Mahara
Mahara is an open source portfolio platform for students at schools and institutions of higher education to create learning and assessment portfolios. Professionals can also use Mahara to document their achievements and competencies for accreditation. It is the perfect solution for fostering collaboration and working in communities of practice.
Mahara features
For portfolio creators
- Reflect on your learning, upload files, and add content from social media sites.
- Align your portfolio to a competency framework and visualise your achievements.
- Create different portfolios for learning, presentation, assessment, and group projects.
- Decide which individuals or groups can see your portfolios and provide feedback.
For organisations
- Provide a mobile-friendly, easy-to-use platform to support and showcase learning.
- Create templates for learners and staff to create portfolios that support business outcomes.
- Integrate with your learning management system and others.
- Customise it to suit your learning needs and brand.

Catalyst is the core maintainer of Mahara
Catalyst has been involved with the Mahara project since it started in 2006. Today, we are the core maintainer responsible for security updates, feature releases, and everything in between. We’re committed to making Mahara a great platform for you, for the long-term.
How we can help you:
Business requirements analysis
We offer top-quality requirements analysis and documentation services to capture what you want to accomplish with Mahara.
Usability and accessibility
Our development work always considers the ease of use of new and changed features and their accessibility for people with diverse needs. Our usability and accessibility experts are integral members of any project.
Graphical design
Our creative team will work with you to develop an innovative look and feel for your site while retaining your organisation’s brand and identity.
Development and integration
We have the expertise to help you design and implement new features as well as integrate with other systems.
Managed hosting services
With 24/7 monitoring and security protocols in place, we offer a safe, stable, and scalable hosting environment for your Mahara site.
Training and support
We provide tailored training and support packages to help you get the most out of your Mahara site and assist you with your wider portfolio strategy.
View our standard Mahara support packages.
Alternatively, you can contact us to discuss your requirements
Extended security support
Catalyst offers extended security support to organisations that cannot move from an unsupported version of Mahara to a supported one on behalf of the Mahara project.
Our clients
We work with organisations around the world offering them a range of services to suit their local requirements. The majority of our clients are in the tertiary or higher education sector, are organisations (partially) funded by governments, or are private organisations providing services to their membership.
In and for Aotearoa New Zealand, Catalyst also operates two sites clients can join to benefit from cost-sharing:
- Kōpaki Tiaki Hauora Healthcare Portfolio for healthcare services providers.
- MyPortfolio Schools for schools (free) and organisations supporting schools and their work.
Check out how Mahara could work for you.
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