Analysis and Specification

Certainly, the most important phase of all to get the correct result is the Analysis and Specification phase. It is always best to try your absolute hardest to iron out as many difficulties as you can before you unleash any new learning process upon your end users.

Deciding if Mahara is right for you

Before you do anything else, consider why you want a lifelong learning ePortfolio system such as Mahara, and whether you have the appropriate working conditions to make it successful. There are, broadly speaking, two different types of ePortfolio system. The institutionally owned learning management system and the learner-owned lifelong learning system.

As we have demonstrated in this book, Mahara is very much the latter. Mahara is focused on offering learners a place to gather, store, and share their work with others as they progress along their personal, lifelong learning journeys.

Some other ePortfolio systems are focused, instead, on offering a facility to track learner-submitted work according to institutional—or accrediting body—needs. That is not what Mahara is about.

Mahara is a user-centred informal, reflective learning environment, which also:

• Provides a system for uploading and getting feedback on assessment items.

• Facilitates social networking in "Communities of Practice".

• Provides a platform from which a user can present their learning and competencies to others, for example a prospective employer, an application to a university, a promotion panel, or during a professional development review.

• Supports a simple personal and professional development planning process helping a learner with their action planning for their lifelong learning or career development processes.

• Supports platform integration with an ever expanding range of Web 2.0 tools such as YouTube and Picasa.

• Provides a templating facility for ePortfolio pages.

• Acts as a walled garden where you control the user base.

• Provides a very private individual storage space for a learner's own artefacts.

• Allows for individual and collaborative group Views (Views is the Mahara word for Web Pages).

• Offers ease of use (no need to be a webhead!).

• Offers monitoring of other people's Views by means of a watchlist.

• Allows you to give feedback on other people's Views.

• Allows for moderation where you can check before a View goes public.

• Allows you to limit and extend users' storage space.

• Runs on a web server (making it available whenever and from wherever).

• Offers the option to copy and move your portfolio to another location (including non-Mahara ePortfolio applications that support LEAP2A).

Mahara itself is NOT a Learning Management System. It therefore does not:

• Cross-reference against assessment/accreditation criteria set out by an accrediting body (such as formative and summative assessment trackers, or occupational standards for NVQs in the UK).

• Provide an audit trail of submitted and graded work.

• Neatly archive and retain learner submitted work.

Mahara does, however, understand and respond to the fact that some institutions like to formally assess their learners' work while still adopting a personalized learning approach as their driving paradigm. One option a learner may have in Mahara is to submit their work for assessment by tutors (see Chapter 7). However, the tracking of learner progress would then have to be facilitated by integrating Mahara with another system such as:

• A tutor maintained spreadsheet. This could be stored and shared in a Mahara group files area or a within a Google document for example.

• A spreadsheet on Google Docs.

• The Gradebook in Moodle (http://wiki.mahara.org/Roadmap/Moodle_Mahara_Integration). Mahara already supports Single-Sign-On integration with Moodle, a system that can be used for assessment of achievements according to some criteria. This can be used to track progress against a time-tabled program of activity.

• The ULCC Assessment Manager Module for Moodle (http://moodle.ulcc.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=140). This assessment manager module is a highly sophisticated learner progress tracking module, which can be used for a wide range of qualifications, both inside and outside the UK.

Mahara itself, then, is not trying to be a Learning Management System. It is a place where learners can reflect on their learning and showcase their work to others.

The view of the Mahara project is that Moodle (and its competitor LMSs/VLEs) should do Moodle-like things and Mahara should do Mahara-like things. From Moodle V2.0 onwards, Moodle will provide a portfolio API, which will allow single click export of files uploaded into Moodle across as artefacts in your own Mahara space. There is a plan to make it so that Mahara Views can be submitted as "assignments" in Moodle and thereby, graded and tracked within the Moodle gradebook. All of this will enable learners to use Moodle for "taught", "outcomes-driven", assessment processes and Mahara for their more personalized, and more ongoing, reflection/informal learning activities.

If you have decided that a lifelong learning ePortfolio like Mahara is for you, it is now wise to decide properly whether or not Mahara is actually the platform that is best-suited for your organizational needs.

Danube University (Austria) researchers, Himpsl and Baumgartner, published their Evaluation of ePortfolio Software in February 2009 (download the PDF at http://epac.pbworks.com/f/ijet_paper_himpsl_baumgartner.pdf).

Himpsl and Baumgartner evaluated and compared a range of lifelong learning ePortfolio solutions against the following criteria (and subcriteria):

• Input of keywords

• Internal cross-references

• External cross-references

• Publication on the web

• Pricing and license schemes

• Simple data export

• Support of all currently used A-grade browsers

Collecting, organizing, selecting

• Simple data import

• Comfortable data import

• Searching, sequencing, and filtering

• Annotations to files

• Aggregating (integration of external data via feeds)

• Version control of files

Reflecting, testing, verifying, and planning

• Guidelines for reflection

• Guidelines for competences

• Guidelines for evaluation (self assessment, assessment by others)

• Guidelines for goals, personal development, and career management

• Guidelines for feedback (advice, tutoring, mentoring)

Representing and publishing

• Access control by users (owner, peers, authority, public)

• Adaptation of the display: layout (flexible placing, boilerplates)

• Adaptation of the display: colors, fonts, design

• Publishing of several portfolios, or alternatively, various views

Administrating, implementing, adapting

• Development potential of the provider, company profile

• Enabling technologies (programming language, operating system, and so on)

• Authentication and user administration (backed-up interfaces, and so on)

• e-Learning standards

• Migration/storage/export

Usability

• User interface

• Syndicating (choice of feeds for the individual portfolio)

• Availability, accessibility

• Navigation/initial training/help

• External and internal information function

• Interchangeable, adaptable user-defined boilerplates

• Personal storage, respectively export function

As you can probably guess, Mahara does very well in this comparison. It comes out joint-top of the list alongside a proprietary (and equally excellent, if very different) alternative ePortfolio solution known as PebblePad (http://www.pebblepad.co.uk/).

PebblePad, as good as it is, is not open-source though. The fact that Mahara is an open-source and modular product means that:

• The code may be copyrighted by others (mostly by Catalyst IT) but it is under an open license, meaning that it will always be available for all of us to use, and that it will always be cost-free for us to reuse

• You can, therefore, switch your technical support agency at any point (there is no vendor lock-in)

• The product will always exist even if the current maintainers (currently Catalyst IT in New Zealand) choose to discontinue their support for it

• Everybody can collaborate to develop what we need (there is a modular/plugin architecture)

Understanding your own specific needs and working conditions

Never look for some place new to go until you completely understand and appreciate where you already are. Never try to make a change until you have a clear vision, and understand fully the benefits you will gain from making that change.

Here's how to start!

1. 1. Clearly set out your overall aims:

   • What business objectives need to be achieved?

   • What organizational objectives need to be achieved?

   • What educational objectives need to be achieved?

2. 2. Understand your own working context: If you find yourself answering no to any of the questions below. You should start thinking "Is it actually possible to turn this no into a yes?"

   1. i. Do all of your stakeholders: your leaders, teacher/tutors, day-to-day administrators, IT support staff, and your future end users all have a common vision for your ePortfolio? (Even if you are working as a go-it-alone teacher, are you sure enough of your students will buy this?)

   2. ii. Is there a supportive external context for your ePortfolio implementation? Is there explicit support for this coming to you, for example, from central office, from government-funded agencies, or from accrediting bodies, trade guilds or worker's unions?

   3. iii. Is there, and will there be, a consistent and reliable inflow of funding for your site's support?

   4. iv. Will there be a dedicated steering group of visionaries and power-brokers who will work to make your implementation a success?

   5. v. Will you continuously invest to employ or upskill the competent staff you will need in order to disseminate knowledge to newer users?

3. 3. Ensure you have a sufficiently skilled and available (time/motivation to support?) technical and pedagogical support infrastructures in place.

4. 4. Ensure that your target end users have appropriate access to your Mahara system in terms not only of a reasonable internet supply, but also in terms of physical access to machines in both working and home-life contexts.

5. 5. Understand that change affects emotions:

   Successful change = Vision + Skills + Incentives + Resources + Action Plan

If you are going to successfully implement an ePortfolio solution, you need to be able to develop and disseminate a shared vision. This vision optimistically encourage people to embrace changes in both technology-adoption and learning approaches. To succeed, this needs top-level support and needs to be a fully aligned part of a whole organizational approach. You will not only need to model the way for others to follow, you will also need to enable and to motivate others to act.

You will need to know and to broadcast to your people where you are going, and why you are going that way. You will need to put the required training in place to make that vision happen. People will need incentives. Incentives can be financial, recognition-oriented, status-oriented, promotion-oriented, and so forth. Adoption of your new ePortfolio system should probably become an expectation, part of a learner's assessment criteria, part of a tutor's job description. You will also need a clearly structured action plan, appropriately designated responsibilities alongside sensible timescales.

The next table from Thousand, R and Villa, J neatly illustrates the negative emotional impact likely to arise (notice in particular the far right-hand column), if just one of these elements is not in place.

Complex change and emotional impact table (Source: Thousand, R and Villa, J. [2001]. Managing Complex Change):

Vision	Skills	Incentives	Resources	Action Plan	Results in
a	a	a	a	a	Change
-	a	a	a	a	Confusion
a	-	a	a	a	Anxiety
a	a	-	a	a	Opposition
a	a	a	-	a	Frustration
a	a	a	a	-	False starts

Prof. Gordon Joyes from the University of Nottingham first introduced us to the "Threshold Concepts" and to their importance when applied to an ePortfolio implementation. Joyes attributes the idea of Threshold Concepts to Jan Meyer and Ray Land (http://www.etl.tla.ed.ac.uk//docs/ETLreport4.pdf). Essentially, the point being made is that in order for somebody to perform a task effectively, they need to go through some "doorways" of understanding. If these doorway "thresholds" are not traversed, the activity is not likely to be a success. For those of us implementing ePortfolios and encouraging their adoption, Joyes and his colleagues have so far come up with five important threshold concepts:

Concept 1: Purpose

The PURPOSE(S) for the ePortfolio must be aligned to the particular context. You need to make your ePortfolio genuinely work for you. It should help you to perform your learning and business functions effectively.

Concept 2: Learning Activity Design

There must be a conscious DESIGN & SUPPORT OF A LEARNING ACTIVITY/ACTIVITIES suited to the purpose and the context. Mahara alone is nothing without a clear organizational sense of learning delivery structure. Your tutors need to be adopting a learner-driven, personalized learning delivery model, only then will Mahara be able to come into its own as a useful resource.

Concept 3: Processes

The PROCESSES involved in the creation of the ePortfolio in this context must be understood and both technical and pedagogic support needs to be provided. Both staff and learners need to be trained to understand how the platform works, and also how it can be made to work to best effect.

Concept 4: Ownership

ePortfolio processes and outcomes need to be OWNED by the student. This not only leads to considering portability of their data but also to whether the tool allows the use of their own phone camera, audio recorder, Web 2.0 applications, and so on. It also leads us to consider the learners' genuine engagement with our Mahara platform. The learners need to see the Mahara environment as their own. They need to see it as a useful resource, which helps them to engage with your institution as they learn.

Concept 5: Disruptive Nature

ePortfolios are DISRUPTIVE from a pedagogic, technological, and an organizational perspective. It is unlikely that Mahara will fit exactly within existing system. Some changes will need to be made, and this will upset some people and disrupt some existing processes.

Unless we understand these five (and probably) more issues, we won't succeed in our action plan. By understand, I mean more than simply know that they are issues. We don't just need to be aware of these issues but also, actually need to understand at our very core that these are centrally important—indeed key—to the success of our ePortfolio implementation. Unless we are practically oriented towards implementing our ePortfolios while taking these issues into account, we must truly understand that we are likely to struggle.

Choosing between a Mahara partner-supported site or your own installation

The trade-off is usually the extent and expertise of the support available (for example, from a Mahara partner) versus the amount of control you have over your own system (for example, total control over your own server). A compromise is usually possible and most Mahara partners are willing to serve to support your managers, educators, and IT experts to support themselves. A full list of official Mahara partners can be viewed at http://mahara.org/partners.

Scoping out your implementation plan

You are going to have to draw up some sort of implementation plan. We will leave you to determine for yourself how best to draw this up, but we will raise here some of the issues we think you will need to address. Essentially, you are going to have to manage five actions:

1. 1. Decide on your implementation timeframe.

2. 2. Ensure you have the people's commitment.

3. 3. Draft out your initial Mahara design.

4. 4. Draft out your Mahara-specific policies.

5. 5. Start to embed Mahara usage into wider institutional and program priorities (more on this later).

Decide on your implementation timeframe

Your implementation timeframe may be longer or shorter depending upon factors such as:

• The size of your organization. (Are you going to implement at local level or at a large scale?)

• The complexity of the Mahara platform you decide to implement.

• The levels of digital literacy amongst your client group. (Does your action team or do your consultants have the expertise and motivation to develop significant content quickly?) You will probably need, after all, to structure your site as well as to model the way in terms of profile page and view-creation. (Do your end users suffer much from tech-fear?) As well as providing Mahara training, there may be a local need for you to focus on more basic digital literacies (how to record audio, how to plugin a webcam, how to transfer an image from a digital camera, knowledge of data formats such as .pdf versus .doc and .odt, .avi or .mp4 versus .flv, and so on).

• What staff resources you have available. (Are you directing staff or temporary consultants according to a project implementation plan? Are you allowing these people the time they will really need? Alternatively, are you happy for a much slower and more participative development process?).

Ensure you have the people's commitment

In a large organizational implementation, if the ePortfolio idea does not have the support of 75% of the organization's senior management team, it is unlikely to be a success. Your leadership has to be dedicated to committing both financial and staffing resources to the implementation project! You will need to set up a steering group if you really want the implementation to happen and this steering group will have to include at least one major power-broker from your organization and at least one Mahara expert or visionary. Again, you may be wise to bring in a Mahara partner consultant as your expert/visionary.

In a smaller, more local implementation, the potential users really need to be telling you that they like the idea of using a digital ePortfolio before you throw yourself into it. Bear in mind that people often dislike anything they don't already know.

Draft out your initial Mahara design

• Make sure you have a good understanding of how Mahara works before you start. You have already made a good start by buying and reading this book. While it is wise to be aware of the fact that your Mahara design may well change significantly as time goes on, it is even wiser to have a clear understanding of how your site is going to be essentially structured right from the onset. Let's get thinking! Who is going to design and set up your Mahara site? Are you giving them the time they need to do it?

• What are you going to do in terms of site theming?

• Are you going to reconfigure your Mahara site to work differently in any way? If so, you might have to buy in the right expertise to achieve this. One of the benefits of open source software is precisely its configurability, but you will still need to buy in the skills to make these configurations happen. You may wish to integrate your Mahara look, feel, and functionality with your Moodle site for example, or with a website Content Management System such as Joomla. Alternatively, you may wish to change aspects of the Mahara code to make it work in a particular way you want it to work. Some organizations, for example, like to change the word "Resumé" to "CV", others like, for example, to close off the "friends" functionality within their site.

• Are there any integrations with other software that you will need to set up (such as Moodle)?

• Who will be the site administrator: controlling users, checking storage limits, monitoring acceptable use, and so forth? If a staff member, will this be a dedicated element of their job description? Could you outsource this type of administrative support to, for example, a Mahara partner?

• Who will be responsible for monitoring external software developments, interoperability developments, and so on?

• Who is going to administer and report back on any end-user surveys you conduct?

• Who is going to be your pedagogical visionary? How much time (and remuneration) are they going to get to give presentations and enthuse about online reflective learning and knowledge transfer?

• Will you give any paid time to the tutors or managers you will be expecting to "lead the way" with your ePortfolio system? Will work on the ePortfolio platform become a paid element of their work, clearly articulated within their job description and properly timetabled into their working week?

• Will your IT support staff need Mahara training? Who will run this training?

• Who will provide the first line technical support? (Basic help such as: "How do I log in?", "How do I upload my file?") Would you prefer to outsource this support? Could you arrange and publish a timetable of offline and/or telephone and/or internet-live-support-based Mahara user "Support Surgeries" in which less competent users could approach competent ones for friendly and informal advice and support?

• Who will provide higher-level technical support into the long-term? For example, bug fixing, updating, upgrading, integrating (with other software), modifying, or extending your platform according to your needs. Would this be cheap and safe to outsource (an outsource supplier is often less likely to leave you in the lurch than would be an employee)?

• What Mahara user institutions are you going to set up, if any?

• What will be your core Mahara groups? Who should set these up?

• What will those groups actually exist to do? What will be their purpose?

Note

Start off by describing what already happens in a particular focus area offline and then apply that to what you hope will happen online.

• Who will be allocated responsibility for encouraging and moderating activity in those groups?

• What Views will need to be produced for your site?

• What other sites will need to link across to your Mahara site?

• What will be the main weblinks you will need to link to from your site?

• Who will set and monitor performance targets? Will this be a part of their job description?

Draft out your Mahara-specific policies

You need to be crystal clear about the rules of engagement! It is only fair on your end users and it is also fair on you. There is also, very often, an organizational need to draw up and adhere to formal policies. Here are some thoughts in this respect:

• What promises can you make: the provision of internet access? Will it be always available, freely available, and maintain a reasonable level of quality/stability?

• What terms and conditions of use will you need the users to agree to?

• Is it important to set out an acceptable use policy?

• What privacy rights does the user have?

• Does the user leave their data with you when they complete their course/program/employment period? If so, for how long will they have access to the data they leave?

• We advise you to leave intellectual property in the hands of the ePortfolio users themselves and not in the hands of your institution. ePortfolios should (in our view) be owned by the users themselves and remain their own responsibility until they contravene the institution's terms and conditions of acceptable use. This is often not possible, though. In the case of schools, colleges, and polytechnics, some countries make the institutions responsible (by law) to guarantee that no inappropriate content is hosted on their servers. If this is your case, you may have decide to set up a procedure for regular spot-checks where an administrator masquerades as a random sample of learners (for instance, each month) to check up on users within your system.

• How effectively are you going to communicate policies such as these to your end users?

Start to embed Mahara into institutional and program priorities

If yours is a small-scale implementation, might you just be trailblazing the way for a large-scale implementation across your whole organization? If so, or if you are a larger organization already, here are some questions to get you thinking:

• Is Mahara usage a stated element of your curriculum delivery? Is it the time to learn how to use Mahara explicitly allocated as part of a new user's workload?

• Is any requirement to engage with Mahara in a course, job role, or program clearly communicated and understood well in advance of any requirement to submit work?

• Is Mahara usage referred to in your business development plan, organizational plan, and job description?

• Is Mahara utilized in your quality improvement reviews and processes?

• Is Mahara adoption and use measured in your quality improvement reviews and processes?

• Are Mahara development workshops a fixed element of your staff's Induction and Continuous Professional Development Plans? Staff should be regularly discussing not only how to use the system technically, but also how to use the system for best learning and business impact and effect!