Date post: | 18-Nov-2014 |
Category: |
Education |
Upload: | kineopacific |
View: | 945 times |
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Multi institute MaharaBenefits and Issues
Presented by Craig Eves
Learning Technologies Support – Kineo Pacific
at Mahara Hui 2014
Myportfolio .school .ac settings
Centrally hosted
Based on mahara - active since 2008
Growth rate fairly constant - initially large growth- slowing down
Allowed to belong to multiple Institutes in school site
Everyone can create Groups –Admin create public groups.
Custom themes for some institutes
Single sign on for some institutions – Moodle, saml, ldap Moodle/saml
Institution admin responsible for user admin
Number registered users school site
Qtr1 Qtr2 Qtr3 Qtr4 Qtr1 Qtr2 Qtr3 Qtr4 Qtr1 Qtr2 Qtr3 Qtr4 Qtr12011 2012 2013 2014
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
70000
80000
90000
100000
26434
36921
42530 44725
55527
6452069624
72043
8134985869
89167 90045 91259
Tertiary registered users
Qtr4 Qtr1 Qtr2 Qtr3 Qtr4 Qtr1 Qtr2 Qtr3 Qtr4 Qtr12011 2012 2013 2014
1252913565 13718
1429715025
18006
2191522498 22580 22668
Comparison of sites
Tertiary Pay per user
Assessment based
Internal technical expertise
Internal training – or contract
Little inter institute communication
School Central funded – ‘unlimited
users’
Showcase based pages
Limited internal expertise
Centralised training
Good inter institute communication
Friends Pages Groups 0
1
2
3
4
5
6 Average number
Tertiary School
Success factorsSupport resources provided
Initial free Face to face taster session around country
Video resources created and shared by members
Online resources - links
Manuals = quick start, full, admin and user
Site Discussion groups
Contact me link for email support
Telephone and face to face support provided
…..Success factors continued
Low cost to institutes – free or cost per user, SLA with training and support included
Local developers able to fix bugs quickly and implement features
Administered by institute admin – promotes ownership and have knowledge of users
Support of central body for funding and developments – less overheads
Involvement of institute administrators to make it a success
Able to trial for free
Able to use content from other web apps that are being already in use eg Google Apps
Able to set up SSO to sign in with existing username
Bug and feature requests from users are filtered by hosts
Benefits to client of multi site
Centralised support available
Allows for institutes with small numbers to participate
Supports cross institution communities
Able to have individual institute settings to keep identity
Members able to change institutes easily
spreads costs for development – wish list from many institutes implemented on site
support resources able to be spread across institutes
Larger community available
Benefit to provider of multi user sites
Administration – upgrades, fixes, settings able to be applied site wide for all institutions
Only one server to maintain
Easy to share resources
Suitable for central funding and also user/institution models
Features developed are suitable for wide range of institution type
Issues Formation of inappropriate
groups – hard to control
Reluctance to open institute to public
Deleting of portfolios when leaving school
SSO issues when changing servers
Process for bulk transferring of institutes not easy to follow
Central funding provides some uncertainty of continuation
Usernames not unique between institutes
Difficult to change emails when changing institutes
resolutions
Can choose to allow only staff and admin to create groups
Allow institution public pages
Users create backups – bulk export of institutes – requires command – limited file size
Need to ensure new key generated on new server
Easier interface
Rely on another payment model – maybe per institute, sponsored, longer term contracts, ownership
Central id number such as NZQA number
Not require a confirmation
…. continued
Issue Lifelong access not guaranteed
External iframes URL not guaranteed to be stable so embedding not guaranteed
Transferring of portfolios from one provider too another is not easy – file size limits
Large graphic files are being used
Resolution Have a portal that provides
unlimited access – require funding or business model to support
Have an alert to site admin when this happens
Increase file size limit for importing
Have a converter in mahar to compress graphics
Opportunities for multi institute sites
Moderation of work between institutes Multiple connections with external LMS Collaborative development of features Piloting releases of new developments Having Alumni institutions Links with employer organisations and professional bodies Accreditation of pages similar to Open badges Sharing of resources – maths videos is an example Storage of achievements – central repository More flexible/powerful search of others pages Responsive themes
Further ideas?
Archiving of submitted pages
More integration with LMS – to competency level
Conforming to international standards for academic record, resume
Mobile app with more features
Save with timestamp to show progress over time
Further integration with linked in or similar professional networking tool
Continuing professional development plugin – total up hours and show progress
Site for users not belonging to institute – alumni
Responsive themes to device viewing on
More built in tools for creating multimedia resources – video editor/recorder
Adding more skin templates
Want More Information about Mahara ePortfolios?
Contact Kineo Pacific at [email protected] for more information about how we can implement a Mahara ePortfolio for your organisation.
Visit our website for more info: http://www.kineo.com/services/lms-and-learning-portals/eportfolios