by Kristina Hoeppner
In 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:
- Usability: simplify the user interface, keep up with the changing world of how people interact with web applications and thus expect from Mahara.
- New features: offer tools to learners that they need to create the portfolios they want or are required to set up.
- Technical updates: update third-party libraries and search for new ways to continuously improve the usability of the site.
- Issue resolution: fix problems that the community has come across.
- Infrastructure updates: facilitate the smooth running of the project and the server infrastructure that hosts community sites.
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'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: Building a bridge: PLE and integration with other tools for assessment purposes
And read Part 2 here: Mahara: It takes a village