• Recipe Link

Mahara can be used for assessment but its strength does not lie with essays but in creating a reflective learning environment, often scaffolded to support students through the early stages of developing their skills and understanding.

Mahara allows the use of

• A wider range of digital media (e.g. audio, video, graphics, text)
• Student reflection on the evidence of learning that has been gathered.
• Real-world context (work placements, group work, work-based assessment)
• Portfolios can be mapped against professional requirements or graduate attributes

For the most effective results, use

• Rubrics to assess the work created across a range of criteria
• Include formative feedback as part of the assignment process (from Peers and Tutors)

Creating an assignment using Mahara

1. Design the assessment activity
2. Create a template to scaffold student learning
3. Share the template with individuals or groups
4. Provide students with instructions to copy the template
5. Create a Moodle assignment using Mahara as the source
6. Provide students with instructions on how to submit an assignment via Moodle

Assignment considerations

Assignments are created with one of the following options, and each of these has implications and benefits for the assessment process:

• Students can continue to edit the page or collection
  This is useful where tutors need to ensure that progress is being made. Setting checkpoints (in the form of individual assignments in Moodle) through the assessment, which may run for many months, encourages students to continually add to their portfolios rather than leaving it until near to the assessment deadline. It works well for formative assessment and gives the Tutor opportunities to feedback to the student before the final submission.
• The page or collection (portfolio) is locked until grading is complete
  Portfolios are locked when submitted and cannot be edited until released with a grade. This is important for summative assessments so that work is not altered until a grade has been issued. If a student submits a page from a collection to an assignment, or if the assignment is not released with a grade, the student will not be able to continue working or submit the item again at a later date to another assignment.
• The page or collection is locked permanently
  We don't recommend the use of this option. It permanently freezes the portfolio and students cannot edit, reuse or resubmit the portfolio.