent operator of institutional execution venues for FX and cryptocurrency trading.This too was a Gordian knot: while many have seen the risks and challenges in Samba&#x27;s reliance on an old version of Heimdal Kerberos, finding a way forward has been intractable until this new approach was taken.With the work to start replacing the problematic krb5.kdc.the test suite has now started, we are on the path to a full upgrade to Heimdal. We are also, if we so chose, closer to replacement with MIT Kerberos. As we implement more in the test suite we are becoming more confident that our testing can become a constant benchmark against which to measure our progress, not one changing concurrently with the upgrade.Funding Samba improvements is also often a difficult proposition: while all users benefit from upgrades to the fundamental underlying infrastructure, big projects like our Kerberos upgrade need foresight from those willing to fund the early work.Catalyst&#x27;s goal is to bring Windows 2012 FL support to Samba, as this includes important Kerberos features like FAST (Kerberos armouring) and &#x27;Claims&#x27;, linking authentication to the user&#x27;s device as well as their own account. We continue to seek partners to continue this important work, as with each project and partner we get closer to this goal.<a href="mailto:samba@catalyst.net.nz">Contact the Samba</a> team if your organisation is interested in further improving Samba in this area.Many thanks to <a href="http://www.lmax.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">LMAX</a> Group for funding Kerberos FAST testing and parts of the Python test re-implementation.

by Andrew BartlettEnjoy this blog by Andrew Bartlett as he reflects on his experience with improving Kerberos testing within Samba thanks to LMAX, who are as passionate as building solid future-proof foundations as we are.

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by CatalystAs an organisation that understands the power of effective workplace learning, you’re probably using a <a href="https://www.totaralearning.com/products/learning-management-system" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">learning management system</a> (LMS) to deliver digital content and ensure compliance. But used correctly, your LMS is capable of so much more.<h2 data-block-key="8sr0m">How to harness the power of your LMS</h2>In this post, we outline 10 tips that explain how you can use your LMS to encourage social learning, boost employee engagement and unlock insights on employee learning preferences: <h3 data-block-key="ligum">Tip 1 – Add a creative touch to &quot;tough&quot; training material</h3>“This course is critical for meeting compliance obligations this year. Please complete it promptly.” Does this announcement sound familiar? If it does, you know the end result: Blank stares from employees itching to swivel back to their screens. Months later, most people are still due to complete whatever ‘critical’ training was announced. Labelling a piece of training as mandatory isn’t enough to motivate learners, especially if it’s a tough topic.A creative way to work around this problem is to tweak the way that ‘challenging’ content is presented. If you have an unpopular PDF, for example, turn it into a SCORM quiz or an entertaining video guide. <h3 data-block-key="xnyfm">Tip 2 – Bend LMS plugins and extensions to business needs</h3>Do you need to enable mobile learning on the go? Or customise your dashboards for better reporting? With an <a href="https://www.totaralearning.com/products/totara-learn-lms" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">LMS like Tōtara Learn</a>, you’re not forced to spend countless hours or chunks of capital developing your own solutions. Unlike a proprietary LMS, plugins and extensions are part of the package. So you can instantly plug in and trial new solutions without risking time and money. If you’re looking for a custom feature or functionality, check out <a href="https://www.totaralearning.com/products/product-extensions" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Tōtara’s extensions library</a> to see what solutions are already available.<h3 data-block-key="qyt4p">Tip 3 – Keep an eye on release notes for new features</h3>Keep an eye on release notes and updates to quickly integrate new features, functionalities and improvements that will contribute to a better learning experience.If you’re using Tōtara Learn, subscribe to the <a href="https://totara.community/mod/forum/view.php?id=7038" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Tōtara Release Notes</a> forum to get updates on all new versions and features. Keep up to date with Tōtara Learn<h3 data-block-key="rbcvr"></h3><h3 data-block-key="pijr7">Tip 4 – Watch expert-led webinars to get quick LMS wins</h3>From designing effective learning programmes and training materials, to refining the learning experience and ensuring compliance, you’ve got a lot to do and limited time to do it. Why not save time by learning from other experts? In the <a href="https://totara.community/totara/catalog/?cfp_multiselect_typetype_90594%5B0%5D=Webinar&amp;orderbykey=featured&amp;itemstyle=narrow" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Tōtara Community</a>, you’ll find expert-led, easy to access live and prerecorded webinars to help you select and quickly execute game-changing ideas to improve your LMS. <h4 data-block-key="ae432"><a href="https://catalyst-au.net/case-studies/kmart-retail-online-staff-training" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Explore how Tōtara Learn helped Kmart Australia improve their Staff Induction Program</a></h4><h3 data-block-key="gagwb">Tip 5 – Experiment (safely) with a dummy LMS site</h3>Erasing your entire training catalogue in a single click is a scary thought, isn’t it? With a test site, you eliminate the fear of accidentally crippling your LMS while adding a new feature or ‘playing around’. Please note that creating a demo site will take time as you’ll have to load: <ul><li data-block-key="p7iul">Users</li><li data-block-key="964df">Courses</li><li data-block-key="5g44r">Progs</li><li data-block-key="5v7m8">Certifications</li><li data-block-key="51i7f">Filler course content</li><li data-block-key="chvnn">Hierarchies</li><li data-block-key="cbm9b">Completion data </li></ul>But it’s time well spent. Once created, a pre-populated demo site allows you to experiment and trial new features without potentially harming your actual training site. Admins will also be able to master new features and get feedback on ideas without facing irreversible repercussions.<h3 data-block-key="jg8lv"></h3><h3 data-block-key="rusce">Tip 6 – Leverage LMS gamification features to engage your learners</h3>When Samsung wanted to create a world-class <a href="https://www.totaralearning.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">extended enterprise training platform</a> for retail and operator staff, they used Tōtara Learn to make learning more engaging. Use badges to engage your learners. As well as implementing an adaptive design, their new learning platform made extensive use of <a href="https://help.totaralearning.com/display/TL12/Open+Badges" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Open Badges</a> to recognise and reward learners for completing training, passing quizzes and updating their profiles. Learning can be exciting and engaging or it can feel like a forced, tick-box formality. Want to make your learning experience closer to the former? Then take full advantage of the gamification features in your LMS.<h3 data-block-key="pqywv">Tip 7 – Empower &#x27;power users&#x27; to motivate learners</h3>While not always possible, peer-to-peer learning can be more engaging than formalised training. Within your LMS, you can use this to improve your training programmes – especially for unenthusiastic learners. For example, if you notice that you have both power users and less engaged users in a department, give power users the freedom to create content such as customised quizzes, PDFs and prizes. This will engage less enthusiastic learners and help motivated employees retain what they learn through teaching it.<h3 data-block-key="zpf0v">Tip 8 – Understand learner preferences with insightful reports</h3>Which training materials are popular in your LMS? Where is learner engagement dropping and how can it be improved?  To level up the training delivered by your LMS, these are key questions you’ll have to consider. With Tōtara Learn, you can use audience targeting and reporting to get detailed answers. You can capture data from both past and present learners by limiting your reports to active users with the <a href="https://help.totaralearning.com/display/TL12/Audience+rules" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">dynamic audience rule</a>. Using the <a href="https://help.totaralearning.com/display/TL12/Creating+Reports#CreatingReports-Content" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">report content filter</a>, you can also exclude all suspended and deleted users from your report. These features will help you generate valuable insights into how your employees learn. <h3 data-block-key="94gdc">Tip 9 – Draw inspiration from experts in your industry</h3><a href="https://catalyst-au.net/case-studies" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Case studies</a>, webinars and learner data will inspire powerful ideas that you can use to improve your LMS. But what if you could interact with and learn from other organisations that have learners, challenges and solutions that are similar to yours? In the <a href="https://totara.community/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Tōtara Community</a>, you can.Within the Tōtara Community, you’ll find organisations in a variety of sectors – including healthcare, retail, government, energy, technology and more – discussing and sharing solutions to sector-specific challenges. The Tōtara Community discusses sector-specific challenges. Each sector has special resources, news feeds and optional subscriptions to help you stay on top of current learning challenges in your industry.<h3 data-block-key="tjewa">Tip 10 – Tell users about training and help documents</h3>A good LMS (alongside other core functionalities) provides access to engagement-boosting features like Open Badges, rewards and progress reports. If you’re using an open source LMS like Tōtara, you’ll receive regular updates with new features and improvements to your existing system.  To make the most out of these updates, point your admins/users to training and documentation for existing and new functionalities. While this sounds like a simple step, it’s an important one because:<ol><li data-block-key="ea4rm">Learners are more likely to take advantage of a feature if they know about it and feel confident enough to use it. </li><li data-block-key="sl5q">Resisting change is instinctive. Who wants more work? Pointing to help and training documents encourages both admins and users to overcome this knee-jerk reaction.</li></ol>If you’re looking for resources to point admins/learners to, the <a href="https://totara.community/totara/catalog/?cfp_multiselect_typetype_90594%5" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Tōtara Academy</a> and <a href="https://help.totaralearning.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Help Portal</a> will provide technical how-to-guides on using different features, improving your LMS and optimising the learner experience.

by CatalystAs an organisation that understands the power of effective workplace learning, you’re probably using a learning management system (LMS) to deliver digital content and ensure compliance. But used correctly, your LMS is capable of so much more.

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by Laura Hill<h3 data-block-key="fano9">Our background </h3>At Catalyst we collaborate closely with our partners, absorbing fresh and innovative approaches to digital learning. We have significant knowledge and experience from our 20 years of operation in the higher education space. We offer a fully managed e-learning solution for higher education institutions. Catalyst is a premium partner for Moodle. A partnership with us benefits your organisation internally and externally. Our finely honed skills and additional services help enhance efficiency and improve your staff productivity. <h3 data-block-key="1941j">Drive learner performance and engagement</h3>We help customers drive learner engagement and performance. If your website traffic is currently too high for a good user experience, Catalyst can provide both optimal system performance and security for all your data. Our Moodle experts are always here to boost your current support system and resolve any e-learning challenges. Our engineers and support team work daily with institutions like yours, drawing upon a vast solution based library. We will resolve any challenges rapidly with tried and tested models to save you valuable time and money. At Catalyst we help facilitate our partners&#x27; requirements every step of the way as they seek to rapidly move traditional face to face learning to a purely online experience. We use the full depth and wealth of experience across our global operation of 350+ staff, along with the collective knowledge available in our many hundreds of education sector partners. We understand that online learning systems need to adapt rapidly to the technical and pedagogical challenges occurring on a daily basis across our current and potential client base. We understand that institutions want to maximise their flexibility and individual control of online learning, along with stimulating face to face interaction on campus.Catalyst understands how teaching staff have had to adjust to what is currently the only method available for teaching and learning. We have dedicated learning technologists on hand with the expertise to help prepare institutions and their teaching staff. Our close and ongoing partnerships promote and support all the possibilities of hybrid teaching and learning. Asynchronous learning has been shown to have a positive effect on engagement. We can help with customisations both to the platforms and to the training and consulting, on behalf of the teaching stakeholders. In this way we are fully supporting a personalised and engaging learner journey. <h3 data-block-key="szwr3">Catalyst Cloud on-shore hosting</h3>Having a robust and resilient platform, particularly during peak periods of access, ensures confidence in that platform. It is essential for all institutions to have enough resources provisioned to run their platform.<a href="https://catalystcloud.nz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Catalyst Cloud</a> is cost-efficient, as wastage is considered and minimised at all times. Scaling up and maximising uptime, storage and resources allows you to expand in line with the student body, without downtime or disruption. Catalyst will help you make sure your investment continues to deliver in the future. We can plan your migration strategy, provide full planning and road mapping, and then manage and undertake your migration.<h3 data-block-key="jiak5">Website traffic</h3>The current results can clearly speak for themselves with our partners UCL, who are now supporting 48,000 active students on the largest Moodle instance in the UK in terms of traffic. The university was receiving 700,000 page views a day prior to Covid, and since moving to Cloud is now frequently receiving 1.5 million page views a day.   <h3 data-block-key="hdu9b">At Catalyst we continuously strive to support each institution&#x27;s digital strategy, safeguard their brand and reputation and ensure student expectations and outcomes are consistently met.</h3><h3 data-block-key="agov8"><a href="mailto:enquiries@catalyst.net.nz">Get in touch</a> if you would like our experts on your side.</h3>

by Laura HillAt Catalyst we collaborate closely with our partners, absorbing fresh and innovative approaches to digital learning.

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by JuliaDuring the summer of 2020/2021, I had the pleasure of being an intern at Catalyst IT as a software engineer in the GIS team. Initially having only a vague notion that “GIS” had something to do with spatial data, I was excited to learn more about it and how I could contribute to the open source community.<h2 data-block-key="981al">Keycloak Role Service integration for GeoServer</h2>My first major task was to allow Keycloak to be used as a role service for GeoServer, such that when a user logs into GeoServer via Keycloak, their Keycloak roles are carried through and recognised. Keycloak is an open source application for identity and access management, which makes it well suited for implementing single sign-on. GeoServer is also open source and is a web server that enables the sharing, processing, and editing of geospatial data.The first hurdle was to become familiar with GeoServer’s role system and develop an understanding of how roles integrate with authentication and authorisation. Being a large, complex, and thoroughly established codebase, it was quite daunting to begin trying to understand how role services worked. Fortunately, my previous experience with large codebases came into play, and I began to walk my way through the GeoServer authentication process, searching for similarities between existing role services. Once I had identified several key components within the system, it became easier to piece the puzzle together and determine what I would need to implement for a Keycloak role service.Having no prior experience with GeoServer, I found it challenging at times to test whether my changes had the desired outcome. To verify that the Keycloak role service was giving users the correct set of permissions, I needed to create several layers with different viewing access restrictions. A layer in GeoServer is a data object which represents geographic features. As I was unfamiliar with how GeoServer works, on occasion I struggled to determine whether my Keycloak role service was not acting as intended, or I had simply not set up my environment correctly. Much of the layer creation contained technical jargon which I had not come across before, as I had not previously worked in the GIS area GeoServer is concerned with. Thankfully much of GeoServer has accompanying documentation, and as I became more familiar with GeoServer, it grew easier to recognise my changes as compared to a misconfiguration.<h2 data-block-key="8re6k">Keycloak Authentication with MapStore2 and GeoStore</h2>My second task was to integrate Keycloak authentication into GeoStore, and thereafter MapStore2. MapStore2 is a modular web interface for creating, managing and sharing maps and dashboards. GeoStore acts as the back end for MapStore2, so any login attempts into MapStore2 will authenticate against GeoStore. As such, logging in via Keycloak would require handling within both systems. To figure out what I would need to do for Keycloak authentication, I began by looking at the existing “alternate” methods of logging into GeoStore. From this, I deduced that my options were to implement either an authentication provider or a form of token-based authentication. Having researched both alternatives and drawn up a table of pros and cons, at the time I decided that an authentication provider was the way to go. However, this proved remarkably difficult to implement and would end up being far too closely knit with GeoStore’s existing code to be a simple extension. After exhausting all identified authentication provider options, I revisited the idea of token authentication from a different angle. This time around, I stumbled across GeoStore’s existing filter for token-based authentication, which looked remarkably promising! Using the existing code as a starting point, I was able to implement my own Keycloak token authentication filter and have it configurable from a file. I found it very challenging to change tack from trying to implement an authentication provider, to understanding token-based authentication. It was very easy to get stuck in the mindset that the current solution is the best option, especially with how much time I had invested. This experience has helped me to better recognise when it’s time to re-evaluate the situation, and whether the implementation I am pursuing is still viable. Additionally, writing out the pros and cons for each possible solution was (oddly) something I had never taken the time to do. I found it greatly helped me clarify within my mind the differences between the options, and in future, I will try to do it more often!As I was tasked with enabling Keycloak login into MapStore2 and GeoStore, it was a new experience for me to work on both the front and back ends of a system. During my studies, it was quite typical for team members to become specialised in one side of the codebase, simply to lessen the up-front load of learning new tools and languages. Experiencing development for both MapStore2 and GeoStore has given me a greater appreciation for how the two sides communicate and collaborate.<h2 data-block-key="trpgs">Contributing to an upstream project</h2>Once all my changes had been tested and reviewed within Catalyst, it was time to create a merge request to the upstream branches. As all my previous work had remained internal to where I worked or studied, proposing my changes for the open source community to review was incredibly intimidating! Not only was my code up for review by people I didn’t know; if my changes got approved the features I implemented may eventually be used by other people. Additionally, large, established codebases can have unwritten style rules and structures that can be difficult to pick up on, which doesn’t make contributing any less daunting. Thankfully everyone at Catalyst was highly supportive and helped to make the process as smooth as possible.<h2 data-block-key="2320h">An invaluable learning experience</h2>Having little prior domain knowledge, interning at Catalyst has opened my eyes to the world of GIS and open source software development. I’m glad to have learned they’re not as intimidating as they initially appear! My internship experience has bolstered my confidence in contributing to open source projects and has given me a wide range of new skills that I can use in future software development. Overall I’ve had a wonderful time at Catalyst, and I am looking forward to contributing to more open source software projects in the future.

by JuliaJulia discusses her experience of being an intern at the Catalyst Christchurch office – working within the GIS team.

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by Chloe GunnMoodle 4.0 focuses on harnessing the power of UX (user experience) to transform <a href="https://moodle.com/lms/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Moodle LMS</a>, and is scheduled for release in November 2021. The Moodle team set out to understand their users and after carrying out an initial <a href="https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=406032" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">benchmark survey</a> the team will be focusing on some key themes: <ul><li data-block-key="b8jek">educators&#x27; ability to create, duplicate, reuse and move course content </li><li data-block-key="hwav1">students&#x27; capacity to easily navigate the interfaces </li><li data-block-key="emie4">quiz and assignment setup and workflow </li><li data-block-key="3qlew">fragmented gradebook workflows. </li></ul>Dan Marsden, eLearning expert at Catalyst, says he is looking forward to using the great improvements to the user experience, which make it easier for users to access relevant information in a more natural way. This should massively improve things for those students and teachers who are new to Moodle.Dan has spent some time previewing Moodle’s progress and says, “I love the improved workflow for students – making the important information such as due dates/current activities more prominent – decreasing the number of steps a student has to take to get the most relevant information for them ‘today’.”Martin Dougiamas, Moodle Founder and CEO, explains:“We are breaking new ground with this release and creating processes to obtain wide input from our community is key to its success. Our community is one of Moodle’s greatest strengths and thorough engagement with them has been key in developing a UX roadmap that tackles and prioritises the most desired enhancements. We’re looking for a “wow!” from our users, whether you’ve been using Moodle for 10 years or 10 minutes so that we can empower educators worldwide to do amazing things with the deep features Moodle has developed over the years.” And, from what we can see from these <a href="https://docs.moodle.org/dev/Student_activity_completion#Prototype_.2F_mock-ups" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Moodle mock-ups</a> (see below) – we’re on track for an intuitive easy to use learning tool.<h3 data-block-key="65fx9">If you are ready to level-up your virtual learning environment,<a href="mailto:enquiries@catalyst.net.nz"> get in touch</a> – our experts are ready to help you.</h3><h3 data-block-key="h9dvz"></h3>

by Chloe GunnA sneak preview of what Moodle 4.0 has in store for us!

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by IngaOver the summer of 2020 to 2021, I was given the opportunity to work with Catalyst’s GIS team in Christchurch. In my introductory email, it was mentioned that I was going to be working with GIS software. I was not sure exactly what GIS was except for the fact that it had something to do with maps and geographical data, but that did not scare me as I was excited to learn something new. Going into this internship I had only finished my third year of university and had one other internship where I worked as a full-stack developer. Over this summer I learnt so much and was very grateful to have this experience with Catalyst.Integrating single sign-on into GIS via KeycloakI was very fortunate to work with another intern this summer. Our project was to integrate Keycloak single sign-on into GeoNode, GeoServer, and MapStore. Even though it felt like a massive task at the beginning, our team leader did a great job in breaking down the big problem into multiple small and more approachable ones.Learning about dockers, containers, and imageMy first step in understanding Keycloak was to learn how our dev environment ran all the different GIS software. To understand that we had a quick tutorial on how dockers, containers and images interact. In the tutorial, I learnt that a container requires an image to build and how a docker can activate that container and run extra terminal functions within it. Once the basic knowledge was understood I had the opportunity to alter a docker-compose file that had multiple containers in it. Each container was responsible for GIS software, such as GeoServer; and one container was for the database. My job was to make a container for Keycloak that connected to the database. At the start, it was very confusing but after reading the documentation and the other containers within the docker-compose it became clear how I should create the container for Keycloak.Once Keycloak was running, the next step was to follow a tutorial on how to set up Keycloak sign-on with GeoServer on the GeoServer documentation. The tutorial was straightforward, and I was able to log into GeoServer via Keycloak. Now it was time to start on the project and dig into more challenging tickets.  Setting up Keycloak with GeoNode-&gt; GeoNode sign-in via KeycloakThe first step to sign in to GeoNode via Keycloak was to enable Keycloak as an Auth provider for GeoNode. That involved me setting up a GeoNode Keycloak client that would redirect a user when signing in through Keycloak. If the user did not exist within GeoNode but would within Keycloak then a new user would automatically be created for GeoNode. For this process, the big part was to select the right Keycloak extension. It took three attempts to find the Keycloak extension that worked with GeoNode. The extension that I selected was from Django-allauth that was already incorporated within GeoNode. Which meant that it already had most of the required add-ons to the settings file. The tutorial that I found for setting up Django-allauth Keycloak extension had a URL in it that did not work, but once I figured out what was wrong and fixed the URI, signing in via Keycloak was just as easy as with GeoServer.-&gt; Synchronising Keycloak roles with GeoNodeThis part of my project was probably the most challenging. For me to synchronise roles from the Keycloak GeoNode client into GeoNode I had to create a Django application that would do that for me. I had no idea what a Django app was and did not have a clue on how GeoNode worked. After reading through multiple tutorials on how to set up a Django application and reading through the code base of GeoNode, I found some examples of Django apps that were already present within GeoNode. The tutorials were very helpful but, in the end, I ended up using the Django documentation to guide my way through making a Django Keycloak role application as well as help from my GIS teammates. I learnt from this experience – that sometimes reading documentation or a tutorial can take time and effort but will always have a beneficial outcome instead of just trialling ideas out.-&gt; Enabling SSO implementation into GeoNodeSetting up a silent SSO check for GeoNode using Keycloak was probably the simplest task that seemed complex at the start. To implement SSO I had to import the Keycloak-JS extension that was used to create a Keycloak instance. That instance could be used to set up a silent SSO check and retrieve the Keycloak token. From this task I learnt to look at the problem more positively and not go straight into negative thoughts and trapping myself thinking it’s too hard to do if something goes wrong.-&gt; Packaging the Django application and adding it to GeoNode-contrib repositoryIt is always the best feeling when finishing up with a project that makes you proud and which succeeds. When creating the Django application, I had to add the SSO functionality to it, which caused some issues at the start but worked at the end, as I had to modify the settings file for GeoNode. I wrote up a detailed README that contained the instructions to set up the Keycloak role syncing as well as the SSO integration. For the application to be complete I tested it and cleaned up the code so that it followed the GeoNode styling structure. Nevertheless, I was very proud to finally create a stand-alone Django application. It was very tedious to test it as I had to go through the process of downloading GeoNode from scratch, but it was all worth it. Towards the end of my internship, my pull request into geonode-contribs repository was accepted and now my name is displayed as one of the contributors.Implementing SSO and bearer authentication on WMS layers within MapStore using GeoServerWorking with MapStore was a challenge. A challenge was MapStore taking a very long time to load the front page. Since MapStore was a much larger project than GeoNode, any changes that I would implement would take a long time to load in. After working with GeoNode I was quite comfortable with the size of MapStore. Yes, it was way larger, but I felt like I knew what I was doing. My confidence was rising and so I was not intimidated by the size of MapStore.My first step was to integrate silent SSO check just like with GeoNode and set the token, thus allowing me to access the Keycloak token from anywhere in the project. The process was very similar to the one in GeoNode. For me to set the bearer authentication header of WMS layers, I created a helper file that handled creating a request and setting the header of a given tile. I used this helper file in both OpenLayers and Leaflet layer, which are just different type of map within MapStore that both contain WMS layers.Finally, to test my bearer authentication header I created WMS layers within GeoServer. And to each of the layers, I created a GeoFence rule that allowed only authenticated users to view some of them. So, when going onto MapStore and retrieving those WMS layers and adding them to the map, each tile from the layers contained a bearer authentication header. Since the GeoFence rules were created, only authenticated users could view all the layers. Creating a custom Keycloak login themeI really enjoyed creating a custom login GIS Catalyst theme for Keycloak. It was very simple and just a fun exercise. This theme was added to the Keycloak container so that it would be included within Keycloak website theme settings.Git horrorsEven though I have had experience with Git from university and my previous internship, it never prepares you to fully work and use Git every day. I learnt a few new tricks such as squashing git commits, forking and changing repositories. I very much appreciate all the work I do with Git, as the more I understand how Git works, the more confident I become. I do also appreciate the extra hand from my team leader when I needed it, so that I do not override the history at any point.Overall experience Overall, this opportunity to work on the GIS team was wonderful. I learnt so much and by the end, I felt like I had a grip on the GIS software. I appreciated all the learning opportunities that Catalyst provided and all the learning opportunities that I received from my team leader. I felt very welcomed from the beginning of this journey till the very end, and am looking forward to what the future might bring.

by IngaOver the summer of 2020 to 2021, I was given the opportunity to work with Catalyst’s GIS team in Christchurch.

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by Chloe GunnTo recognise International Women&#x27;s Day, we sat down with Jamie, a talented developer here at Catalyst, to discuss what Jamie’s experience has been like in a male-dominated industry Chloe: So Jamie, what your experience as a developer been like so far?Jamie: We have come a long way since I started as a developer. My first two agencies I worked at had only male developers; my first ever interaction with a female developer was actually at my interview with Catalyst. That was a profound moment for me. When you don&#x27;t have people that look like you to look up to, or to share experiences with, it can be and has been very marginalising. Progression becomes murky, even starting can be difficult.I can see that people have an appetite for change, and so I try to hold that with me to combat some of the fatigue you get from feeling like you still have to fight to make space for yourself.C: Do you feel being a woman sensitised person affects your role?J: I think women sensitised people have been culturally encouraged to consider others&#x27; feelings, to the point of putting other people&#x27;s needs before their own – often resulting in having better people skills in the industry than those who have these expectations less.Not because we are intrinsically better communicators, but because society has told us that that&#x27;s the way we have to act to be a &quot;good person&quot;. It is a strength and a skill, but it also means that we have a lot more emotional overhead than cis men might. My communications are also affected, I have to actively try to remove words like &#x27;just&#x27; and &#x27;could you possibly&#x27; from my emails because I shouldn&#x27;t have to have them in, but it&#x27;s difficult to undo that compulsion.There&#x27;s also been a lack of education. Where I grew up there were two colleges near each other that would occasionally swap classes. The girls&#x27; college (which I attended) offered no programming whatsoever: the boys&#x27; college did, but it wasn&#x27;t one of those classes we could attend.We shouldn&#x27;t underestimate the impact of early exposure to programming and how far that can put you ahead later on, hence why early access in education is important.In my teenage years trying to read a book on PHP from the library with no one to help, led me to believe I wasn&#x27;t &quot;smart enough&quot; for programming. Having even one person help would have made the world of difference.I&#x27;m really happy to see more accessible learning resources now, and that we&#x27;re actively trying to educate young people, but that does leave a little bit of a gap for older women, or those who continue to get missed by those programs of work.Additionally, I have experienced sexism. Whether it’s &quot;ugh female tech support don&#x27;t know what they&#x27;re talking about”, or more subtle like not listening to me when I am talking about my domain of knowledge, asking whether I understand basic technology principles despite being a developer, singling me out with certain language &quot;love, dear&quot; etc. This makes it, as a whole, a little more difficult to be taken seriously and to progress in the industry, and can make the day-to-day less pleasant.C: Do you have any advice for women looking to become developers?J: First, understand that you can do this! Try to remove that mental block, as that will be one of your biggest hurdles. How you then go about it will be different for everyone, but you might want to figure out how you learn and find resources that work for you.There are resources catered to more interactive learning (Codeacademy), 1:1 learning (mentoring), social learning (going to Meet-Ups), and so on. There are a lot of allies out there who can help you, so you might find it makes your path a little easier if you can find them and ask them questions. Find out what programs are available to you, what resources you have and use them.Lastly, people are working to make tech a more inclusive space, but we&#x27;ve got a long way to go. Be mindful of that, but I&#x27;d encourage you to not let it put you off. The only way we&#x27;re going to be more inclusive is to work together and forge ahead with the careers we want. But, do your due diligence when you&#x27;re looking for that first job: you&#x27;re interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you. Turn it around and ask what are they doing to make their business more inclusive.As a side note, development is not the only role in tech, you might want to investigate other areas that could spark your interest. Companies like Catalyst will give you opportunities to explore and try on different hats.C: As part of the Catalyst Inclusivity team, how do you feel Catalyst approaches gender equality and do you think we are on the right path?J: I&#x27;m so happy and so honoured that Catalyst has given us (the Inclusivity team) the space to work on this and that they&#x27;re willing to let us lead and influence on this area. The most important thing a company can do, first and foremost, is to listen.Don&#x27;t assume that you know what is best: ask the people who inequality is actively affecting.We still have a long way to go and we&#x27;re working with larger societal issues here. But small changes make a huge difference: gender-neutral bathrooms, period products in all the bathrooms regardless of gender, giving people space to talk about their experiences, trying to figure out mentoring and ways we can help achieve equity – the small things add up.What I&#x27;d like to see is more awareness in all of our leadership of implicit and explicit bias (often referred to as &#x27;unconscious&#x27; and &#x27;conscious&#x27; bias), and that&#x27;s something we&#x27;re working on – I believe it should be a compulsory part of any leadership role to understand these and how to mitigate them. I know as well that we are looking at improving honouring Te Tiriti, but there&#x27;s still a lot to be done in this area within and outside of the business, and that&#x27;s a crucial part of any conversation about equality.C: Jamie’s right, there are many issues surrounding equality and equity – all we can do is keep going and strive to be better, always. Thank you, Jamie, for your time and if you are interested in joining the tech industry keep in mind our <a href="https://www.catalyst.net.nz/open-source-academy" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Open Source Academy</a>, <a href="https://www.catalyst.net.nz/blog/catalyst-awards-its-2020-scholarships" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Open Source Scholarships</a>, <a href="https://www.catalyst.net.nz/training/upcoming-training" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">training</a>, and <a href="https://www.catalyst.net.nz/careers" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">career</a> opportunities.

by Chloe GunnTo recognise International Women&#x27;s Day, we sat down with Jamie, a talented developer here at Catalyst, to discuss what Jamie’s experience has been like in a male-dominated industry

iwd-open-and-honest-discussion-jamie

by Chloe GunnWe recently learnt about some fraudulent attempts to take peoples’ money while posing as Catalyst.This particular scheme included posing as a Human Resource Manager and emailing an individual recruiting for a position at Catalyst. After some initial job chat, this scammer goes on to suggest that the interested applicant needs to complete training (in this case, CISCO training) to receive the final job offer and can register through them – they just need to transfer $300. Simple, right? These emails were very thorough and detailed – you would be forgiven for believing them, so here are some tips to ensure you stay safe:Any communications from us will be from our email domain. This tip goes for all official companies sending communications – always ensure the email address matches the content of the email.Normal recruitment processes would involve at least phone calls, video conferences or in-person meetings. Be wary of receiving a job offer without these steps.If a company is offering you a position on the condition of sending them money – be cautious and do your research. Contact the company directly using the contact details from their website.You can read more about <a href="https://www.netsafe.org.nz/advice/scams/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">common scams</a> and if you think you’ve been involved in a scam, regardless of whether or not you provided money to the scammers, you can report it on the <a href="https://report.netsafe.org.nz/hc/en-au/requests/new?ticket_form_id=360000024755" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">NetSafe website</a> and <a href="http://www.cert.govt.nz/individuals/report-an-issue/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">CERT</a>.

<a href="http://www.cert.govt.nz/individuals/report-an-issue/">http://www.cert.govt.nz/individuals/report-an-issue/</a> by Chloe GunnWe recently learnt about some fraudulent attempts to take peoples’ money while posing as Catalyst.

fraudsters-posing-catalyst

by Joey MurisonAt Catalyst we collaborate closely with partners to absorb fresh and new approaches to digital learning. We have significant knowledge and experience from our 20+ years of operation in this space, and that has been tested and confirmed by circumstances over the past year.We are working towards facilitating our partners requirements every step of the way as they rapidly try to move traditional face to face learning to a purely online experience. The full depth and wealth of experience across our global operation of 350+ staff, along with the collective knowledge available in our many hundreds of education sector partners, will help us.And this is important given current trends in online learning systems.IT staff enabled remote operations for just under three million students, lecturers, researchers, academic leaders and support staff in March 2020, at a pace never witnessed previously across the UK, a recent Microsoft/UCISA report found.We are examining how online learning systems need to adapt rapidly and what the best solutions to the technical and pedagogical challenges are, what worked well and what didn’t in 2020, to help every client move forward with their digitisation strategy.Institutions will be looking to maximise the flexibility and individual control of online learning, combined with all of the stimulus and interaction of face to face learning and being on campus.As Nick Hillman at Higher Education Policy Institute recently wrote, “while new innovations have very often changed education for the better, they have rarely changed education in precisely the ways predicted by those behind them”.“We mustn’t forget the pedagogy because proper tools are only half the job,” he said.Catalyst has dedicated learning technologists and expertise on hand to help prepare institutions and their teaching staff to adjust to what is currently the only available methods of teaching and learning. Our close and ongoing partnerships promote and support all the possibilities of hybrid teaching and learning.Asynchronous learning has shown to have a positive effect on engagement. We can help with customisations to the platforms, or training and consulting for the teaching stakeholders, to deliver a personalised and engaging learner journey. Communication and interaction via video conferencing facilitates group responses and feedback, and learning any time, anywhere.Having a robust and resilient platform, particularly during peak periods of access, ensures confidence. It is essential for all institutions to have enough resources provisioned to run their platform. It is also important that delivery of the required resources is also cost efficient, and that wastage is considered and minimised at all times.Our current results can clearly speak for themselves with our partners UCL, who are now supporting 48,000 active students upon the largest Moodle instance in the UK in terms of traffic. The university was receiving 700,000 page views a day prior to Covid, and since moving to the Cloud is now frequently receiving 1.5 million page views a day.Within this period of extreme disruption and uncertainty, supporting the continued and valued excellence of each of our partner institutions is a large part of what we do at Catalyst. We facilitate each institution’s digital strategy, and help safeguard their brands and reputation by ensuring student expectations and outcomes are consistently met.If you would like help with your digital learning, <a href="mailto:enquiries@Catalyst.net.nz">get in touch today</a>.*Image provided by Unsplash

by Joey MurisonHaving a robust and resilient platform, particularly during peak periods of access, ensures confidence. Here we examine how online learning systems need to adapt rapidly.

what-does-cloud-based-learning-mean-educators

by Chloe GunnCatalyst was proud to sponsor the <a href="http://nzlaser.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Laser Nationals</a> that took place from Friday 22nd until Monday 25th January 2021. Ninety-four entrants came from all over New Zealand, from Bluff to the Bay of Islands.Sam Meech – Mens National Champion – photo by Chris Coad photographyIt was an exciting windy whirlwind, with one day being blown out due to winds reaching 40 knots on the course!The sole international visitor, who happened to be here from Sweden to launch a satellite via Rocket Lab in Mahia, was astounded by the winds but loved every moment of it. As for the National results, Rio Olympic bronze medallist Sam Meech won the Men&#x27;s National Championship, showing us all that hard work and determination pay off. As a business that enjoys working with the open source community, Catalyst also likes to give back by supporting people’s passions, whether in the software world or in other parts of the community. Gaining sponsorship for these types of events isn’t always smooth sailing, but we are always keen to help you get the wind in your sails.Olivia Christie - Women&#x27;s National Champion-  photo by Chris Coad photographyYou can check out the fantastic coverage <a href="http://www.nzlaser.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">here</a>. You can also watch all the races <a href="https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nzl+catalyst+Laser+nationals+2021" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">here</a>.*Photographs by Chris Coad photography - <a href="https://chriscoad.photoshelter.com/portfolio" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">view all photos from the event</a> or <a href="https://www.chriscoad.co.nz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Chris Coad photography website</a>

by Chloe GunnCatalyst was proud to sponsor the Laser Nationals that took place from Friday 22nd until Monday 25th January 2021. Ninety-four entrants came from all over New Zealand, from Bluff to the Bay of Islands.

catalyst-sponsors-2021-laser-national-championship

by Chloe Gunn
This year Catalyst celebrates its tenth Open Source Academy. The Open Source Academy is a two-week programme which aims to give all students a chance to learn about, and work with, open source technologies.
The beginning of the course focused on introducing the students to all the roles within IT and that it’s not all coding; with talks from our own Project Managers, Business Analysts, User Experience consultants, Testers and more. The second half of the Academy focused on contributing to open source projects like GeoNode, Phaser, and Koha - on their final day the students present their mahi and celebrate each other's efforts. <img alt="" class="image-catalyst-large-round-left" height="450" src="/sites/default/files/styles/catalyst-large-round-left/public/OPA%20pics4.jpeg?itok=0NtpMoG9" width="450" />
 
At the celebration ceremony, where the students gave their closing talks, Sophia said, “I liked how the first week we got to look at all elements of an IT project and not just one aspect,” while Catherine said, “I’ve enjoyed meeting everyone and experiencing what it’s like to work on a real-life project and learning on things we don’t learn about in school.” Many students commented on how they are coming away feeling more confident in their abilities and what they can offer in the industry.
 
Something worth noting is that the students on the Koha team contributed 246 patches and commits (or saved 246 ‘kittens’ as we refer to them in the Academy) - a record in the last 10 years of Open Source Academy.

Don Christie, Catalyst’s Managing Director, says "We have been running the Open Source Academy for 10 years and each year brings renewed energy and resolve. Energy from the enthusiasm, intelligence and capability of the students. Resolve because of the awesome obligation of Catalyst and our fellow Kiwi companies that help provide exciting and challenging work for each new generation. That's why we encourage others to open their doors to today's students and talent and reap the undoubted benefits that their skills and world view bring"
 
For many, attending the Academy generates a passion for open source and, quite frankly, free pizza – this combination often leads previous attendees to return as employees. 
Priya, a previous Open Source Academy student turned full-time employee, shares her memory of the academy, “I remember fixing bugs on Drupal and seeing my name on the big screen. I was so proud.
<img alt="" class="image-catalyst-large-round-right" height="450" src="/sites/default/files/styles/catalyst-large-round-right/public/open%20source%202021.jpeg?itok=ciMlwwZ4" width="450" />
 
“The Academy taught me so much about open source technology and I realised that I wanted to learn so much more in the IT space so I went to university and finished with a Bachelor of Commerce with majors in Information Systems and E-Commerce. The routine gave me an insight into how working would be as an adult and finishing the Academy with an invite to Beverage O’Clock (featuring a massive table covered in food) was the dream!” 
 
It is initiatives like this that are so crucial to supporting and continuing the growth and innovation of New Zealand’s tech industry. 
 
Ian Beardslee, who runs the academy, said this:
“From our first Open Source Academy in 2011, we have been lucky enough to have over 200 students come through, taking part in learning new things and getting the opportunity to apply them to real projects. The hands-on learning, and working with people around the world is a unique experience for students, our staff and the wider open source communities.”
 
Thank you to all those who helped make this possible: Catalystas who took time out of their projects and those at GeoNode, Koha ILS, Phaser, and Gamefroot. Not forgetting, the people in these open source communities – thank you for your continuous mahi.
 
If you are interested in taking part in the next Open Source Academy keep an eye on our Twitter and <a href="http://catalyst.net.nz/academy" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">website</a>.
 
 
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by Chloe Gunn
This year Catalyst celebrates its tenth Open Source Academy. The Open Source Academy is a two-week programme which aims to give all students a chance to learn about, and work with, open source technologies.

catalyst-celebrates-10-years-open-source-academy

by Chloe Gunn
Catalyst is proud to be presented with Tōtara’s Global Partner of 2020.
Catalyst is committed to delivering exceptional online learning for students all around the world. This commitment has been especially important over the last twelve months with organisations being forced to move to exclusively online teaching. At Catalyst, we are proud to have enabled that move to be successful for so many students and learners.
Tōtara had this to say about our contribution:
"<a href="https://www.totaralearning.com/partners/catalyst-it" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Global Partner of the Year</a>, Catalyst IT, is one of Totara’s founding partners. Catalyst IT was selected for this coveted award based on its commitment to best practice software maintenance as well as their excellent customer service. 
 
“Catalyst IT has contributed code to the core Totara product offering and has extensive experience in creating large-scale sites for 20,000+ users. Catalyst has entities in New Zealand, Australia and the UK, giving them excellent global coverage. Some of their key customers include multiple New Zealand government departments including the <a href="https://www.totaralearning.com/customer-stories/nz-ministry-of-justice" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Ministry of Justice</a>, <a href="https://www.totaralearning.com/customer-stories/department-of-internal-affairs-collaborates-with-catalyst-to-advance-their-lms" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Department of Internal Affairs</a> and the <a href="https://www.totaralearning.com/customer-stories/new-zealand-customs-service" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Customs Service</a>, along with organizations such as the <a href="https://www.totaralearning.com/customer-stories/humanitarian-leadership-academy-customised-open-source-learning" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Humanitarian Leadership Academy</a>, <a href="https://www.totaralearning.com/customer-stories/british-dental-association-transforms-its-lms-for-dental-professionals-into-a" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">British Dental Association</a>, <a href="https://www.totaralearning.com/customer-stories/family-planning" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">New Zealand Family Planning</a> and <a href="https://www.totaralearning.com/customer-stories/kmart" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Kmart</a>.” 
 
Austen Sinclair, an eLearning Consultant at Catalyst, said: “It's awesome to be recognised - particularly for the often invisible 'behind the scenes' work that goes into providing our clients with a world-class system that meets the complex needs of modern-day corporate learning." 
 
Like-Minded Learning Limited, who also create learning solutions using Totara, commented, “We have long respected Catalyst IT’s contribution to the industry and their open and collaborative approach to working we have experienced from their New Zealand entities.”
Our neighbours, Catalyst Australia, were also awarded ‘Best Retail Project’ for their work with <a href="https://resources.totaralearning.com/e2t/tc/VWj6YG26gfwcW5kl57s8D_0gfW2lg-cV4mhwZdN6crjpr3p_9rV1-WJV7CgWDYV6qLY05-KrXfMbrlBy8V_5PW8V9YbB3JsmpmW8Mnn_n4ZDM8PW4lz0Fc6K8z19Vrm6Wp6W1j5sW1mMG545GnJBwW320YbR15-h4GW562tNR1M6pSMW2k1std6D2swFN7Sh0877_sQWW2StMXs210dZgW1c-Lcp6sGjC2VPCx0d6J5fHYW4NHqL62PtqbVN6FKgTBB-DFSW7Lkxbq4kbCPnW2SGHJL4n-P8rW8LnCw16vZP0yW9frYnC2Y0HdlW94nnSP7FdwQRW899xyD2gv6cnW3FynH_4yxb8bW1qJKfy1H7ZNCW4CcwQX2B_V1hW75Vr8R6MXrqj3jdP1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Kmart</a>, which saw Kmart saves over $1 million a year with the adaptability and freedom of Totara Learn. 
 
Our mahi and our passion will continue to grow as we innovate our way through 2021, we are excited to see what the year holds for us and our clients.  
 
If you would like to level-up your virtual learning environment check out our <a href="https://www.catalyst.net.nz/products/totara-learn" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Tōtara page. </a>
 
                                                               <img alt="" height="1000" src="/sites/default/files/toto2_0.png" width="1000" />

by Chloe Gunn
Catalyst is proud to be presented with Tōtara’s Global Partner of 2020.

catalyst-awarded-t%C5%8Dtara-global-partner-2020

by Andrew Bartlett
<a href="https://lists.samba.org/archive/samba-technical/2000-September/009729.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://lists.samba.org/archive/samba-technical/2000-September/009729.html</a>
Back in 2000 I was still a student at Hawker College in Canberra Australia and I had been given access to what was the old SCO Unix box that previously ran the library administration system. Red Hat Linux was around back then, and I installed that on the host and with it Samba. We set up user accounts per student, replacing the practice of storing work on either a floppy disk (remember those?) or on the local hard-disk of the lab computers.
There was a domain, but only generic logins (r84l3) for class number 3 in room 84, so privacy was only that we used the same computer each lesson. So I wrote a small Visual Basic program to help automate the user logon from the NT4 domain accounts to the Samba accounts on 'Jessie'. It is in that context that I joined the Samba project, sending patches in a language I had never used before (I 'learnt' C by waiting till the compiler stopped complaining and the segfaults stopped. Ouch!). 
The link above is the first patch I can find in the archives, in September 2000. Thankfully the Samba project took me under their wing, and project founder Andrew Tridgell, in particular, became an incredible mentor for many years, inviting me to join the Samba Team in July 2001. Thankfully 'Tridge' as he is universally known was also in Canberra, living in the same suburb at one point!
I was hired by the school to stay on and be part of the IT administration team. The Jessie system grew into a full NT4-like domain (running Samba) and this started my interest in Samba domains. Backed by OpenLDAP it served the school well and I maintained it until after I finished at University (when it was transitioned over to 'standard' Windows AD by others). I never got my wish to see Linux desktops running at the school, by good luck we managed not to have a Windows worm wipe out the network, but I did have a network booted Linux system 'just in case'!
It was the experience at Hawker College that showed me the power of an Open Source Samba DC, but also the limitations, and so was the root of my passion for our AD DC. I began working on the AD DC code at the time and through multiple employers since, culminating in my over seven years at Catalyst. I could never have imagined how it would grow. Sadly not so widely deployed in education (an area I still have a soft spot for), Samba's AD DC was instead taken to new heights by major installations in multi-national corporations and major world governments.<img alt="picture of 8 males who make up the Samba team" class="image-catalyst-large-framed-right" height="293" src="/sites/default/files/styles/catalyst-large-framed-right/public/Samba%20team.jpg?itok=852II9e5" title="the Samba team" width="450" />
Finally, I do want to say a big thanks to those on the Samba Team and in particular, those who have been on this journey with me at Catalyst. I remain very proud of what I've been able to be a part of in this 20 year journey, and the privilege of building and leading Catalyst's own Samba Team. To all my follow Catalyst Samba Team members and to the directors who have given me space and support: it has been an amazing journey, but evermore the better for your company, wisdom and friendship along the way! I'm particularly grateful for the space not just to improve our software, but to improve how, as people, we develop our software.

by Andrew Bartlett
Andrew Barlett reflects on his last 20 years of working on Samba.

andrew-bartlett-20-years-samba

by Chloe Gunn<h3 data-block-key="d00vs">2020 hasn’t been a great year for many reasons, however, Tōtara is ending 2020 on a positive note with their impressive transformation as they launch the Tōtara Talent Experience.</h3>So what’s included in the Tōtara Talent Experience?The<a href="https://www.catalyst.net.nz/products/totara-learn" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> Tōtara Talent Experience Platform</a> is made up of Tōtara Learn, Tōtara Engage and Tōtara Perform – these can be used together or separately, providing a powerful experience that unifies highly engaging learning and performance management.Tōtara Learn Tōtara Learn is an adaptable and extendable enterprise solution that cost-effectively meets any learning and compliance requirements. Now with multi-tenancy, a mobile app, a modern user interface and dozens of upgraded features, Tōtara Learn allows organisations to:<ul><li data-block-key="38sk8">manage compliance with custom report building that automatically keeps stakeholders fully informed</li><li data-block-key="po682">automatically assign and personalise learning and compliance training according to group, role, team, skills and more</li><li data-block-key="ddl2p">engage learners and drive collaborative problem solving with centrally organised online and offline learning events.</li></ul>Tōtara EngageOrganisations can now harness the power of informal learning and collaboration to enhance the success of learning programs. Tōtara Engage encourages the creation and sharing of personalised learning paths while supporting upskilling and enhancing performance.With Tōtara Engage, you can:<ul><li data-block-key="x2v10">blend formal training with informal and social learning to increase engagement and collaboration </li><li data-block-key="rvep3">build a connected culture by unlocking knowledge sharing throughout the organisation </li><li data-block-key="vv8lm">shorten learning curves with personalised playlists and custom resources curated from multiple channels and delivered to any device</li><li data-block-key="w6vxf">give employees relevant training at just the right time.</li></ul>Tōtara PerformWith Tōtara Perform you can set courses and tailor practices to suit your work culture and context. With adaptability and productivity at its core, you can harness both traditional and modern performance practices, including annual reviews, continuous performance management, 360-degree feedback, check-ins, appraisals and much more.Tōtara Perform enables you to:<ul><li data-block-key="f5ud6">maintain high performance with regular check-ins, continuous feedback, and smart goal-setting for employees and remote workers </li><li data-block-key="3wmww">set clear goals and drive measurable results to build a culture of performance</li><li data-block-key="56ij6">develop an agile and resilient workforce with the flexibility and power of modern performance management</li><li data-block-key="57dfz">align departmental goals and organisational direction through better visibility and reporting of your performance management process. </li></ul>If you are ready to make 2021 your learners&#x27; best year yet, <a href="mailto:enquiries@catalyst.net.nz">get in touch</a> with our eLearning experts to find out what we can do for you.

by Chloe Gunn2020 hasn’t been a great year for many reasons, however, Tōtara is ending 2020 on a positive note with their impressive transformation as they launch the Tōtara Talent Experience.

tōtara-transforms

by Chelsea Finnie
This year's Transgender Awareness Week begins on the 13th and runs through to the 19th of November, leading up to the Transgender Day of Remembrance. The week is a celebration of transgender people and their lives, as well as an opportunity for them to share their stories and educate others. In this blog post, I would like to share part of my story to give some insight into my experience.
I'm a transgender person (my pronouns are she/her) and I've been working in this industry since I was 18. I transitioned almost 6 years ago whilst at a different company, and it was probably the scariest thing I've ever done. Not many workplaces have policies around transgender people and transitioning, and the Human Rights Act doesn't explicitly prohibit discrimination based on gender identity, so there is a lot of fear for transgender people around being mistreated by employers or even losing their jobs. Luckily for me, I had a decent amount of support from my managers and colleagues, and possibly a bit of good timing on my side, considering I did this over the New Year's break while most people in the office were away. 
It wasn't all smooth sailing though, and there were some bumps along the way. <img alt="" class="image-catalyst-large-round-right" height="450" src="/sites/default/files/styles/catalyst-large-round-right/public/124581844_1245244995847640_7411712957884010787_n%281%29.jpg?itok=N79F7boi" width="450" />
In that job I was pulled aside by my manager because some people complained to HR that they found it confronting that I was using the women's bathroom. (For context on this, most of the time I would use the single occupancy gender-neutral bathroom, only using the women's when that option was unavailable because I wanted to avoid confrontation myself). These complaints didn't sit right with me and I felt like the company were being unsupportive in this area by taking the other side. So, I took it straight back to HR and convinced them that me using the women's bathroom was not an issue, and anyone uncomfortable with that could use a bathroom in a different part of the building.
Apart from that experience, I've been fortunate enough not to have any further issues in other jobs. This could be due to me living my life not being visibly transgender, which doesn't speak well of the industry when my treatment has been based on people not knowing I am transgender. The exception to this so far (in my experience) has been Catalyst. After I started working here, I realised that it was a safe enough and welcoming place that I could come out, express who I truly am, and share my story. I imagine there are other welcoming places to work, and I hope that transgender people, wherever they are, are free to be who they are and express themselves.
One of the things I find people have trouble with is how to deal with misgendering, <a href="https://www.catalyst.net.nz/blog/transgender-awareness-week-misgendering" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Here is a  blog</a> we shared that can help you with misgendering.
Thanks for reading. Making an effort to learn makes a big difference and helps everyone to feel included.

by Chelsea Finnie
Read about Chelsea's experience as a Transgender.

taw-chelseas-experience

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We are keen advocates of the benefits open source technology can deliver to our clients. Here are a few examples of our favourite projects. <a href="/our-work">View all projects.</a>

Open source software with a flexible modelling engine for processing geospatial data for risk analysis

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MyRecert is an ePortfolio platform for pharmacists to record their recertification requirements.

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A free online GHG calculator to inform farmers and help them meet their emissions obligations.

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Adapting online learning solutions in the face of ever-changing demands

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Experience a four-fold increase in the use of the virtual learning environment

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A two-and-a-half-year upgrade completes a 30-year journey for Catalyst and Dam Safety

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The Met Office is the national meteorological service for the UK

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Concordia level-up from traditional paper-based exams to an online assessment platform called COLE

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University of Canterbury preserves vital earthquake data and insights in a digital archive, built with Islandora.

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Together we evaluated the Python Operator Framework for writing Juju charms for deploying and running workloads on Kubernetes

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Catalyst and Encounter Solutions continue to innovate with Cloud DBaaS and affordable wireless sensor networks

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Catalyst Europe works with Universitas 21 to deliver a flexible, central platform for collaboration.

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Smoother modernised enrolment process for students and reduced processing times for staff

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NGCC and Catalyst quickly and seamlessly build multiple websites with Silverstarter.

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Catalyst and the Commerce Commission collaborate with the power of Koha.

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Archives Central and Catalyst collaborate to migrate and preserve over 220,000 items

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New Zealand Red Cross, Department of Internal Affairs and Catalyst quickly collaborate to build a vital resource

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