(en) Mahara Eportfolio for students and teachers.

Owned by Gustav Öberg
Last updated: Aug 09, 2022
11 min read

Getting Started

Mahara is an e-portfolio technology.

An e-portfolio is a system in which students can record “evidence of learning” – such as essays, reports, reflective commentary, task lists, video, ljud or artwork. Basically, anything that can be produced and stored digitally. These digital items are known as artefacts in Mahara.

It is more than just a place to store files as Mahara also provides ways for people to interact with their tutors and peers and create online communities.  Mahara also includes blogging (through journals) and a résumé (or CV) builder.

Your e-portfolio can be used for personal reflection and development and to provide assessment evidence for your programme.  You decide what you share with your tutors, peers and friends.  You can also make your portfolio, or parts of it, public.  You can then showcase your development and achievements with employers.

The word ‘mahara’ is from Te Reo Māori. As Mahara was created in New Zealand, it was fitting to choose a Māori word to signify the concept of the ePortfolio system. At University of Gothenburg, the tool is named Mahara Eportfolio.

Example of a portfolio in Mahara Eportfolio.

Mahara Eportfolio at University of Gothenburg can be accessed in multiple ways:

  • Visit Mahara Eportfolio directly at https://eportfolio.gu.se 

  • Visit the Student Portal https://studentportal.gu.se. Go to Services & Tools and choose Mahara Eportfolio. You will find news and information on the dedicated Mahara Eportfolio web page on the Student Portal. 

Click the button Göteborg universitet Login and enter your usual University login details (username and password). 

 

Your Profile area stores your contact and personal information. Each of the profile fields can be considered separate artefacts which you can add independently to your profile page or any portfolio page. Thus, you can reveal as little or as much information about yourself to others as you wish.

Your profile page is public, in the sense that by default, it can be viewed by anyone who is logged into Mahara Eportfolio at the University of Gothenburg.

Note on privacy: Be very vigilant with your private information. Think about it like providing information on a business card. How much or how little would you want to display there? Do you need to give out your home phone number and postal address? If not, leave them out.

Complete the form fields with the information you want to add, making sure to click Save.

 

The images you wish to use must be between 16×16 and 1024×1024 pixels in size. Ideally, your profile images are square.

The profile images that you wish to upload to Mahara must be available on your computer or phone/tablet. Choose one image at a time to upload. You can also give it a title.

User menu > Profile pictures

 

The dashboard is the first page you see on logging into Mahara. You can arrange the items on the page to suit your preferred way of working.  For example, you might want to see your inbox, or recent forum posts.

The sidebar blocks are not editable.

Click Edit Dashboard to arrange it the way you would like.

Watch below to see the various way to edit the Dashboard.

 

Understanding Mahara Eportfolio

Mahara is not like other learning technology you may have used (e.g. Canvas) so it’s important to understand the differences.

Creating Portfolio Content in Mahara Eportfolio

Your e-portfolio is created through the production of pages and collections (of pages), with content that is often created in a reflective style.  Each page can be edited to contain the content you wish, including uploading or embedding of files of various types (e.g. text, image, media, web).

Sharing Portfolio Content

 

 

Submitting your eportfolio to Canvas

This Guide, "Mahara Eportfolio for Teachers and Students", is an adaption of "How to use Mahara for students" av University of Bath, under the license Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 unported (CC BY-SA 3.0). "Mahara Eportfolio for Teachers and Students" is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 av Gustav Öberg.