By Charlotte WestonBeginning in 2017, a special event has been happening during spring and summer at the Wellington Catalyst office. It’s called Lego Build Season and it’s exactly what it sounds like. Building Lego sets in the office. “What we’ve got going here is a bit of a community where people are contributing their time and their skills to a shared goal, which in this case is building a large set,” says Chief Lego Officer and Catalyst Delivery Lead Sanjay D’Souza. Essentially it’s an open source project, but it’s somewhat more tangible than open source software. “It’s very visible what we’re doing and how much progress we’re making,” says Sanjay. This year’s project is a large Star Dreadnought Eclipse, made up of over 10,000 pieces, requiring approximately 2,000 build steps. The set was contributed by Gregorio Narvaez, Catalyst’s Security Manager. Catalyst staff members can sign up for a 20 minute session up to twice a week during the build season, and Sanjay, along with fellow Lego enthusiast, Catalyst developer, and Chief Lego Engineer Liam Sharpe, are around to support those who contribute. “It helps people unwind,” Sanjay says. “I use the term mental yoga. Life’s tough, and here’s a few minutes where you can chill out.”<img alt="Liam Sharpe and Sanjay D&amp;#x27;Souza are sitting on chairs in a brightly lit office with a large, unfinished Star Wars Lego set on the table behind them." class="richtext-image full-width" height="502" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/liam_sanjay_lego1.width-800.jpg" width="800">Liam Sharpe and Sanjay D&#x27;Souza with the (unfinished) Star Dreadnought Eclipse Lego setThe Lego Build Season started in 2017 when Toyworld was having a Labour weekend sale. Sanjay and a couple of other Catalyst Lego enthusiasts, jumped in the car and paid Toyworld a visit. “We went in there, looked around, and when I walked out the door I realised I’d somehow purchased this large set,” says Sanjay. “It was an original Lego super car, and it just fell into my lap, so I had to buy it. I thought it would make a great project so that kicked off the Lego Build Season.” The following year they again went to Toyworld, and according to Sanjay, “another set fell in my lap,” which is an interesting way to shop. In 2019 Andrew Maguire, Senior Catalyst Technical Lead told Sanjay he had a lot of Lego in a bad state. A few days later Sanjay came into the office to find three huge boxes of Lego that Andrew had delivered. “I almost fainted,” Sanjay says, which may or may not be enthusiastic hyperbole. “Because in that box were sets that I wanted as a kid but my parents couldn’t afford.” That summer the Catalyst Lego builders reconstructed Andrew’s entire collection of 24 sets. “It was like 48 Christmas days in a row. It’s like you’ve just won the lottery every day. He had some of the greatest Lego sets that I could imagine.”<img alt="A large cardboard box full of Lego pieces." class="richtext-image full-width" height="600" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/20191125_130946.width-800.jpg" width="800"><img alt="A person is standing in an office holding a Lego helicopter, next to a table with many other Lego sets on it." class="richtext-image full-width" height="612" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/2020_Build_Season.width-800.png" width="800">Andrew Maguire with the results of the 2019-2020 Lego Build SeasonSanjay’s enthusiasm for Lego began, as for many, at around the age or three or four. His neighbours in Singapore had a set, and he was captivated first by the Lego logo, and then by the blocks. A Creator set was the first Lego his parents bought him, and Sanjay remembers his mother saying “this is the last Lego set that we buy.” Lego was expensive in Singapore but his parents supported his interest with small Lego sets, and his collection grew to a little town. When his family moved to New Zealand his mother again said “no more Lego,” but – spoiler alert – there was more Lego. Although he forgot about it during his teenage years, Sanjay came back to it when he worked at Wellington City Council. “I had free time on my hands and we had these news groups dedicated to a particular topic. I discovered a community of Lego enthusiasts and that rekindled my interest, and of course I had a bit more spending money at that point.”The community around Lego, and especially the collaboration of the Catalyst Lego Build Season, aligns with the Catalyst open source ethos. “There’s a sense of satisfaction for those who are involved,” says Sanjay. “They’re playing a part in a much bigger project. And it’s fun!” <img alt="Several completed Lego sets on an office desk." class="richtext-image full-width" height="600" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/20191125_160327.width-800.jpg" width="800">Some of the sets from the 2019-2020 Lego Build Season“Someone asked me do you take pride in building this yourself and I say no, I take more pride in setting it up for other people. For me it’s more about creating the environment and letting people have fun,” says Sanjay, “and I gain so much from having conversations with people I cross paths with. I guess that’s part of the open source ethos, that you’re giving more than receiving.”

Liam Sharpe and Sanjay D'Souza are sitting on chairs in a brightly lit office with a large, unfinished Star Wars Lego set on the table behind them.”

Beginning in 2017, a special event has been happening during spring and summer at the Wellington Catalyst office. It’s called Lego Build Season and it’s exactly what it sounds like. Building Lego sets in the office.

lego-build-season

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At the end of October 2022, the Catalyst team released <a href="https://mahara.org/interaction/forum/topic.php?id=9197" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mahara 22.10</a>. Part of Catalyst&#x27;s role as steward and maintainer of this popular open source portfolio platform is the regular release of new and changed features. This latest version focused on usability improvements and technical changes. The implementation of Bootstrap 5, Font Awesome 6 icons, better support for image alt text, and a report for SmartEvidence are but a few of the changes.Catalyst clients made it possible for us to include features created for them into Mahara itself where other organisations can benefit from them, too,. We are proud to partner with clients who value to benefits of open source and support the Mahara community through their contributions.Watch the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50_p0vJb6do" 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.If you&#x27;d like to stay up to date on all things Mahara and portfolios, <a href="https://eepurl.com/h_r2Rb" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">subscribe to our monthly Mahara newsletter</a> that is published every first Wednesday of the month.

The latest version of Mahara focused on usability improvements and technical changes. The implementation of Bootstrap 5, Font Awesome 6 icons, better support for image alt text, and a report for SmartEvidence are but a few of the changes.

mahara-2210-usability-technical-changes

Three members of the original Koha project team presenting at KohaCon 2020. Rachel Hamilton-Williams, Chris Cormack, Rosalie BlakeIt is with great sadness that Catalyst acknowledges the passing of Rosalie Blake. Rosalie was the Head of Libraries for Horowhenua Trust in 1999 when the Trust realised it needed a new library system. Investigations found systems that were too expensive, or not suitable for the technology available at the libraries. Bravely, Rosalie decided the libraries would commission existing technology partner, Katipo Communications, to write a new system for them. Then she convinced the Trust that when the system was ‘finished’ they should give it away as free/open source software. The Koha library management system exists today in over 18,000 libraries worldwide, largely due to her tenacity and advocacy. At Kohacon 2020, Rosalie, Rachel Hamilton-Williams (Katipo Communications) and one of the original developers Chris Cormack, came together to present the Koha origin story. There, Rosalie acknowledged that Koha was “rolling along nicely” so gave librarians a new challenge to think about climate action and sustainability.  She also said “What do you do in a library? You should think of the library as the living room of your town...Keep your libraries friendly. Keep friendly yourselves. Do good to each other.” The Koha Library Management System is only one part of her legacy. She is described as innovative, knowledgeable, bold, enthusiastic, a people-person, a gifted artist and someone who wanted the best for the people both in her local community and in the wider library community. Rosalie was awarded a LIANZA (Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa) Fellowship in 2008. This is the highest level of professional attainment and is given for outstanding leadership and significant contribution. She received a Queen&#x27;s Service Medal for her services to the library profession in 2010. This is awarded by the New Zealand Government to recognise outstanding contribution to the community. Catalyst, in particular the Catalyst Koha team, send their condolences to Rosalie&#x27;s family and friends. Tiwhatiwha te pō, tiwhatiwha te ao. <ol><li data-block-key="elq4g">Kohacon20: Keynote - The 1999 Koha Project Team</li></ol><div>
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Three members of the original Koha project team presenting at KohaCon 2020. Rachel Hamilton-Williams, Chris Cormack, Rosalie Blake

It is with great sadness that Catalyst acknowledges the passing of Rosalie Blake.

remembering-rosalie-blake

by Charlotte WestonThroughout his various careers as a translator, librarian, journalist, print designer, and now front-end web developer at Catalyst, two things have held steady for Serge Seva. His love for art, and the way his curiosity and interests have led him to many self-taught hobbies and jobs.<img alt="Medieval library in Lithuania" class="richtext-image full-width" height="524" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/university-library.width-800.jpg" width="800">The medieval library at Vilnius University of Lithuania, where Serge worked as a librarian after completing his masters degree in linguistics and philosophy.Originally from Lithuania, Serge landed in Christchurch a few weeks before Christmas sixteen years ago, and began looking for work to meet his visa requirements: anything design-related. Every morning he got up and knocked on doors, sent his CV out. Eventually, he says, “I got an invitation for an interview which was in Timaru, and I thought it was one of the districts of Christchurch.” It took a month before they came back to him with a job offer, during which time he would call almost every day. “I didn’t want to go back to Lithuania,” he says. “I burned all my bridges, deliberately, I gave myself no chances to go back.”<img alt="Outside view of the historic Vilnius University with pink flowers in the foreground and a blue sky with clouds" class="richtext-image full-width" height="417" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/university-panoramic-view.width-800.jpg" width="800">The historic Vilnius University of Lithuania.That job, with the Timaru Herald, was where Serge first started coding. “I was always wondering how UI is rendered on the screen. I understood how it was done in printing, but I didn’t understand how it was done on the screen.” So he asked a friend who was a developer, and this friend showed Serge HTML. Serge’s interest in how the building blocks of the web are laid together continued as he taught himself HTML and CSS, working on small development tasks for the Timaru Herald. He made an app that would respond in email with tick boxes to clients if something had been completed or was still going.<img alt="Portrait of Serge Seva leaning on a railing with trees behind him." class="richtext-image left" height="750" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/ss-bc.width-500.jpg" width="500">Serge Seva Then he decided to leave Timaru. When first deciding which country he would like to move to, Serge had gone through beautiful photos of New Zealand, seen pictures of palm trees, and thought it was a tropical climate. So he was surprised by winter in Timaru. “I didn’t want to live in a crowded place, and wanted a more relaxed lifestyle, with access to the sea. This turned out to be true in lots of aspects, it just wasn’t as warm as I thought. Outside is fine, but Europeans build very warm houses, and I still can’t get used to cold houses.”Serge’s dream was to live in Wellington and work in the web industry, so he left his job in Timaru and moved to Wellington to do a Yoobee course in web development. On the day Serge got his certificate in 2011, he got a job at the Wellington City Council as a coder, and has been doing front-end development since then.<img alt="A black and white photo of a man at a restaurant with a waiter handing him a menu and a glass of water" class="richtext-image full-width" height="528" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/menu_please.width-800.png" width="800">Menu, Please by Serge SevaSerge’s true passion as a teenager was painting, and although he didn’t pursue a career in painting his interest in fine arts remains. These days his medium of choice is the photograph. “I went to Inverlochy classes after work, which was hard because painting is an exhausting practice. I still have an eye for composition, for light, and that’s what I try to mimic, to substitute my painter’s ability with photography. I went from painting on canvas to painting on the sensor.”The self-taught thread that runs through Serge’s life came out to play again with photography. He studied the technicalities of cameras, started experimenting and taking photos. First, he tried to replicate things that fascinated him in other pictures: silky water, micro photography, portraiture, landscape. Eventually he figured out that the most interesting form for him is street photography.“I like wide angle lens. I like getting close to the subject and getting more in the frame than with telephotos. You have to get close with a wide angle lens; it gives you the opportunity to compose, to play a lot with geometry.” Street photography deals with mostly cities and urban life, and Serge captures city scenes at home and while travelling. “I like the intricacies of cities, the game I play with shadows, waiting for people to come into frame.”<img alt="A black and white image of a skater with a facade in the background that has a triangle shape, reflected in the skater&amp;#x27;s posture." class="richtext-image full-width" height="530" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/triangularity.width-800.png" width="800">Triangularity by Serge Seva.Serge talks about two styles of street photography: fishing and hunting. “Fishing is when you find the composition and you wait for someone to enter the frame. You wait for the moment, sometimes successful, sometimes not.” Whereas on the other hand, “hunting is when you just go with your camera, looking and sensing an opportunity for an exclusive shot. You need to have an immediate reaction, because a split second means a lot.” He describes it as an adventure, going through the streets and looking for the moment Henri Cartier-Bresson, pioneer and master of the street photography genre, called the decisive moment.“You develop a different vision, so you’re not just someone wandering and looking for beautiful things. You train yourself to see something, even trivial things, that you don’t see in your ordinary life.” Serge calls it the development of the third eye – without the spiritual aspect. Looking through things, finding the meaning that is hidden. He shoots in black and white, which provides an opportunity to focus on tonality, which is where the light shines. “You eliminate the overload of meanings that colours bring. Less distraction, more concentrated. Lots of things become punchier.”<img alt="Black and white photo of a dimly lit hallway looking out a window at a mural that shows the eyes and top of head of a clown." class="richtext-image full-width" height="534" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/insider.width-800.png" width="800">Insider by Serge Seva.Throughout his career and photography work, open source is a repeating motif. “When you compare to closed systems like corporate culture where everything is sealed and enclosed and enforced, you start understanding the freedom open source brings. You see it is a different way of dealing with the world.”<img alt="A paved street with a woman walking towards the camera and another walking away. A bicycle is leaning against a wall in the right of the image" class="richtext-image full-width" height="530" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/dance_class.width-800.png" width="800">Dance class by Serge Seva.“My photography is also open source; it’s the idea of sharing anything I do for free.” When people ask Serge if they can use his photo, he tells them they can use it for free. “I’ve always thought if I start making photos for the market, that’ll be it. My concentration, my energy would go a different way. I want a niche place, something I do for myself. As soon as you start taking money for photos you lose the magic. I keep it as a sacred thing.” Serge acknowledges that his paid work as a front-end developer supports both the photography itself (“I like Leica, and it is expensive”), and the open sharing of it. “It’s in our human nature to show and share our work. We wouldn’t survive as human beings if we didn’t share.”The Catalyst open source ethos is an ideal fit for Serge’s inclination towards sharing and community. “The open source community is so dynamic, so open. It’s marvellous. From a philosophical point of view I’m totally with open source, and to the scale Catalyst operates with. I’m not a fan of closed systems and imposing things on the client.”Serge’s photographs have multiple times been featured in the Leica Fotografie International gallery, including the two below.<img alt="A black and white landscape photo with a line of black hills in the background and blurry water around rocks in the foreground." class="richtext-image full-width" height="443" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/white-rock-2048x1136.width-800.jpg" width="800">Whiterock by Serge Seva.<img alt="A black and white photo of tall city buildings with reflections in the shiny street below, and in the foreground is a large poster of a ballet dancer in midair." class="richtext-image full-width" height="477" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/icarus-fall-1600px.width-800.jpg" width="800">Fall of Icarus by Serge Seva.View a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFQ7IK28iRc" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">slideshow of Serge’s work on YouTube</a>. You can follow him on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/serge.seva/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Instagram</a>, and see more photos on <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/sergeseva/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Flickr</a>.

A black and white photo of tall city buildings with reflections in the shiny street below, and in the foreground is a large poster of a ballet dancer in midair.

It’s in our human nature to show and share our work. We wouldn’t survive as human beings if we didn’t share.

philosophical-intersection-photography-web-development

The <a href="https://mahara.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mahara</a> project has just been selected as one of the 100 innovations to watch out for in 2023 by education specialists amongst over 3,000 innovations. Global education expert <a href="https://hundred.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">HundrED</a> convened 188 educators to review innovations based on their impact and scalability and published its report on 24 October 2022. We are excited that the Mahara project is one of the final selections for the Global Collection 2023.“Innovations highlighted by HundrED are truly moving the needle in education reform around the world. Meeting the needs of students, parents, teachers, and communities, the innovations found in HundrED&#x27;s database are a go-to resource for anyone looking to catch a glimpse of the wealth of possibility in education innovation and transformation.” Mike Dunn, member of the selection committee and Dean of College &amp; Career Counseling, U.S.A.The research that is part of the selection process revealed five common threads amongst the selected innovations:<ol><li data-block-key="2ob73">Teachers and their professional development are vitally important to educational change. </li><li data-block-key="6o30s">Students develop 21st century skills through interactions with peers and teachers in settings that foster students&#x27; holistic development. </li><li data-block-key="cj4p0">Students&#x27; wellbeing is a determining factor of educational outcomes. </li><li data-block-key="5lj1e">Students have agency by being in the driver&#x27;s seat of their own education. </li><li data-block-key="bel2o">Equity, including gender equality, diversity, special needs education, inclusion, access to education, and human rights, is becoming more visible and talked about in education. </li></ol><a href="http://hundred.org/en/collections/hundred-2023" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Read the report</a> to find out more about all 100 innovations and <a href="https://hundred.org/summit" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">sign up</a> to watch the free online livestream of the HundrED Summit between 26 and 28 October 2022.Catalyst has been the primary development company for Mahara from its beginnings in 2006 and has been supporting the worldwide community and its own clients since then. Mahara is more than an open source software product. It is a community of educators and developers who strive to make tools available to support lifelong and lifewide learning. Hear from some of the community members in our podcast <a href="https://podcast.mahara.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">&#x27;Create. Share. Engage.&#x27;</a>

Text on a pink background: Mahara has been selected to HundrED's Global Collection 2023!

The <a href="https://mahara.org/">Mahara</a> project has just been selected as one of the 100 innovations to watch out for in 2023 by education specialists.

mahara-selected-as-impactful-education-innovation

by Liam SharpeWhen most people think of the circus, they picture a big top in a muddy field filled with exotic animals, clumsy clowns, and elegant aerialists. But hidden in a small warehouse complex tucked in between the NZ school of dance and the gymnastics gymnasium sits <a href="https://circus.org.nz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Circus Hub</a>, a school for aspiring circus performers. This is where I spend a lot of my waking hours when not working my desk job as a front-end developer at Catalyst IT. My name is Liam Sharpe and I’m a circus performer.I’ve been training for almost 5 years now, originally starting on the aerial silks and trapeze before finding my home on corde-lisse (or aerial rope). What’s great about the Circus Hub is they often run shows called RAW which are chances for their students to show off what they’ve learned and get the chance to perform to a paying audience. After performing in a number of these shows, I felt I needed more, so one winter day back in August 2021, I approached the manager of the hub to ask if I could direct the next one. I kind of expected to be told no, or that at the very least I could maybe shadow the organizer as an intern kind of deal. But to my utter disbelief and pleasure I was told “yep, here’s the date for the next one, let me know if you need help, good luck.”<img alt="Liam Sharpe performing aerial rope with dramatic lighting" class="richtext-image full-width" height="1200" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/liam_2.width-800.jpg" width="800">Photo by <a href="https://www.bigmark.co.nz/about" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Big Mark &amp; Co</a>So what did I learn in the process of putting together a show filled with over an hour of circus acts and at least 15 different acrobats at one point. Well number one: that organizing a public event in the post-Covid age sucks. The show was postponed three times due to Covid alert-level changes and a lockdown.To create the show I needed a few things:<ul><li data-block-key="fjv5k">A date</li><li data-block-key="f278p">Location</li><li data-block-key="o5ra">Theme</li><li data-block-key="49i5i">Performers</li><li data-block-key="3rtaf">And a budget</li></ul>The date and location were already set by the Circus Hub, and the budget was non-existent so that only left me with 2 more challenges. First the theme. This was surprisingly easy. After joking around with some friends we were talking about doing a Disney themed group act except where the guys were the princesses and it was up to the girls to save us. Spoiler alert: this act never made it into the show. We loved the idea but I wanted to open it up a bit more and make it slightly more vague so it turned into “Fairy tales.” My idea was to have an “Author” on stage who was dictating the show as it was happening - where the acts were the stories that she was writing about.Finally, I needed to round up a group of kick-ass performers. That wouldn’t be hard at a literal school for circus. What is hard though is keeping track of everyone and their progress especially when the constantly changing dates due to that pesky pandemic meant some performers couldn&#x27;t make the date any more but also freed up others to join in. By the time the show eventually went ahead, we had 9 acts, 2 stagehands, an emcee and me.<img alt="A group of circus performers standing and sitting together, smiling at the camera" class="richtext-image full-width" height="533" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/liam_3.width-800.jpg" width="800">That&#x27;s me, second from the right with my crew. Photo by <a href="https://www.bigmark.co.nz/about" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Big Mark &amp; Co</a>At this point you may be wondering why you’re reading a blog post about some random circus show on a website usually filled with tech articles. Well number one I was asked to and who am I to question the higher ups, but more importantly, and probably more relevant: I learnt a lot from directing a show that directly impacts the way I work now.I learnt that keeping everything in my head was a bad idea. Granted this is something I probably should have learnt during my university years but somehow I managed to get through it anyway. But with a constantly changing cast and various show ideas being thrown around I had to quickly learn to keep note of everything. In the same vein I also learnt to plan everything out and have lots of little milestones along the way. I ended up using a checklist with due dates ranging from 2 months before the show all the way down to the night before. This included items such as when the lights needed to be booked by and when the Facebook event page needed to be created. I learned there&#x27;s a lot of paperwork behind a show.I think the most important thing I learned was how important communication is. It was invaluable to be able to communicate with my cast, to let them know when rehearsals were and to figure out what their tech requirements are. It was important to stay calm and collected during the dress rehearsal and the show. It’s stressful performing, especially if it’s your first time so I had to make sure everyone was comfortable and ready.Directing is a fun and rewarding job and I learnt so much from doing so. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to do so and it’s definitely something I’d like to do more of in the future.<img alt="A circus poster for RAW: A Fairy Tale, Saturday 2 July at 7pm at the CIrcus Hub in Newtown, entry by donation" class="richtext-image full-width" height="1131" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/liam_4.width-800.png" width="800">

Liam Sharpe speaking into a microphone on a dimly lit stage

Catalyst developer Liam Sharpe on his experience directing a circus show

how-to-join-the-circus-and-still-keep-your-day-job

Written by Aleisha Amohia and Chris CormackThe Catalyst Koha team is excited to announce that Aleisha Amohia has been named our new Koha Technical Lead, taking over Chris Cormack who will be adopting his Kaihuawaere Matihiko role full-time.<h4 data-block-key="35nsq">Mate atu he tētē kura, ara mai he tētē kura - when one goes, another takes their place.</h4>Aleisha has been in the Catalyst Koha team and contributing to Koha for over 8.5 years. You&#x27;ve no doubt seen her around, whether it was speaking at Kohacon, co-facilitating training, fixing bugs, writing blog posts, or developing new enhancements and features such as recalls for Koha. She started out at the <a href="https://ako.floss.ac.nz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Catalyst Open Source Academy</a> as a high school student exploring an interest in the technology sector, and has worked her way up from being a part-time intern to the Technical Lead.The Kaihuawaere Matihiko role is one that Chris began on a part-time basis in early 2020. The role allows him to focus on helping to move Catalyst to a place that is better for Māori - Māori employees, and Māori organisations with whom we work. Chris had already been working in this space alongside his work with libraries. The role quickly began requiring more of Chris&#x27; time than we&#x27;d initially planned, and it became clear that it would be better for Catalyst if Chris could give it his full time and energy. It is a testament to Catalyst&#x27;s commitment to becoming a Te Tiriti o Waitangi honouring organisation that they have elevated the role to a senior management position.Being one of the original Koha developers, this is certainly not the end of the Koha journey for Chris! While he&#x27;s no longer in the Catalyst Koha team, he&#x27;s still available via community forums and chat channels. He&#x27;ll always be happy to talk about Koha, in fact the hard part is stopping him.The Catalyst Koha team continues to be a group of capable, hard-working people who champion open source software and strive to ensure Koha is the best system for libraries. Evan, Kathryn, Aleisha, Wainui and Alex look forward to their continued work, helping libraries get the best out of Koha in their organisations, and for their communities.Catalyst KohaIf 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 koha@catalyst.net.nz (New Zealand) or koha-support@catalyst-au.net (Australia).Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/catalystkoha" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Catalyst Koha on Twitter</a>!

Aleisha and Chris speaking at Te Tiriti in Tech in 2019

The Catalyst Koha team is excited to announce that Aleisha Amohia has been named our new Koha Technical Lead, taking over Chris Cormack who will be adopting his Kaihuawaere Matihiko role full-time. Mate atu he tētē kura, ara mai he tētē kura - when one goes, another takes their place.

koha-changes

by Billy HendryVirtual reality is a technology that allows you to be anyone, do anything, or go anywhere you can possibly imagine without ever needing to leave the room. It&#x27;s a digital technology that will enable you to step inside a piece of content, inside of a video game, or be part of a film.If you have ever seen Ready Player One then you probably know what virtual reality is already or at least the dystopian future of virtual reality.During the last two Catathon days at Catalyst I hosted a virtual reality event, giving people an opportunity to experience virtual reality (VR) for the first time.<img alt="A collection of three photos of people standing in a room wearing virtual reality headsets." class="richtext-image full-width" height="1054" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/vr_4.width-800.jpg" width="800">Catalystas try out VR at Catathon<h2 data-block-key="8g72h">What is Virtual Reality?</h2>There are three key components that are required to create a good VR experience:<ol><li data-block-key="2ps28">Hardware</li><li data-block-key="7r8ko">Trackability</li><li data-block-key="ed33k">Interactivity</li></ol>The hardware part is pretty straightforward. Most VR headsets have two lenses and a digital screen inside that that completely covers the eyes for an immersive 3D experience.The second part is trackability. You have to be able to move around in the VR experience, which makes it an immersive experience compared to a video game or film. VR headsets use some combination of accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, and proximity sensor to detect the user&#x27;s motion.Quick side note: early VR headsets had a delay in the tracking of the headset which caused nausea. So if you haven&#x27;t tried VR in a while or the first time you tried it, it made you sick, I recommend you try it because technology has advanced and no longer causes nausea.The third component is interactivity. Using controllers or even your hands in some fancier systems, you have the ability to do things inside of a VR experience. That interactivity is key in helping create a sense of immersion inside of a VR experience.<h2 data-block-key="cnjlh">Virtual Reality Timeline</h2>Virtual reality has been around since the 1940s, believe it or not. People have been working on this technology for a really long time.However, it wasn’t until 2012, that a (at that time) little company called Oculus turned to crowdfunding to finance their developer kit, which would give the technology to developers who could integrate VR into their games.However, just in the last half a decade the technology has improved massively! You don&#x27;t need a big heavy-duty computer any more or hang a bunch of crazy sensors around your room.All you need is a headset, a couple of controllers, and plenty of time to lose yourself in the amazing experiences that are available on these headsets.<h2 data-block-key="eas01">Use Cases for the Technology</h2>The first one that most people think about is gaming. Stepping inside of a video game is a pretty cool thing to do.However there are some bigger more important use cases for this technology; we are seeing it save hundreds of thousands of dollars in the real world, in training and simulation.Delivery companies are using this technology to train their drivers. The military has been using this for years to train soldiers, pilots, and the like. Training and simulation are great to use cases for this technology.It also has huge benefits as a sales and marketing tool. Let&#x27;s say you&#x27;re an architect and you want to show someone what the inside of your new building looks like. Well, that’s hard to do until you actually build the building. With VR you can now do that.<h2 data-block-key="8465c">Open Source Virtual Reality</h2>Open Source has been a major part of Virtual Reality since the beginning and while lately lots of the bigger names in VR have been moving away from open source sadly.There are still lots of frameworks, libraries, and tools that are Open Source which lowers the cost for developers and startups. Some of them are backed by companies like Google, and Mozilla, and supported by powerful communities.In my opinion, one of the coolest Open-Source projects in VR is Relativty. It is an Open-source project helping developers to build their own VR hardware for less than $200. The project is providing 3D model sets, schematic, and instructions to assemble a VR headset.Relativty uses Arduino, among many other open-source tools and libraries like OSVR to build high-quality low-cost headsets.

A cartoon illustration of a person wearing a blue shirt and black trousers wearing headphones and a virtual reality headset, standing side on looking at a screen.

Virtual reality is a technology that allows you to be anyone, do anything or go anywhere you can possibly imagine without ever needing to leave the room.

open-source-virtual-reality

The <a href="https://mahara.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mahara</a> Project Team is excited to announce its podcast &#x27;<a href="https://podcast.mahara.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Create. Share. Engage.</a>&#x27; which is dedicated to showcasing practises around portfolios for learning and more. &#x27;<a href="https://podcast.mahara.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Create. Share. Engage.</a>&#x27; is aimed at educators, learning designers, and managers keen on integrating portfolios with their education and professional development practices.Mahara Project Lead Kristina Hoeppner talks with researchers, practitioners, learning designers, students, and others involved in portfolio work at a diverse range of organisations to find out why they are using portfolios, what has influenced their practice, and what tips they would like to share.A new episode will be released every two weeks on Wednesdays, New Zealand time. Lisa Donaldson, who was critical in starting and scaling the portfolio initiative at Dublin City University in Ireland, is our guest for the first episode on 28 September 2022.Subscribe to &#x27;<a href="https://podcast.mahara.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Create. Share. Engage.</a>&#x27; on your favourite podcast app. If you would like to share your organisation&#x27;s portfolio journey, get in touch. We&#x27;d love to chat about your experiences and journey working with portfolios.Catalyst is the main development company of the open source Mahara software and offers the <a href="https://www.catalyst.net.nz/mahara" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">full range of support services</a> for organisations keen on implementing portfolios in formal education and the workplace.

Logo for Create. Share. Engage podcast on a green background. Tagline reads: Portfolio for learning and more.

The Mahara Project Team is excited to announce its podcast &#x27;Create. Share. Engage.&#x27; which is dedicated to showcasing practises around portfolios for learning and more.

sharing-portfolio-stories-with-the-world

by Charlotte WestonPhotos are by Kristina Hoeppner, except the sourdough one. Catathon began in 2017 as a way of celebrating Catalyst&#x27;s 20th birthday, and in July, five years later, we celebrated <a href="https://www.catalyst.net.nz/blog/25-years-of-catalyst" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">25 years of Catalyst</a> with another fun-filled day long event.During Catathon, staff members run workshops introducing colleagues to their hobbies and interests. There are opportunities to work on software projects (like a more traditional hackathon) as well as things unrelated to software, such as dancing, painting, and playing Dungeons and Dragons.Below are some photos of a few of the activities that happened, with some accompanying tips and info!<img alt="A handful of people are standing in an office talking, and holding various things to juggle." class="richtext-image full-width" height="600" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/juggling.width-800.png" width="800">Liam Sharpe (wearing black) giving a workshop on juggling in Wellington. Liam says &quot;juggling is a long game, but something as simple as trying for 10 minutes a day will make a massive difference. One day it just &#x27;clicks&#x27; and all of a sudden you can juggle.&quot; He says &quot;don&#x27;t be afraid to practice with just two, or even one ball when you&#x27;re learning.&quot;<img alt="Two people are sitting at a table with various paper and craft supplies making greeting cards." class="richtext-image full-width" height="534" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/cardmaking.width-800.png" width="800">Tish Kirkland holding a card she made at the pop-up greeting card workshop in Wellington. Tish&#x27;s tip is to &quot;make sure you check before you cut! I made the same mistake 3 times in that I forgot to unfold something before I cut it. Check twice, cut once! (There wasn&#x27;t any measuring going on, which is why I changed the saying.)&quot;<img alt="Two people are standing in a kitchen holding mixing bowls and wooden spoons making sourdough." class="richtext-image full-width" height="640" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/sourdough.width-800.jpg" width="480">Mariann Matai (right) and Nicole Illustre making sourdough bread in Christchurch. Here are Mariann&#x27;s tips for making delicious sourdough:<ol><li data-block-key="3ls0f">Dip your hand into flour when doing the folding, this will help with the stickiness.</li><li data-block-key="578f5">Don&#x27;t skip on the folding process! Do it at least 3-4 times with 30 mins in between.</li><li data-block-key="bct1h">Before rising the dough it shouldn&#x27;t be too soft or too dry but should hold it&#x27;s own shape just about.</li><li data-block-key="firbp">Bake at really high temperature 230-250C for 30 mins in fan assisted over covered with a lid (or in a Dutch over if you have one). Then bake it for another 10 mins with the lid off until it&#x27;s nice and brown.</li></ol><img alt="A sheet of paper with braille and translations." class="richtext-image full-width" height="534" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/braille.width-800.png" width="800">Matthew Hunt ran a braille workshop. &quot;We looked at UEB (Unified English Braille) which is now used in most English-speaking countries and has replaced national Braille systems, Matt says. &quot;You can learn to read Braille by sight and can quite quickly pick up what&#x27;s known as Grade 1 UEB, where every Braille character represents a single written character. For Grade 2 UEB, a Braille character may be a single character, a whole word, part of a word and may be different things dependent on context. If you&#x27;re keen to learn more, there&#x27;s an excellent Android app called Braille Tutor.&quot;<img alt="Russel is talking to a group of people, with a CPR mannequin on the floor in front of him." class="richtext-image full-width" height="450" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/cpr.width-800.png" width="800">Russel Garlick gave a talk about CPR in Wellington and ran a competition using a CPR manikin, which can measure the depth and rate of compressions. Russel is a NZ Resuscitation Council Approved New Zealand Emergency Care Instructor. His CPR tips are:<ul><li data-block-key="3q5bd">30:2 - no matter who, as in compressions to breaths.</li><li data-block-key="9fti0">Staying Alive is out! The <a href="http://resus.org.nz" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">NZ Resus Council</a> now advises a slightly faster rate of 120 compressions per minute. The research also found that people sing at different rates so weren&#x27;t accurately getting the 100-110 per minute.</li><li data-block-key="cl769">120 per minute is the new guide, so 2 per second.</li></ul><img alt="Chris Cormack is sitting at a table smiling and chopping carrots. On the right is a close up of a hand holding a bowl of boilup." class="richtext-image full-width" height="314" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/boilup_2.width-800.jpg" width="800">As is the Catathon tradition, Chris Cormack made boilup for everyone to share. He&#x27;s still on the hunt for a reliable source of pūhā in Wellington so had to make do with spinach. Te Wainui helped out making doughboys for both the meat and vegan versions which were a big hit.<img alt="A group of people are sitting on couches around a small table making chainmaille." class="richtext-image full-width" height="534" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/chainmaille_3.width-800.png" width="800">Lily Fahey (right) teaching chainmaille making in Wellington. &quot;The big trick to chainmaille is patience,&quot; Lily says. &quot;It takes a while to make, especially when starting out, so don&#x27;t try to make every ring perfect and instead enjoy the process.&quot;<img alt="A training room is laid out with desks in 3 rows and computers set up on the desks. People are working on the computers." class="richtext-image full-width" height="450" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/training_room.width-800.png" width="800">Catalystas from all corners of the building making their contributions to open source library system, Koha, at the Koha bug squashing workshop in Wellington. &quot;For many of the group, this was their first time EVER doing software development,&quot; says Aleisha Amohia, &quot;so it was a real pleasure for the Catalyst Koha team. In just one morning we were able to push 10 patches (which will all be included in the next version of Koha), plus induct 8 new Koha developers.&quot;<img alt="Several people, including one person on a ladder, are painting a mural on a wall in a meeting room with bright blue, green, red, and yellow colours." class="richtext-image full-width" height="534" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/mural_2.width-800.png" width="800">Mural painting in one of the meeting rooms in Catalyst House in Wellington. The mural was designed by Evonne Cheung, and was based around the Korimako (Bellbird) and using the colours of available leftover paints. &quot;We wanted to be able to pass the buck, I mean, share the activity with the rest of the company, by getting everyone to participate in the painting, thus creating a sense of ownership to the mural,&quot; says Evonne. &quot;Not everyone is able to draw freehand, but everyone is able to colour in, hence the design as a large paint-by-numbers. I have come to realise just how much work it was to number each and EVERY section, and not have too many colours to mix but enough to get the painting to not look like a child&#x27;s painting. We&#x27;re going to put the finishing touches on it in the coming weeks, but it was wonderful to see everyone come and get involved in the painting, something that is going to be there for everyone to enjoy every time they use the meeting room.&quot;<img alt="Three people are standing looking intently at a large Lego train set on a table." class="richtext-image full-width" height="450" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/train_3.width-800.png" width="800">A Catathon staple in Wellington, the Lego train event is run by Sanjay D&#x27;Souza, and is an opportunity for people to experience the fun of driving a Lego train. &quot;Attendees worked in pairs to complete a series of tasks during their 14 minute session,&quot; says Sanjay, &quot;taking turns to either drive a train or control the network, i.e. changing track switches, raising or lowering road crossing barrier arms amongst other things. At the end of the session, people were awarded a Lego Train Engineering Certificate upon successful completion of their tasks. By the end of Catathon almost 90 people had taken part and had received a personalised certificate.&quot;<img alt="A lot of cupcakes with blue or white icing and sprinkles and flags saying Catalyst 25." class="richtext-image full-width" height="534" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/cupcakes.width-800.png" width="800">Some of the delicious shared goodies at the end of the day.

A crowd of people standing and sitting in a large room at the end of the day. Someone is talking on a microphone and there are tables of food in the foreground.

During Catathon, staff members run workshops introducing colleagues to their hobbies and interests. There are opportunities to work on software projects as well as things unrelated to software, such as dancing, mural painting, and playing Dungeons and Dragons.

catathon-celebrating-25-years

by Aleisha AmohiaIn June 2022, <a href="https://www.vala.org.au/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">VALA</a> returned for its first-ever hybrid in-person and online conference, with the theme &#x27;Bring It On!&#x27;. The Catalyst Koha team was excited to be able to send Aleisha Amohia (Koha Development Lead) and Chris Cormack (Koha Technical Lead and Kaihuawaere Matihiko) to attend VALA in Melbourne.Day 1 of VALA2022 was all about open access and research management. We heard about projects being implemented during the pandemic and how organisations responded to increased requirements for accessibility, openness, and creativity. Aleisha and Chris were joined by Dr Ben Chadwick from Education Services Australia SCIS to present about implementing Koha for SCIS, a cataloguing agency, across international borders, during a global pandemic. Read the paper and <a href="https://www.vala.org.au/vala2022-proceedings/vala2022-onsite-session-2-chadwick/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">watch the session recording here.</a><img alt="Aleisha Amohia, Dr Ben Chadwick, and Chris Cormack presenting together on Day 1 at VALA2022" class="richtext-image full-width" height="640" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/vaka_1.width-800.jpg" width="480">(From left to right) Aleisha Amohia, Dr Ben Chadwick, and Chris Cormack presenting together on Day 1 at VALA2022The VALA2022 Day 2 program held presentations about the applications and responsibilities regarding artificial intelligence and machine learning. There were conversations about our data and the impacts of how it has been collected and used. The key messages included that data collection has hugely increased due to the heightened use of technology during COVID-19, putting our information in the hands of large tech corporations. We need to be aware of the privacy risks from those who profit off our data, as well as the health, economic, environmental and political risks of them using modelling and predictions of our data to make decisions.The final day of VALA2022 was all about the people in our library communities, and crisis management through a pandemic. The message came through loud and clear - tech is people, must not be without humanity, and solutions should be people-centric. We are stronger through collaboration. Aleisha presented again, this time sharing the similarities between libraries and open source software, and the advantage of the Koha community. Read the paper and watch the session recording <a href="https://www.vala.org.au/vala2022-proceedings/vala2022-onsite-session-24-amohia/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">here.</a><img alt="Aleisha Amohia presenting at VALA2022 on Day 3." class="richtext-image full-width" height="1066" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/vala_2.width-800.jpg" width="800">Aleisha Amohia presenting at VALA2022 on Day 3.On Day 3, we were also given reminders to look after our ourselves and to make it easy for those around us to look after themselves, because we work better when we are happy and healthy. The speakers also shared tips for developing ourselves, including to be consistent, and access our creativity by getting outside of our comfort zones. Finally, we heard from a fantastic panel about leadership, and ended the day feeling connected and uplifted.VALA2022: Bring It On! was a great success, at a lovely venue with delicious catering and a dedicated team keeping everything running smoothly. While the conference itself was interesting and inspiring, everyone agreed that the highlight was being face-to-face with friends and colleagues we hadn&#x27;t seen in years.<img alt="Carmel O’Sullivan, Nicole Kearney, Kim Tairi, Hugh Rundle, and Sae Ra Germaine, sharing the stage to discuss leadership to close out Day 3 of VALA2022." class="richtext-image full-width" height="480" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/vala_3.width-800.jpg" width="640">(From left to right) Carmel O’Sullivan, Nicole Kearney, Kim Tairi, Hugh Rundle, and Sae Ra Germaine, sharing the stage to discuss leadership to close out Day 3 of VALA2022.Aleisha and Chris would also like to acknowledge the VALA Committee. The Catalyst Koha team can appreciate the immense amount of effort that goes into organising an in-person and online event after hosting Kohacon 2020 in Wellington, and the VALA Committee did an excellent job.

Carmel O’Sullivan, Nicole Kearney, Kim Tairi, Hugh Rundle, and Sae Ra Germaine, sharing the stage to discuss leadership to close out Day 3 of VALA2022.

The Catalyst Koha team was excited to be able to send Aleisha Amohia and Chris Cormack to attend VALA in Melbourne.

catalyst-crosses-the-ditch-for-vala

By Dianne TennentThis year’s <a href="https://kawaiicon.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Kawaiicon</a>, formerly known as Kiwicon, was indeed the cutest little technical computer security conference in the Australia-Pacific region. Held over two days at the Michael Fowler Centre, the con hosted 27 presentations on a huge range of security related topics. I was proud to learn that 9% of these presentations were by delegates from Catalyst!<img alt="Photo taken from the back of a huge event room where hundreds of people are seated and looking at the stage" class="richtext-image full-width" height="600" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/52186407525_d80eb125f6_k.width-800.jpg" width="800">Awaiting the Kawaiicon opening, <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/4nitsirk/albums/72177720300234763" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">photo by Kristina Hoeppner</a>This year was the 13th conference organised by the Kiwicon “crüe” since their debut in 2007 and they are an extraordinary team. They strike a great balance between serious content and light-heartedness that doesn&#x27;t make you think you are at a two-day conference. When the audience demands crickets, the audio desk delivers within a second, and an uncomfortable silence breaks into laughter. Electronic fireworks, sparkles, and a lock picking competition, as well as the badge challenge, are just some of the extras that attendees can experience, while learning about the various facets of information security.<img alt="A large group of people wearing masks are sitting at tables picking padlocks" class="richtext-image full-width" height="533" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/52184903542_f450c2799a_k.width-800.jpg" width="800">Lock picking, <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/4nitsirk/albums/72177720300234763" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">photo by Kristina Hoeppner</a>Being the first conference since the start of the pandemic, the crüe was keenly aware of the precautions needed for running an event of this size, and implemented a range of measures to keep everyone as safe as possible. The conference was opened with a karakia, followed by a Llama in a space helmet, of course. Our host, Metlstorm (most efficiently described as a wizard in cargo pants) was a gracious and hilarious guide to the day.The presentations ranged from practical tools for identifying security issues, to strategic approaches to responding to immediate security threats, through to the endless, bewildering complexity of analysing the state of your system. I won’t pretend to have understood every word that was spoken or every diagram I saw, but I definitely gained a better appreciation of the importance of embedding security awareness in our daily operations.Without listing and summarising all 27 presentations (which would probably fill a weighty textbook), I’d like to share with you some of my main highlights.<img alt="Andrew Barlett on stage giving a talk at Kawaiicon with big screens behind him." class="richtext-image full-width" height="600" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/andrew_kawaiicon.width-800.jpg" width="800">Andrew Bartlett at Kawaiicon, <a href="https://twitter.com/anitsirk/status/1542728653494095872" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">photo by Kristina Hoeppner</a>Did I mention that three of the presenters were from Catalyst? <a href="https://youtu.be/4hBLf2vQc8k?t=30618" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Andrew Bartlett</a>, from the Catalyst Samba team, did us proud sharing his experiences with Active Directory, which could be summarised by, “Oh hai, I found some publicly documented instructions for how to break your stuff, let me help you fix it.”<img alt="Kristina Hoeppner is on stage with someone in a large fuzzy blue creature costume and a line up of (not real) farm animals." class="richtext-image full-width" height="600" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/kristina_and_faily_monster.width-800.jpg" width="800">Photo of Kristina Hoeppner and Faily Monster by <a href="https://twitter.com/jpdanner/status/1543061692640243714" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Jason Danner</a><a href="https://youtu.be/IyeDSyvYvZs?t=23791" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Kristina Hoeppner</a>, from the Mahara team, stole the show by teaming up with a big fluffy purple creature known as Faily Monster (note: not an actual monster). Together they regaled us with true stories of less-than-ideal communication about security problems, and of course, how to do it better.<img alt="Douglas Bagnall is presenting a talk on stage at Kawaiicon with large screens behind him." class="richtext-image full-width" height="600" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/douglas_kawaiicon.width-800.jpg" width="800">Douglas Bagnall at Kawaiicon, <a href="https://twitter.com/anitsirk/status/1543068542249054208" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">photo by Kristina Hoeppner</a>I’m a bit fuzzy on <a href="https://youtu.be/IyeDSyvYvZs?t=25401" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Douglas Bagnall</a> though... I also make hilarious puns! Key points from Douglas (also from the Catalyst Samba team): get some good quality fuzz into your test data and throw it at your system.<a href="https://youtu.be/4hBLf2vQc8k?t=5229" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Moonshots and Space Debris</a>: Darren Bilby kicked off the con with a review of the past year’s major security incidents, i.e. the Solarwinds Hack, the Log4J Vulnerability, and the Colonial Pipeline Hack. He shared what went well, what didn’t, and what we can learn from it all. He looked closely at the way these incidents feed into establishing new tools and standards at a government and industry level, and how individuals contribute to this process.<a href="https://youtu.be/4hBLf2vQc8k?t=21988" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Malware Analysis when you don&#x27;t have time for Malware Analysis</a>: Adrian Hayes showed us a range of tools and techniques for quickly and safely analysing the contents of any suspected Malware, to help you make decisions about what to do next.<a href="https://youtu.be/4hBLf2vQc8k?t=23674" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Deep breaths and lean the f**k in. A user’s guide to Incident Response:</a> Nadia Yousef shared her experiences leading New Zealand government and industry’s response to several major incidents. Nadia emphasised the importance of timely and clear communication and collaboration during these critical events.<a href="https://youtu.be/IyeDSyvYvZs?t=6125" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">SaaS - Security as a Secondthought</a>: I found this talk particularly helpful as a way of understanding, representing, and talking about an organisation’s current status through a security lens. Jeremy Stott showed us an example of using a mapping tool to map out the people in your organisation, which services they’re connected to, and what their relationship is to the organisation and the service. You can then identify your most important information assets and what the impact would be of losing them. Once you’ve identified all these connections in code, using a tool like Grafana shows them graphically. This allows you to easily see your current SaaS relationships, and therefore all the pathways that could lead to a specific impact, e.g. losing the company!<a href="https://youtu.be/IyeDSyvYvZs?t=15991" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Security as a product - A different way of approaching building scalable security systems</a>, and a progressive security culture within an organisation: I was really impressed with this talk because it told the story of how an amazing product owner applied their skills to transform security from ‘that thing we should really do one day’ to ‘that thing we’re doing and have now done.’ Kandice McLean was far too humble about her instrumental role in prioritising and churning through a security backlog.<img alt="A group of people sitting at tables and wearing masks working on a project" class="richtext-image full-width" height="533" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/52185927256_d7bbc6cc58_k.width-800.jpg" width="800">Participating in the Kawaiicon CTF run by HAL, <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/4nitsirk/albums/72177720300234763" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">photo by Kristina Hoeppner</a>Prizes for most entertaining go to:<a href="https://youtu.be/4hBLf2vQc8k?t=12250" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Dylan, Frenchie &amp; the Chamber of Secrets (Red Teaming in Zero Trust: No Malware Needed):</a> I’m told it was about how API keys and credentials scattered throughout your infrastructure can lead to security holes, but my main memory was two grown men in capes on stage casting spells on each other. Magical.<a href="https://youtu.be/4hBLf2vQc8k?t=14388" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">IoT your Pet, Sure can</a>: After a suspenseful narrative about how this presenter hacked into his SurePetCare IoT Hub, Feeder and Pet Door, we were treated to a REAL LIVE DOG jumping through a dog flap. Cute. There may have been some other point about the relative ease of obtaining the hub’s certificate.<a href="https://youtu.be/4hBLf2vQc8k?t=32448" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hiding Malware in Docker Desktop&#x27;s virtual machine</a>: This by far generated the most laughs per minute of the con. As a security researcher for Atlassian, “Alex” related the relatively simple steps they went through to discover that when you run Docker Desktop on macOS, it actually runs on a Linux virtual machine, and therefore you can hide all sorts of malevolent stuff in this VM which is completely undetectable by your actual machine. Woah.I find it astounding that there is a large community of people, who are incredibly talented and skilled in endlessly complex technologies, dedicated not only to understanding how these technologies could become vulnerable to attacks, but also willing to share and teach ways of preventing these attacks from occurring.I feel a huge sense of gratitude to anyone who specialises in security, allowing me to carry on building things in relative safety. And of course, I’ve taken away a much more heightened awareness of why being security conscious is so important.A big thank you to Catalyst for sponsoring me to attend the conference.<img alt="Ten Catalyst staff members wearing masks are standing in a large even toom." class="richtext-image full-width" height="450" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/catalyst_kawaiicon.width-800.jpg" width="800">Some of the Catalyst staff who were attending Kawaiicon, <a href="https://twitter.com/anitsirk/status/1543431130682122240/photo/1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">photo by Kristina Hoeppner</a>

A huge event room with hundreds of people seated looking at a blue lit stage

This year’s Kawaiicon, formerly known as Kiwicon, was indeed the cutest little technical computer security conference in the Australia-Pacific region. Held over two days at the Michael Fowler centre, the con hosted 27 presentations by 27 excellent individuals on a huge range of security related topics.

kawaiicon-2022

By Charlotte WestonIn the late 1990s four friends were working for QED Software in Wellington when a management buyout triggered some changes. You could say it was a catalyst. The new management was Auckland based, and the manager of the Wellington branch, Mike O’Connor, was made redundant. As the Wellington branch disintegrated, Mike, along with colleagues Don Christie, Godfrey Fernandez, and Gavin Thompson, wondered what to do next.None of them had run a business before, but “we did think we could give it a go,” says Mike, and that’s what they did, founding Catalyst IT in 1997, along with another friend, Andrew McMillan.Before founding Catalyst, Don and Gavin were trying to encourage their employer to use the internet, but in those days many were skeptical. In 1995 Bill Gates said the internet was a flash in the pan and wouldn’t amount to anything, and that’s what their bosses felt as well.However, as Catalyst was starting, a man at Wellington City Council named Richard Naylor had just put up the world’s first CBD fibre optic loop, and the Catalyst directors paid around $10,000 to hook into that. “The ability to connect to information anywhere in the world was amazing. It was so open,” Don says. “Nobody controlled it. You could basically have a telephone line and a server, and set yourself up as an ISP, which really broke down a lot of barriers to entry. It really did explode, and the open source movement exploded too.”Andrew was key in promoting open source, encouraging the other directors to go down that path. Their values led them to open source software, and in turn, open source shaped the values of Catalyst. “We looked at the situation our customers were in, and saw them being taken advantage of with contracts for proprietary software, finding themselves trapped into contracts,” says Gavin. Open source software started to flourish in the early days of the internet and Catalyst was aligned with the ethos of freedom and innovation from the beginning. “We always had a philosophy of having fun and making sure that clients&#x27; needs came first. We thought, ‘let’s explore new technologies, and be the best we can possibly be&#x27;,” says Godfrey.<img alt="Seven Catalyst directors standing in a mock cage at the zoo" class="richtext-image full-width" height="557" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/In_the_cage1.width-800.jpg" width="800">L to R: Paul Waite, Srdjan Jankovic, Godfrey Fernandez, Gavin Thompson, Don Christie, Mike O&#x27;Connor, Andrew McMillanThe founding directors started Catalyst during the phase of their lives when they were also starting families, and they went from comfortable salaries to something unknown, with mortgages and children. “It was an adventure, and it was scary at times,” says Godfrey. Sometimes they didn’t have enough to pay themselves: they made sure their staff were paid, and relied on their partners through the early days. “One of the things that kept us humble was scratching around for a couple of years, not sure if it would work,” says Mike.Y2K gave Catalyst the boost it needed to carry on into the new century. With all the concern about how tech systems might not smoothly roll over into the new century, companies were desperate for help to ensure their systems didn’t fail. New contracts with Nelson Bay Meats and Plumbing World not only enabled Catalyst to continue, it meant they were able to employ their first staff member, Alan McNatty. Alan was also heavily involved with Telecom in the early days, back when you couldn’t even text between networks. Catalyst developed systems for Telecom mobile, and did a big launch at the rugby Sevens where you could send a text and it would appear on the big screen. A ringtone system was another thing Catalyst developed for Telecom. It seems strange now that we used to buy ringtones, but back then Telecom was earning a million dollars a month through ringtone sales.Another significant early client was the Electoral Commission. The founders’ personal involvement with the General Elections began before Catalyst and date back to the late 1980s. Catalyst&#x27;s first election was in 1999 when Paul Waite rewrote the Election Results System into a GUI application after it was a strictly character based application. “We’ve never had an election where our systems have let us down,” says Godfrey. “It’s really important to me, because it’s an important democratic system, and if anything failed it would have been a major setback for us.” The Electoral Commission is one of the few projects where each of the directors have had some involvement over the years, and one of many that has remained with Catalyst for a long time. “We don’t lose many customers, which is good,” says Gavin. “Our customers tend to be pretty loyal.”“A lot of the most successful projects in the world are open source ones,” says Gavin. Some international open source projects, like Moodle, Mahara, Koha, and Tōtara, were created by current or former Catalyst staff members, and Catalyst continues to play a significant role in their development, as well as supporting clients in using them for their eLearning and library management needs.One of the ways Catalyst advocates for the use of open source is with the Open Source Academy. The Academy is a two week programme during the summer holidays, where secondary school students learn about open source technologies, and work on real projects. The Academy was founded by Catalyst and has been running for over ten years now, and a number of students have since been given full time permanent jobs at Catalyst, with others participating in paid part time or holiday work. “Our Open Source Academy has seen over 150 people come through since 2011,” says Ian Beardslee, Training Manager. “At Catalyst, we have been lucky enough to see some of those people end up as staff, and making a difference in other parts of the tech sector.” Catalyst also runs a variety of professional development training courses throughout the year, on topics such as JavaScript, web accessibility, Python, and Agile fundamentals.<img alt="Don Christie is talking with students who are working on their laptops in a large office room" class="richtext-image full-width" height="557" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/open_source_academy1.width-800.jpg" width="800">Director Don Christie talks with students at the 2019 Open Source AcademyAnother significant way Catalyst promotes the use of open source technologies is with the New Zealand Open Source Awards. The Open Source Awards is a biennial event, first held in 2007, that recognises and celebrates the outstanding work done with free open source software, across artistic, scientific, and social sectors. The aim of the awards is to raise awareness about the benefits and competitive edge that open source software allows for.<img alt="A crowd of people sitting at tables during an awards presentation at the Te Papa marae" class="richtext-image full-width" height="557" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/nzosa_2018.width-800.jpg" width="800">The NZOSA gala dinner in 2018, at Te Marae, Te PapaThe founders had debates about whether they should have a maximum of 12 or 30 people, but Catalyst has grown from the five founders in Wellington in 1997, to what is now an international company with close to 400 staff. Some staff members have been with Catalyst for decades. “Without any real strategy of growth we’ve managed to align ourselves with good people,” says Mike. “Good staff, who are interested and committed to the open source ethos and the freedoms and opportunities it gives.”<img alt="A large group of people standing outside" class="richtext-image full-width" height="309" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/catalyst1.width-800.jpg" width="800">Most of the Wellington Catalystas, 2017“We don’t consider ourselves anything special, and what made the difference was open source,” says Don. “People coming to work for us were able to be part of and contribute to a global community; that’s an important part of bringing good people into the team.” These days, the Catalyst headquarters are at Catalyst House on Willis Street in the Wellington CBD, with other offices in Auckland, Christchurch, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Canada. “One of the cool things for me is that we’re still good friends 25 years on,” says Mike. “It’s been laid-back, mostly stress-free. We managed to get through the early times when we were skint, with the family pressures. I’m still enjoying it, still a little bit amazed.”“We’ve been pretty successful in being advocates for open source software, one of our founding ideals,” says Gavin. “One of the things we wanted to do was prove you could run a business with open source software. Everyone told us we were crazy, but the landscape has changed massively, and we’ve been proven right which is satisfying.”

Seven Catalyst directors standing in a mock cage at the zoo

A brief history of Catalyst&#x27;s open source work and advocacy.

25-years-of-catalyst

by Charlotte Weston<h2 data-block-key="5j979">How it all began</h2>Doris Tam’s journey to becoming a full-time <a href="https://mahara.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mahara</a> developer at Catalyst began when she was still attending high school. Her Digital Technologies teacher asked the class if anyone was interested in applying for the <a href="https://catalyst.net.nz/academy" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Catalyst Open Source Academy</a>. Doris was among those who were selected to attend.The Academy gave Doris a taste of what it’s like working in the tech industry. During that time she had been working part-time in a retail job, so the comparison between retail and IT wages was an incentive to continue in the IT industry. When she reached the end of high school, Doris enrolled in a Bachelor of Engineering degree at university.<img alt="Three students are looking off camera towards a computer screen or instructor" class="richtext-image full-width" height="533" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/20346415493_5ff3dfbd4d_c.width-800.jpg" width="799">Doris Tam (middle) at the Catalyst Open Source Academy“First year uni was tough,” Doris says, “but there were so few women that you just immediately became friends with them.” The tech industry is still heavily dominated by men, which is something Catalyst is actively working to combat. Doris says women students only made up a small portion of the classes. During one paper, a university staff member told Doris that her report about a networking experience wasn’t good enough because it was about an event organised for women in tech. They told her she “should have gone to a bar and talked to a man about chess.”<h2 data-block-key="bsr2v">Becoming an intern at Catalyst</h2>As part of the requirements for completing her engineering degree, , Doris needed to complete 400 hours of industry experience, and a friend reminded her of Catalyst, where she had participated in the Open Source Academy close to three years prior. She searched through her emails and contacted Kristina Hoeppner, project lead of the Mahara project, who remembered Doris, and told her “we didn&#x27;t plan on taking on an intern this year, but let&#x27;s discuss.” That summer, Doris started as intern in the Mahara team and worked to improve the automation test suite. After her summer internship, Doris continued working part-time until the end of her studies, with support from the Catalyst team.Working part-time as a student at Catalyst typically means up to 10 hours per week during term time, if the student wishes to work. During term breaks, students then work closer to full-time. That allows them to make bigger progress in their learning, be involved more easily in projects with deadlines, and get to know Catalyst staff and work culture more through daily interactions.<h2 data-block-key="2pk56">Balancing university and work</h2>At one point during university when Doris asked for help, she was told she couldn’t get a job as she didn’t have the foundational skills, yet she’d already been working at Catalyst for two years. Doris says the things she learned in her first two years at Catalyst were more fun and more useful than what she learned at university, and even helped with her studies. “Catalyst taught me how to use the version control system Git. Before that, when I did my assignments at uni I would make changes and screw it up and couldn’t get the code back. Learning how to use the Linux terminal and Git were the most fundamental things that just saved me at uni.”She often studied at the office as it was a more peaceful and ergonomic environment than university as she could focus more easily. The team structured Doris&#x27; work to fit work around her study obligations.<h2 data-block-key="32n53"></h2><h2 data-block-key="btelo">Working full-time at Catalyst</h2><img alt="A headshot of Doris Tam who is looking at the camera and smiling" class="richtext-image left" height="533" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/doris_tam1.width-500.jpg" width="400">After Doris finished her studies, she transitioned seamlessly into a full-time position in the Mahara team. She has been working on a range of different projects, including leading a small team of developers to re-write Mahara Mobile, the cross-platform mobile app for Mahara in React Native. Through the client and community work that Catalyst does for Mahara, Doris is exposed to different clients, is involved in the twice yearly releases of new versions, and also already managed the release of a security release across all supported versions of Mahara.In early 2022, Doris became an approved Mahara developer, which is a badge of honour as it indicates that the developer knows the Mahara code base well and makes changes and additions that fit into it. Approved developers also know the community&#x27;s coding guidelines well to provide sound peer reviews and spot potential issues, suggest better ways of coding things, and generally have a good understanding of the technical side of the project.Kristina says, “Applying to become an approved developer was the next natural step for Doris to progress in her career as developer on the Mahara team and take on more responsibility in her coding. Robert Lyon, our tech lead of the project, and I asked Doris to apply because we had confidence in her that she would do well with the added responsibility. We could see that she was ready to be more proactive. She had also demonstrated that she could give good feedback to other developers, which is a large part of our peer review process.”“I like the open source part of Mahara,” Doris says. “Because we support the entire community as maintainers of the software rather than only do client work, we work with people from around the world and learn how they are using the software, which helps us in developing new features on our own and not just through our clients. Being able to engage with the Mahara community is great, knowing it’s not just a one-off six-month client project. That means we are able to plan ahead for new features, though we do balance it with our obligations towards our clients. We are in the great position that the majority of our clients here in Aotearoa and also abroad are happy for us to contribute changes and new features back to the community to enhance the software for all.”

Doris Tam’s journey to becoming a full-time Mahara developer at Catalyst began when she was still attending high school.

doris-tams-journey-in-tech

Laptop screen on a desk with two hands typing

Here are some of the Catalyst Koha team’s tops picks of new functionality available to libraries upon upgrading to Koha 22.05!

release-of-koha-2205

The Catalyst Koha team was honoured to participate in Ko Māui Hangarau – Porirua, Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington) on 17 May 2022.Ko Māui Hangarau is a high-powered summit featuring some of the best Māori tech innovators and entrepreneurs from around the country. Their aim is to inspire and ignite rangatahi Māori (young Māori) into pathways in tech, innovation and entrepreneurship. In 2022, Ko Māui Hangarau is touring the country, also holding events in Rotorua and Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland).The Porirua event was attended by approximately 200 young people from nearby kura kaupapa Māori (Māori-language immersion schools, guided by Māori values and practices) and mainstream schools. There were four kaikōrero (speakers), followed by a provided lunch, then dedicated time in the ‘Activation Zone’ - an exhibition area for Māori tech entrepreneurs and organisations to showcase their mahi (work) to the students.<img alt="Te Wainui, Aleisha and Chris standing in front of Ko Māui Hangarau banner." class="richtext-image full-width" height="600" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/wainui_aleisha_chris1.width-800.jpg" width="800">Aleisha Amohia, Te Wainui Witika-Park and Chris Cormack attended Ko Māui Hangarau on behalf of the Catalyst Koha team, which involved looking after a stall in the Activation Zone. The team trained students to be Koha librarians and issue and return books using Koha.The Catalyst Koha team also asked students to write answers in their own words to a Big Question: How can Māori help technology? They were impressed and inspired by the answers, which included:<ul><li data-block-key="3lff4">Māori can bring our culture, knowledge and traditions to the industry </li><li data-block-key="1vmhr">Māori will bring inter-generational thinking </li><li data-block-key="6hd9u">Māori can include Te Reo Māori (Māori language) in technology, and in doing so, ensure everyone is heard </li><li data-block-key="6bgvv">Tech is all about evolving, and Māori have always been capable of expanding our minds in order to adapt to different situations </li><li data-block-key="92tbb">Māori can help with anything!</li></ul><img alt="Aleisha speaking on stage at Ko Māui Hangarau." class="richtext-image full-width" height="533" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/aleisha_speaking.width-800.jpg" width="800">Aleisha was also a kaikōrero (speaker) for the keynote section of the event, alongside Pera Barrett, Katie Brown and Te Awanui Reeder, three incredible Māori tech innovators and entrepreneurs. Aleisha shared her journey into the tech industry – the pathways she took, the milestones and successes, the cultural and systemic challenges she faced as a brown woman in a male-dominated industry, and the importance of finding a support system and holding strong in your beliefs.The Catalyst Koha team had an awesome day at Ko Māui Hangarau, and are excited about the level of self-awareness, intelligence and pure Māori pride coming from these rangatahi. Catalyst plans to use its resources to continue stimulating these students’ interest in tech and innovation, and urges the rest of the New Zealand tech community to invest in the industry’s future and do so too.Written by Aleisha Amohia, Koha Development Lead.Catalyst KohaIf 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 koha@catalyst.net.nz (New Zealand) or koha-support@catalyst-au.net (Australia).Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/catalystkoha" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Catalyst Koha on Twitter</a>!

Te Wainui, Aleisha and Chris standing in front of Ko Māui Hangarau banner.

The Catalyst Koha team was honoured to participate in Ko Māui Hangarau – Porirua, Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington) on 17 May 2022.

catalyst-at-ko-maui-hangarau

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 “Dollar 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>.Find out how Catalyst can help with your <a href="https://www.catalyst.net.nz/samba-and-windows-integration" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Samba support and development needs</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 “Dollar ticket” attack on Active Directory Kerberos.

stay-curious-dollar-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's-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.

vietnam-nz-journey-web-accessibility

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.

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The Catalyst Koha team is thrilled to celebrate the release of Koha 21.11. This release contains 4 new features, 196 enhancements and 388 bug and security fixes.

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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.

catalyst-staff-support-planned-wellington-cycleways

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.

nzosa-finalists-part-8-open-source-peoples-choice-award

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.

nzosa-finalists-part-5-open-source-education-social-services-and-youth

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 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.

whats-future-mahara

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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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.

mahara-it-takes-village

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.

nzosa-finalists-part-1-open-source-government

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.<img alt="A group of people are sitting around a table painting. Also a close up of their finishing paintings, snowy landscape scenes." class="richtext-image full-width" height="545" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/christchurch_E3D8nf8.width-800.jpg" width="800">Painting landscapes in the Christchurch office.<img alt="A group of people are sitting around a table smiling and working on a jigsaw. Also a close up of the finished jigsaw, a colourful stylised owl." class="richtext-image full-width" height="579" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/auckland_catathon.width-800.jpg" width="800">Putting together a jigsaw in the Auckland office.The following photos are all in Wellington.<img alt="A person in a Catalyst t-shirt is demonstrating coffee making with an espresso machine, another person is behind them watching." class="richtext-image full-width" height="601" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/DorisCoffee2_gQuKVwT.width-800.jpg" width="800">Former barista Doris teaching the art of espresso.<img alt="Several people are sitting round a table playing Dungeons and Dragons." class="richtext-image full-width" height="536" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/dnd.width-800.jpg" width="800">Dungeons and Dragons.<img alt="A large group of people are sitting around a table working on cross stitch or crochet projects." class="richtext-image full-width" height="536" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/crochet.width-800.jpg" width="800">Combined cross stitch and crochet events.<img alt="A person is juggling balls in an office." class="richtext-image full-width" height="536" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/liam_juggling.width-800.jpg" width="800">Liam juggling.<img alt="A desk with a collection of plants, and a sign that reads Plant Share." class="richtext-image full-width" height="536" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/plantsw.width-800.jpg" width="800">Many plants, cuttings, and seeds were shared.<img alt="A group of people sitting around a table practicing tying knots." class="richtext-image full-width" height="536" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/knots.width-800.jpg" width="800">Alasdair teaching knot-tying.<img alt="Looking over a person&amp;#x27;s shoulder at coding on a few computer screens." class="richtext-image full-width" height="536" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/coding.width-800.jpg" width="800">Coding did still happen as well!<img alt="Four people sittting at a table playing a board game." class="richtext-image full-width" height="536" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/board_games.width-800.jpg" width="800">Playing board games.<img alt="A big group of people are learning dance moves." class="richtext-image full-width" height="536" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/bhangra.width-800.jpg" width="800">Harpuneet teaching Bhangra dance.<img alt="A few people are looking at a large and complex Lego train set up." class="richtext-image full-width" height="536" src="https://object-storage.nz-hlz-1.catalystcloud.io:443/v1/AUTH_3458c7e192ac4b5880c337b21b3c06fb/catweb_prod/images/trains_abA7j2Y.width-800.jpg" width="800">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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Catalyst is delighted to congratulate the University of Canterbury on winning the Improving Student Success award at the international 2021 CAUDIT Awards last week.The innovative Analytics for Course Engagement (ACE) is a monitoring system that uses Moodle and AI (artificial intelligence) to help staff and students keep an eye on engagement levels with study. The early intervention means the University can proactively monitor and connect with first-year students who may be at risk of disengaging with their studies and provide the appropriate support. Students can also use ACE view their own engagement levels compared to their peers.Tumu Tuarua Akoranga | Deputy Vice-Chancellor Academic Professor Catherine Moran says ACE takes the University’s student support to a new level.“ACE helps us to ensure that all first-year students transitioning into tertiary study at UC get the assistance they need, especially those who may not come forward and seek help.“The University can proactively identify when students begin to disengage, make contact with them early on, and ensure they have the support to get on the right path to success,” Professor Moran says.Catalyst is proud to have developed this solution for the University’s Student Success programme, Kia Angitu, using Moodle, the world’s most popular learning management system, along with machine learning technology TensorFlow. With the increase in online learning due to Covid-19, ACE has already made a significant difference. Students identified as being at-risk of disengaging received guidance and support to continue their studies.“This development is a game changer and allows a far more holistic consideration of a student’s engagement,” says Paul Stevens, GM Open Knowledge, Catalyst IT.CAUDIT (the Council of Australasian University Directors of Information Technology) supports Australasian universities in leading the application of digital capabilities to transform education and research.Catalyst is honoured to have worked in collaboration with the University of Canterbury on this positive and important tool, and is thrilled to see ACE recognised and celebrated with this award.View more information about ACE <a href="https://www.canterbury.ac.nz/about/ako/kia-angitu/ace/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">here</a>.

Catalyst is delighted to congratulate the University of Canterbury on winning the Improving Student Success award at the international 2021 CAUDIT Awards last week.

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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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