1. What’s new in Mahara 18.10?

Mahara is being improved from version to version. On this page, you see the highlights for the latest release of Mahara.

Note

There is a longer video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZkpBxpK1Gs] that shows more of the work flow.

You can see a list of all new features on Launchpad [https://bugs.launchpad.net/mahara/+bugs?field.milestone%3Alist=85083&field.tag=nominatedfeature] or check out the user-focused features via the new in Mahara 18.10 “New in Mahara 18.10” index entries.

1.1. Navigation changes

The main menu navigation has changed and the items re-arranged. Feedback from people using Mahara has shown that the previous division of “Content” and “Portfolios” was not ideal and that it was hard to find things. The new main menu matches the 3 main areas of Mahara:

Create: Create and upload artefacts, and create portfolios

Share: Share portfolios and view shared portfolios

Engage: Engage and collaborate with others in groups

The additional item of “Manage” was added for the items that did not fit in any of these categories.

The main menu is the same for everyone

1.2. Populate a page automatically with tagged content

If you tagged content, e.g. files, journal entries, or plans, and blocks, then you can create a new page based on that tagged content. Choose the tag or tags for which you want to see all content items. They will be added to the page automatically.

You can then arrange the resulting blocks as you like or remove them.

Create a portfolio page via tags

1.3. Set up institution tags

Institution administrators can set up any number of ‘official’ tags. These can be used by institution members to ensure that they are using the correct tags at all times. Institution tags cannot be edited by institution members.

Use institution tags

1.4. View someone else’s content based on a tag

If you are on a portfolio page by somebody else, and you want to know all the content that they have tagged with a specific tag, you can click the tag at the artefact or the page and see a list of all content items with that tag to which you have access.

View tagged content of others

1.5. Support the creation of templates more

There are a number of new features that support the creation and use of templates. These features are geared towards scaffolding the portfolio creation process and give people who are new to portfolios or need to create a compliance portfolios tools at hand to facilitate their work.

Blocks in all contexts: Blocks that could only be used by individuals can be put onto group, institution, and site pages for easier copying. While content may often not be added itself, the block can be prepared for the people using the template.

Page instructions: Pages can be set up with instructions that sit at the top of the page rather than needing to use a block for that.

Lock blocks: You can lock blocks to a page preventing their deletion from the page. While a portfolio author can remove the lock, at first look it is not possible to delete the blocks.

Copy group portfolios automatically: You can copy a group portfolio automatically into the accounts of existing group members. Administrators and tutors are excluded from the copying.

1.6. Submit a portfolio via LTI to an LMS

Personal portfolios can be submitted to an LTI-enabled learning management system (LMS). Assignments are set up in the LMS with the connection to Mahara. Portfolios are graded in Mahara, and the grade is transferred to the LMS via LTI. These portfolios can be archived in Mahara automatically if needed.

Grade a portfolio submitted via the LMS

1.7. View old versions of a page on the timeline

You can save versions of your portfolio to your page timeline and jump back to old versions. This allows you to see how your portfolio has developed over time, what you have added, and what you have deleted.

Jump between old versions of a portfolio

1.8. Make a peer assessment

Peers can perform a blind review of a portfolio authors skills and competencies when the “Peer assessment” block is on a page. They are not able to see any content of the person they are assessing. Peer assessments can be saved as drafts before making them available to the portfolio author and others.

Add and view a peer assessment

1.9. Sign off and verify a portfolio page

When portfolios don’t use SmartEvidence for assessment purposes, it’s still good to know which pages are ready for review and when they can be sent for assessment. That is where the sign-off and verification functionality comes in.

Adding that to a page allows the portfolio author to sign off their page indicating to a selected manager that their portfolio is ready for review. If required, the manager can then verify the content showing that they are happy for the portfolio to be taken to the next step in the evaluation process.

Sign-off and verification of a portfolio

1.10. Revoke access to portfolios containing objectionable material

An institution or site administrator can revoke access to a portfolio temporarily when it was reported as containing objectionable material. While the portfolio is under review, nobody who would normally have access to it are able to view it until the administrator is satisfied that all objectionable material has been dealt with.

This allows the administrator to communicate with the portfolio author directly through Mahara and also view a report of all current objectionable material.

Revoke access to a portfolio containing objetionable material

1.11. Define a custom landing page after login

A site administrator can define a page other than the dashboard to which everybody is taken once they log in to the site. This can be group, institution or site pages as well as group discussion forums in groups that are open to all registered users.

1.12. Update plan tasks directly on a page

You can update the status of a plan task or edit tasks of a plan directly from a portfolio page making it faster to keep your plan up to date.

Edit a plan on a page

1.13. Delete users and groups in bulk via CLI

When you administer a large site, deleting users and cleaning up groups may be very tedious. You can use CLI to delete users based on certain criteria, e.g. those who had never logged in, had not logged in since a specific date, or are members of a particular group. You can also use CLI to delete groups according to specified criteria.

2. Introduction

Welcome to the Mahara user manual. This user manual is designed to provide documentation for people who use Mahara on a day-to-day basis. It covers the functionalities of Mahara to provide you with information about what you see on the screen.

Without further ado, let’s begin!

2.1. What is Mahara?

If you’re wondering what Mahara or an ePortfolio is, why you might want one and what it can do for you, then read on. You’re about to find out.

At the simplest level, Mahara is two things: an ePortfolio [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eportfolio] and a social networking [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network] system combined. An ePortfolio is a system in which students can record “evidence of lifelong learning” – such as essays, artwork or other such things they produce that can be stored digitally. Such things are known as artefacts in Mahara. Social networking systems need little introduction – think Bebo [https://bebo.com/], Facebook [https://facebook.com/] or MySpace [https://www.myspace.com/] (back in the old days). Basically, they give a way for people to interact with their friends and create their own online communities.

But Mahara is much more than just a place to store files. Mahara also includes blogging, a résumé builder, and web services to integrate with other platforms.

Note

Here’s a short video by Domi Sinclair [https://twitter.com/Domi_Sinclair], formerly at University College London [https://ucl.ac.uk/]. She explains what Mahara (called “MyPortfolio” at UCL) is and for what it can be used.

2.2. Using a metaphor

It often helps to use a metaphor to explain a new concept. There are many metaphors used for portfolios. Here are two of them to give you an idea of how you could explain portfolios to your learners.

Note

Kate Coleman explores the idea of using metaphors for portfolio work in her PhD thesis [https://www.artographicexplorations.com/metaphor-and-metonymy.html].

Would you use any of these metaphors? Do you have your own?

2.2.1. The gallery or museum

The gallery or museum metaphor

Note

This metaphor is used by Mandia Mentis [http://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/expertise/profile.cfm?stref=316430] at Massey University [http://www.massey.ac.nz/] in New Zealand. She shared her idea in the Mahara Newsletter January 2018 [https://mahara.org/artefact/artefact.php?artefact=434513&view=36871].

The basement is the common storage space of all the artefacts that the gallery owns or has leased. Artefacts are organized and catalogued to be found more easily later on when they are needed. A curator may shuffle artefacts around and add new ones as they come in. There is constant movement as artefacts are acquired, catalogued, brought up to the gallery for an exhibition, or returned to storage when a particular exhibition has finished.

The different media are used as artefacts. They can be text, images, audio, video, sculptures, or a mix of them.

The exhibition spaces can be small or large and are centred around a common theme each. The curator selected the artefacts to be shown carefully for the story that they want to tell. Not all artefacts that the gallery owns on a particular topic are exhibited so as not to overwhelm the viewer. Sometimes only one or two pieces represent a larger body of work.

The curator provides insight into the collection by adding explanatory notes, meta information, and also interpretation to the artefacts for the viewer to be guided through the exhibit and made aware of the differences between the artefacts.

Some of the exhibits are closed to the general public and require either an entrance fee or prior approval. In those cases, only authorized persons can enter the exhibit and view the artefacts.

Viewers wander the gallery on their own or in groups and point out what they see or feel, discuss the artefacts and the wider collection, and engage with the curator or even the artists in discussions. They leave feedback or sign a visitor book to voice their opinion. They also overhear other people talking about the artefacts and learn from these interactions.

Some of the exhibits are permanent while others are temporary allowing people to come back as often as they like or only during a specified time frame. At any time that they are in the exhibits, they can leave feedback, draw their own conclusions, and learn from the artefacts and the interpretations that they have seen.

The gallery’s management team wants to keep everyone safe and also gather data which exhibits are the most popular, when people are coming to the gallery and how often, and what it costs to keep the gallery running. The team runs regular reports and makes changes to the gallery as a result of that.

This translates to:

Basement: Mahara content area where you can upload files and create other learning evidence such as journal entries, plans, notes, etc.

Artefacts: The pieces of learning evidence that illustrate a skill gained, a competency accomplished, a step made in a longer process or material referenced for learning purposes.

Organizing and cataloguing: Putting files into folders and using tags on artefacts to retrieve them again later on.

Curator: Portfolio author

Exhibition spaces: Portfolio pages (small portfolios) or portfolio collections (large portfolios consisting of multiple pages).

Insight into artefacts: Reflections and explanatory commentary.

Entrance fee / prior approval: Assigning access permissions to portfolios based on who should be allowed to view the particular page or collection.

Viewers: Portfolio Viewers; they can come on their own or in groups.

Permanent / temporary: For how long the portfolio is available. Some portfolios may only be shared for a short amount of time with somebody else.

Management team: The people running the site and offering the service.

Feedback: Feedback left and comments made by viewers on someone’s portfolio, reflections or learning evidence.

2.2.2. The performance

The performance metaphor

Note

This metaphor was introduced by Hazel Owen on her website [http://www.ethosconsultancynz.com/page/eportfolios-1]. She shared her idea in the Mahara Newsletter January 2018 [https://mahara.org/artefact/artefact.php?artefact=434513&view=36871].

An important aspect in this metaphor is the human element and that activities happen in communities and are not just things. In the performance metaphor we see that people interact in all matters from the preparation to the final performance and learn from each other.

In the backstage area, projects are discussed and conceptualised, changed, and finalised. A team is often involved in these processes giving feedback, and inviting newcomers / apprentices to try things out and learn from more experienced staff.

Depending on the director, a performance in one theatre may vary widely from that in another as a play can be interpreted many different ways, kept in its classic form, modernised or completely re-imagined. It is up to the company to settle on their interpretation and the way forward, which can include changes to the language, the mood, the back drops, and props used during the performance.

The backstage is only accessible to a group of authorised staff. Outsiders need a pass to be invited into this space.

Rehearsals play a fundamental role when preparing for a performance as they give the performer the time to practice their art, receive feedback from a teacher or also peers. They can practice in a safe space that is not accessible to an audience and thus don’t have to fear premature comments that would only be based on a small extract of the performance rather than its entirety.

Once the performance is deemed to be ready to be shown, often a dress rehearsal is scheduled to invite a select group of people for feedback and giving the troupe a chance to make final adjustments before the show is taken live.

Many different performances can take place within a building attracting different audiences, which in turn have different experiences that they bring to the events and see them through different eyes.

Some performances may require an entrance fee whereas others can be free. Some may also invite people to participate more fully in the performance itself rather than only sit and watch.

In Mahara this translates to:

Backstage: Content area and portfolio creation space before the learning evidence is shared with a wider group; portfolios can be created by individuals or in groups collaboratively.

Interpretations: Personalisation of each portfolio author in how they want to display their learning evidence, reflections, etc.

Rehearsals: Access given to a teacher or peers for feedback; not a one-time thing but iterative and supports growth of the portfolio author

Different performances: Being able to set up a variety of portfolios that serve different purposes and may or may not be connected

Entrance fee: Access permissions governing who can see which portfolio

2.3. The Mahara framework

With Mahara, you control which items and what information within your portfolio other users see. Such items and information are termed artefacts. To facilitate this access control, all artefacts you wish to show to other users need to be arranged into one area. In Mahara this compilation of selected artefacts is called a ‘page’. You can have as many pages as you like, each with a different number of artefacts, intended purpose and audience. Your audience, or the people you wish to give access to your page, can be added as individuals or as a member of a group. It can even be made publicly available.

For example you could create:

a page for your friends and family that includes holiday photos and a personal journal

a page for your tutor, which includes assessments and your reflective learning journal

a page to showcase your best pieces of work and your résumé for potential employers

…

A single page or a collection of pages can make up your portfolio. Unless artefacts are placed in a page, they are not visible to anybody but you. You can use files that you uploaded or journal entries you wrote in as many pages as you wish. You only need one copy of your artefact.

Imagine you collected all your artefacts in a shoe box. Whenever you have a new artefact, you add it to the shoe box. When you are ready to create your portfolio, you take a look at the artefacts in your shoe box and choose those that you want to make available on a portfolio page. You can arrange the artefacts on that page to your liking.

Portfolio work with Mahara

The diagram below of example artefacts, pages and groups illustrates how content in Mahara can be shared and reused in different contexts and for different audiences.

Mahara framework

2.4. How does Mahara fit in to the e-learning landscape?

If you think of LMSs [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_Management_System] such as Moodle, Canvas, and Blackboard as the formal, structured side of e-learning, then Mahara is the social, reflective side. An LMS and an ePortfolio complement one another in an online learning environment.

In particular, while Mahara’s APIs are open to all, Mahara can integrate with Moodle natively to provide a streamlined user experience. This is not limited to SSO via MNet. Students are able to export assignments, blogs and much more straight into Mahara to use as artefacts, which can then, of course, be placed into pages.

2.5. What if Mahara does not support a feature I want?

Mahara has been designed from the ground up to be an open, pluggable system. Creating new artefacts, authenticating against a custom system and much more can be implemented simply through writing a plugin that uses the appropriate core API. What this means is that it is free and easy for you to customise almost anything about Mahara to suit your needs. Paid support is available [https://mahara.org/partners] through a network of Mahara Partners should you require it.

2.6. Other things to do

Now you have a basic idea of what Mahara is, you could:

Read the list of features that Mahara comes with.

Explore the demo [https://demo.mahara.org/] or download Mahara [https://launchpad.net/mahara/] for yourself to play with.

Sign up to the mahara.org community [https://mahara.org/register.php] and begin asking questions and contributing in the forums [https://mahara.org/interaction/forum/index.php?group=1].

Continue reading this user guide.

2.7. Where can I get ideas of how to use Mahara?

The Mahara newsletter [https://mahara.org/newsletter] features individuals and institutions and their use of Mahara. You can subscribe to it or read it online. It is published four times a year, and you can contribute your ideas as well.

You may wish to check the list of books [https://wiki.mahara.org/index.php/Marketing/Books] or papers [https://wiki.mahara.org/index.php/Marketing/Papers] that have been published on Mahara or what users talk about in conference presentations [https://wiki.mahara.org/index.php/Marketing/Mahara_Presentations].

2.8. Getting help

Contextual help is available throughout Mahara via the Help icon . Click on it to find out more about the action you are about to perform.

You can also ask questions in the forums [https://mahara.org/interaction/forum/index.php?group=1].

2.9. Mahara and accessibility

Mahara aims to be usable by as many individuals as possible, including those with disabilities or special needs. Creating accessible web content is a requirement in many countries. In order to provide international guidelines, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) were created. There are three conformance levels under the WCAG 2.0 [https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/docs/], the latest edition of the guidelines: A, AA, and AAA. Each level requires conformance with previous levels and includes its own specific guidelines for how websites should be made accessible.

With version 1.9, Mahara has reached level AA for user-facing areas of the system. The administration of Mahara is predominantly on level AA as well. We endeavour to keep up level AA to continue to provide good navigation of the site to everybody.

The Mahara project can only control the accessibility of the navigation and overall platform. People uploading or creating content are responsible themselves to make their content accessible.

If you come across accessibility issues, please file a report in our bug tracker [https://bugs.launchpad.net/mahara/+filebug] and tag the item “accessibility”.

If you are a screen reader user, you can use the following access keys to navigate the main menu items in Mahara:

Regular user interface:

d:Dashboard

c: Content

p: Portfolio

g: Groups

a: Administration

Administrator interface:

a: Admin home

c: Configure site

u: Users

g: Groups

i: Institutions

e: Extensions

2.10. Which version of Mahara do I have?

If you do not have access to the administration area, you do not see immediately which version of Mahara you use. Knowing the Mahara version has a couple of advantages:

You can make sure to refer to the correct user manual.

You can find out whether you are on a currently supported version of Mahara or on an older one.

If you are on an older version of Mahara, you can check the user manual for the new features.

When you report a bug [https://bugs.launchpad.net/mahara/+filebug], you are often asked to specify the version of Mahara in which you noticed the problem.

You can find out easily which version of Mahara you use by looking at the site’s HTML source. It’s not as scary as it sounds.

The HTML source reveals the Mahara version number

Firefox and Chrome / Chromium:

In your browser, make a right-mouse click in any of your Mahara pages.

Select the option “View Page Source”.

Look for the meta tag “generator”.

Safari:

Make the “Develop menu” visible: Safari → Preferences → Advanced → select “Show develop menu in menu bar”.

Make a right-mouse click in any of your Mahara pages.

Select the option “Show Page Source”.

Look for the meta tag “generator”.

Note

Only the major version number of Mahara is displayed for security purposes. The minor version number is only visible to the administrator on Administration menu → Admin home. We recommend you keep Mahara up-to-date with security updates to ensure that your instance is not vulnerable to known security issues.

3. Dashboard

3.1. Login

You always need a login to authenticate yourself and access your personal information, portfolio pages and groups that you belong to. You can log in on the Mahara homepage.

Login form

Username: Type your username in this field (not for SSO or Moodle accounts).

Password: Provide your password. If you enter your password incorrectly 5 times in a row during one session, access is locked for 5 minutes before you can try again.

Click the Login button to access your account.

Lost username / password: If you do not remember your username or password to your account, click this link to be taken to a page where you can request an email with your details. It will contain your username and a link to change your password.

Register: If you do not have an account, and your institution allows self-registration for an account, use this link and follow the instructions on the next page.

SSO login: If you log in via your institution’s SSO (single sign-on) account, please use this button to be taken to the SSO login.

Note

The regular login form is only available for internal and LDAP accounts. Internal accounts are accounts for which you registered through your Mahara site or that were created by administrators either manually, or by a CSV file upload.

The “Lost username / password” link only works for internal accounts where you use the regular login form.

If you log in via SSO or Moodle for example, you must retrieve your password directly from these services. If you do not know how to do that, please ask your administrator.

You only see the SSO buttons if SSO has been been enabled on your site for at least one institution.

You can hide the login form entirely from the homepage if your Mahara instance generally only connects to an external authentication method such as MNet or CAS. In these cases, your users will need to log in via a different site and seeing the login form on the homepage may only be confusing.

Once you have hidden the login form, only a link to it is displayed on the homepage for an administrator to log into the site.

Link to the login form

After you successfully logged in to Mahara, you see your Dashboard. This is your homepage where you can see the latest activity of you and other users on Mahara. You can customise the dashboard so that you always see the items that are most important to you.

Only you can see your dashboard. Nobody else has access to it.

3.2. Login with strict privacy

When the site administrator turned on strict privacy, you need to consent to the terms and conditions and the privacy statement of the site and maybe even an institution if you are a member of an institution before you can enter your account. If you don’t, you have the opportunity to discuss your issues with them with an administrator.

Note

When any of the statements changed, you will be presented with them again and need to make a decision about consenting or not.

Accept legal statements upon first login

Title of the legal statement.

Note

There can be up to 4 statements that you may need to consent to. This depends on the setup of the site that you use.

Click the Retractable icon to close this section. This is helpful if the texts are very long.

The date the statement was last updated is displayed.

The text of the statement.

If you consent to the statement, flip the switch to “Yes”.

Note

Before you consent to a statement, please read it carefully. If you do not understand a section or have questions, do not consent to it but leave it set to “No”. When you save your changes, you will have the opportunity to detail why you do not consent and get in touch with the administrator to discuss your concern.

Click the Save changes button to accept your decisions.

3.3. Overview

You can change certain aspects of your dashboard, namely the user-specific information, but a lot of what you see is static to allow you to quickly access other parts of Mahara.

Your homepage is your dashboard from which you can access a number of areas in Mahara conveniently.

Search: Search for users who have an account to view their profile page and check which pages they have made accessible to you. If your site has fulltext search available, you can search for anything on the site using this search box.

Note

In the User search box you can most often search for users’ display name. Depending on the settings that the site administrator made, you may also be able to search for users’ real name and username. If the site administrator allowed users to hide their real name, you can do so in your general account options.

To provide you with the most relevant search results, you automatically search only for users within your own institution, but can choose to search for everyone on your Mahara installation on the “Find people” search page you are taken to.

If the site administrator turned on exact user search, you need to provide the correct display name or real name in order to find another user.

Inbox: Click the Inbox icon to view all your notifications and send messages.

Note

new in Mahara 18.10 The Inbox has its prominent place again outside of the user menu to be seen more easily.

User menu: Click the User menu navigation icon to reach your account settings, profile, profile pictures, legal statements, connected apps, notification settings, and the logout link, or click your profile picture to be taken to your profile page.

Main menu: Use the Main menu navigation icon to navigate to other areas of your portfolio.

Note

Administrators and staff who have access to the administration area, see the Administration menu navigation icon in addition to the main menu navigation so they can navigate within the administration area.

Quick links: These quick links take you directly to certain areas of Mahara.

Edit dashboard: The Edit dashboard button allows you to jump directly into the edit screen for your dashboard without having to go to Main menu → Create → Pages and Collections first.

Note

You cannot add a skin to your dashboard page.

User-specific information: You can customise this area on your dashboard to put blocks there that you want to see every time you log in.

Personal information: This sidebar block contains static and dynamic information:

Your name is linked to your profile page.

Your profile picture is linked to your profile pictures page for easy uploading of new profile pictures.

If you are a member of any groups, they are displayed here.

Pending friend requests and group invitations are displayed.

If you tagged artefacts or pages with the tag “profile”, a link to them is placed here.

Online users: If this sidebar block is enabled, you see users who have been logged in during the last 10 minutes. Depending on the settings for your institution that the administrator chose, you may see all users, only users from your institution(s) or no users at all.

Profile completion: You see this sidebar block if your site or institution administrators turned on the profile completion functionality.

Links and resources: List of links to websites or documents that are visible to all logged-in users or the public.

3.4. Navigation

The app-style like navigation makes it easier to distinguish between the main navigation menu, the user menu, and the administration navigation.

new in Mahara 18.10 The distribution of the navigation menu items has changed. Now all items used to create, collect, and organize content and portfolios can be found in the “Create” menu item and all items concerning collaboration and sharing with others in the “Engage” menu item.

3.4.1. Main menu navigation

The main menu is visible to all users and allows everyone to navigate to their content, portfolios, and groups.

The main menu is the same for everyone

Click the Main menu navigation icon to see a drop-down menu with the available options.

Click one of the options to reach them. If there is another level of menu items, clicking the menu item or the the Arrow down icon will display these.

Click the title again or the Arrow up icon to close the second level navigation.

Note

You can also click anywhere in the entire bar that surrounds the menu item to trigger an action.

Click a sub menu item to be taken to the appropriate page.

3.4.2. Administration menu navigation

If you have access to administration functionality, you see a second menu, the administration menu.

Note

Depending on your permissions, you may not see all menu items. The menu displayed here is the one of the site administrator who can see everything in the administration menu. Staff and institution administrators see a subset of these items.

The administration menu is only available to staff and administrators.

Click the Administration menu navigation icon to see a drop-down menu with the available options.

Click one of the options to reach them. If there is another level of menu items, clicking the menu item or the the Arrow down icon will display these.

Click the title again or the Arrow up icon to close the second level navigation.

Note

You can also click anywhere in the entire bar that surrounds the menu item to trigger an action.

Click a sub menu item to be taken to the appropriate page.

3.4.3. User menu navigation

The user menu is visible to all users. It allows you to acces your account settings, inbox, and profile easily.

The user menu is available to all users

Click your profile picture to be taken to your profile page.

Click the Arrow down icon in the user menu to see additional options.

Your name: Your name is displayed to indicate who is logged in esp. when viewing portfolio pages where the profile block is not visible. You can click on it to go to your profile page.

Note

If an administrator masquerades as another user, this name helps to check quickly, in which account actions are undertaken.

Profile: Jump to the settings page of your profile where you can change vital basic information.

Profile pictures: Click this menu item to be taken to the page where you can manage your profile pictures.

Settings: Top level navigation item that gives you access to more options. Click the text or the Arrow down icon to see the secondary navigation:

Settings: This link gives you access to your account settings and notifications

Legal: The legal texts, i.e. the privacy statement and the terms and conditions, are displayed that you have either actively or implicitely agreed to.

Notifications: Change your notification preferences.

Apps: See which apps you have connected to your account.

Logout: Link to log out of your current session.

3.5. Quick links

When you log in to Mahara, you see three new boxes with quick links:

Create: Create your electronic portfolio in a flexible personal learning environment. This takes you to Main menu → Create → Pages and collections.

Share: Share your achievements and development in a space you control. Clicking on this box takes you to Main menu → Share → Shared by me.

Engage: Engage with other people in discussion forums and collaborate in groups. This takes you to Main menu → Engage → Find groups.

Mahara usage information and information when you hover over a box with your cursor

With the help of these quick links you can reach the different parts of your portfolio directly from your dashboard.

Note

If you removed these boxes from your dashboard but want to get them back at a later point, you can re-active them under User menu → Settings → Preferences → Dashboard information.

If you do not see the dashboard boxes and do not have the option to turn this setting on, your site administrator disabled this feature in the site configuration.

3.6. User-specific information

The default dashboard includes the following blocks:

Latest changes I can view

My portfolios

Inbox

Topics I’m following

These blocks are filled with content once you start using Mahara and create pages, receive messages from other users, have access to others’ portfolio pages and use the forums for discussions. You can customize these blocks to your liking by editing your dashboard. Click the Edit dashboard button Edit dashboard directly on your dashboard or go to Portfolio in the navigation menu, click the Edit button next to the dashboard page and change the blocks like you would change them on any page in Mahara.

See also

Refer to the page editor for more information on adding and removing blocks from a page.

The site administrator can change the default blocks on the dashboard page for new users in Administration → Configure site → Pages.

3.7. Footer

The footer is displayed on every page. If you have your custom theme, you can also make changes to the footer.

Links in the footer

The default footer in a Mahara site can have links to:

Legal: Terms and conditions and privacy statement(s). When a user is logged in, this page displays the statements that they consented to. They can find that page also via User menu → Settings → Legal.

About: A page that the site administrator can change via “Static pages”

Contact us: A form for anyone on the site to contact the site administrator(s). A site administrator may overwrite this form and point to a different page or even an email address in the menu configuration.

Link to the Mahara user manual. The link goes to the corresponding page in the user manual. The correct version of the user manual is selected automatically.

Note

The site administrator can decide in the configuration of the footer whether to display the links “Legal”, “About us”, “Contact us”, and “Help”.

4. Create

The Create menu item contains all the actions relating to the creation of your personal portfolios.

This includes the artefacts (or also called “learning evidence”) that you create or collect to be used in your portfolios. It also includes the pages and collections that hold your artefacts for you to share with other people.

You can only share artefacts with others when you placed them on a page and gave others the permission to view that portfolio.

4.1. Pages and collections

4.1.1. Overview page

4.1.2. Icons on the overview page

4.1.3. Profile page

4.1.4. Add a page

4.1.5. Edit an existing page

4.1.6. Add a collection

4.1.7. Add pages to a collection

4.1.8. Manage pages in a collection

4.1.9. Copy a portfolio

4.1.10. View a page

4.1.11. Give others access to your portfolio

4.1.12. Delete a portfolio

4.1.13. Timeline of a page’s development

4.2. Page editor

4.2.1. Editor navigation

4.2.2. Edit layout

4.2.3. Content chooser

4.2.4. Page layout area

4.2.5. Edit access

4.3. Blocks

4.3.1. Files, images and video

4.3.2. Journals

4.3.3. General

4.3.4. Personal info

4.3.5. External content

4.3.6. Blocks in various pages

4.4. Skins

4.4.1. Create a skin

4.4.2. Choose a skin

4.4.3. View a page with a skin

4.4.4. What is the difference between themes and page skins?

4.4.5. Disallow skins on a theme

4.5. Tags

4.5.1. Add a tag

4.5.2. Tag cloud

4.5.3. My tags

4.5.4. Edit tags

4.5.5. View tagged content from others

4.6. Commenting

4.6.1. View page comments

4.6.2. View artefact comments

4.6.3. Comment on portfolios

4.7. Feedback for assessment

4.7.1. Submit a page or collection for assessment

4.7.2. Instructor feedback

4.8. SmartEvidence

4.8.1. Set up a SmartEvidence framework

4.8.2. Select a framework

4.8.3. Add an annotation

4.8.4. Give feedback on an annotation

4.8.5. SmartEvidence map

4.8.6. Copy a SmartEvidence collection

4.9. Objectionable material

4.9.1. Report objectionable material

4.9.2. Manage objectionable material

4.10. Files

4.10.1. File browser

4.10.2. Upload a file

4.10.3. Upload multiple files

4.10.4. Edit a file or folder

4.10.5. Rotate an image

4.10.6. File quota

4.11. Journals

4.11.1. Change your journal settings

4.11.2. Add a journal entry

4.11.3. Add an image into a journal entry

4.11.4. Add a file as attachment to a journal entry

4.11.5. Work with multiple journals

4.12. Notes

4.12.1. View your notes

4.12.2. Edit your notes

4.13. Plans

4.13.1. Create a new plan

4.13.2. Add tasks to a plan

4.13.3. Edit tasks in a plan

4.13.4. View all tasks of a plan

4.14. Résumé

4.14.1. Introduction

4.14.2. Education and employment

4.14.3. Achievements

4.14.4. Goals and skills

4.14.5. Interests

4.14.6. License

4.1. Pages and collections

Main menu → Create → Pages and collections

A page contains a selection of artefacts which you arrange and present to others. These may include:

selected files

résumé details

text (your added commentary, instructions or orientation)

journal posts

video and audio files

RSS feed to an external blog

etc.

You can re-use the artefacts that you collected under Content in as many pages as you wish.

The same artefacts can appear in multiple pages

4.1.1. Overview page

On the landing page of Portfolio, you can do the following.

The landing page of your portfolio

Click the Add button to start a new page or collection from scratch.

Note

A modal opens in which you can choose whether to create a page or collection.

Click the Copy button to choose an existing page or collection of yours or from another user as basis for a new portfolio.

Search: Type your search term into the search field.

Use the drop-down arrow to limit your search. The available options are:

Title, description, tags: Search for your search term in the title, descirption, and tags of your portfolios.

Title, description: This is the default option. It searches in the title and description of your portfolios.

Tags: Search only within the tags of your portfolios.

Note

If you select to search only tags, you see an new in Mahara 18.10 additional option to search for multiple tags and match on all of them.

Sort by: Decide on the sort order in which you wish to display your portfolios.

Alphabetical: Portfolios are displayed in alphabetical order.

Date created: List the portfolios in chronologically reverse order with the newest portfolios first.

Last modified: Display the portfolios in the order of their last modification with the most recent portfolios that have been changed first. This is the default display option.

Last viewed: Show the portfolios in the order in which they were viewed by you and others starting with the most recently viewed portfolios.

Most visited: Display the portfolios that have been visited most first in the list.

Most feedback: List the portfolios in descending order based on the amount of feedback they have received.

Note

The search option and the sort order that you choose do not change when you navigate away from the overview page or log out. When you change either setting, that new one will be used until you change it again.

Click the Search button to search your portfolios based on your search term and / or sorting criteria.

Click the Locked icon or the Unlocked icon to manage the access to your portfolio.

Collections display the number of pages that they contain.

Click the More options icon to reach more options for the page or collection.

If you are on a computer, you can hover over the title of a portfolio and see it in its full length if it needed to be shortened.

Dashboard page: Click the More options icon to make changes to your dashboard page. You cannot delete your dashboard page though.

Profile page: Click the More options icon to make changes to your profile page. You cannot delete your profile page, but you can decide on different sharing options.

When you submitted a portfolio to a group, you cannot change a great number of the page’s content or delete it until the page is released again. It is displayed with a different colored background to differentiate it quickly from non-submitted portfolios.

Click the Show more button to display more portfolios.

4.1.2. Icons on the overview page

The page and collection information boxes display a number of icons, which are described in more detail here.

4.1.2.1. Share your portfolio with others

If you have not yet shared your portfolio with somebody else, you see the Locked icon .

Ready to share your portfolio with others

Click the Locked icon to start sharing your portfolio.

The icon turns into a downwards facing menu chevron . A drop-down menu opens.

Click the Manage access option to share your portfolio with others on the site. You are taken to the Edit access screen where you can choose with whom to share your portfolio.

Click the Manage secret URLs option to create a secret URL for your portfolio. You are taken to the Secret URLs screen where you can set up one or more secret URLs.

4.1.2.2. Review existing sharing permissions

If you already shared your portfolio with others, you see the Unlocked icon .

Review with whom you already shared your portfolio

Click the Unlocked icon to see with whom you have already shared your portfolio.

The icon turns into a downwards facing menu chevron . A drop-down menu opens.

Click the Manage access option to edit the existing sharing settings for your portfolio. You are taken to the Edit access screen where you can choose with whom to share your portfolio.

Click the Manage secret URLs option to create or edit a secret URL for your portfolio. You are taken to the Secret URLs screen where you can set up one or more secret URLs.

Friends: If you shared your portfolio with all your friends.

Registered users: If you gave all people with an account on your Mahara instance access to your portfolio.

Public: If you made your portfolio available to everyone on the internet.

Name of a person: If you shared your portfolio with a specific person.

Group name (Submitted): If you submitted this portfolio to a group.

Group name (Admin / Members / Tutors): If you shared your portfolio with only a certain type of group members in that group.

Group name: If you shared your portfolio with an entire group.

Institution name: If you shared your portfolio with all people in your institution.

Secret URL: If you set up a secret URL for your portfolio.

The drop-down menu has a scrollbar so you can view all people or groups of people with whom you shared your portfolio.

Note

Start or end dates or whether copying is allowed are not displayed in the drop-down menu. You need to go to the Share screen to see that additional information.

4.1.2.3. Access pages within a collection

You can view how many pages are part of a collection and what their titles are by clicking the Pages icon .

View a list of pages within a collection

Click the Pages icon .

Note

The icon depends on how many pages are in your collection:

0-2: One sheet of paper.

3-10: Two stacked sheets of paper.

11 or more: Three stacked sheets of paper.

The icon turns into a downwards facing menu chevron . A drop-down menu opens.

If you have a SmartEvidence collection, you see that listed first with the SmartEvidence page icon .

All other pages are are listed with the Single page icon .

Click the page you want to view.

4.1.2.4. More options

You can find additional options for pages or collections via the More options icon .

More options for pages and collections

Click the More options icon to see additional editing options.

The icon turns into a downwards facing menu chevron . A drop-down menu opens.

If you view the options for a collection, click Manage to add or remove pages from your collection.

Click Edit to edit the general information of a page or collection such as title, description, and tags.

Click Delete to delete the page or delete the collection.

Note

If you delete a collection, the pages and artefacts within it are not deleted.

Created: The date and time when you set up the page or collection.

Modified: The last time you made a change to the page or collection.

If you submitted a portfolio, you cannot edit or delete the page or collection until it has been released. Therefore, you don’t see those options anymore. However, you see when you submitted the portfolio to which group.

See submitted date and group

4.1.3. Profile page

Your profile page is visible to other users on Mahara by default. If your administrator allowed it, you can also make it visible to everybody on the Internet. In certain circumstances, the site administrator may have allowed restricting access to your profile page to institution members only. In that case, you are able to remove the access for everybody who has an account on Mahara.

Per default only the following information is put onto your profile page:

Your display name (or real name if you do not have a display name)

Your portfolios that are visible to the person viewing your profile page

Your groups

Your wall

Your friends

When other people have access to your profile page, they can perform a number of actions or get in touch with you, depending on their permissions.

Full profile page access

Your display name and profile picture.

An institution or site administrator can click the Log in as [username] button and masquerade as you.

An institution or site administrator can view your basic account settings and make changes if needed by clicking the Account settings button.

If you allowed others to contact you, they can see the Send message button.

If you allowed friend requests, people can click the Request friendship button. Alternatively, if you automatically approve new friends, they see the Add to friends button. And if they don’t want to be your friend any longer, they can click the Remove from friends button.

If the person viewing your profile is a group administrator, they can invite you to one of their groups.

If the person viewing your profile is a group administrator of a controlled group, they can add you to the group immediately.

If you are a member of an institution, the institution name is stated and linked to the institution’s contact page.

Your entire profile page is visible.

If you do not see the full profile of a person, but just “Full access to this profile is restricted”, then you can only perform a few options for this person.

Access to the profile page is restricted

We advise you not to use your profile page as your portfolio because you cannot control who can look at the information you make available on your profile. At minimum it is everybody in your institution or who has an account on Mahara. At maximum it can be everybody online. Always remember to think about your own personal security before releasing contact information on a publicly available page or even just for other Mahara users.

Note

Once you have made your profile page or any portfolio page public, Google and other search engines can index and cache it. Even if you take the public access away at some point, the cached version may still be available online. Pages that are made available via a secret URL are not found by search engines unless you link to them from another page.

Use regular pages to create your portfolio and your profile page as a business card or brief introduction to you without disclosing lots of details.

See also

You can edit your profile page like any other page. You can find more information about editing a page in the page editor.

4.1.4. Add a page

You add a new page in your portfolio when you want to display artefacts together, e.g. for presenting them to others, for showing your progress in a project etc.

Create a portfolio page

On the Pages and collections page, click the Add button. In the modal that comes up, click the Page button. You are taken to the Settings.

Basics: This section includes basic page settings:

Page title

Page description

Tags

Create via tags

Note

If you cannot see these settings options, click the icon to make them visible.

Page title: Provide a title for your page. This field cannot be left empty. If you do not enter a title, the default “Untitled” will appear.

Page description: Write a brief description summarising your objective of this page. It will appear on the page itself.

Tags: Enter tags to find your page more easily at a later stage. You can choose from your existing tags by starting to type a letter and then selecting the tag you want to use. You can also type a new tag, select it, and it is added to your list of tags.

See also

You can find more information on how to use the tag selector in the “Tags” section.

new in Mahara 18.10 Create via tags: You can select one or more tags to populate the page with all artefacts and blocks that have been tagged with them. If you select more than one tag, you only see content that matches all selected tags, i.e. it must match tag one and tag two.

Note

The page is only populated with already existing tagged content. If you tag new artefacts, they will not be added automatically. You will have to add them manually or populate the page again. Only new artefacts will be added.

Once you have added artefacts automatically, you can re-arrange and also remove them as needed. Since there are several possibilities of adding artefacts and blocks to a page, the following content mappings are made when multiple artefacts of the same type are added:

1 image: Image block

2+ images: Image gallery

1 PDF: PDF block

2+ PDFs: Files to download block

1 audio / video: Internal media block (as long as the format is supported)

2+ audio / video: Files to download block

Generic file(s): Files to download block

Folder(s): 1 Folder block per folder

Journal(s): 1 Journal block per journal

Journal entry / entries: Tagged journal entries block

Note(s): 1 Note block per note

Plan / tasks: The entire plan that contains the tagged content

new in Mahara 18.10 Advanced: Click the icon to display all advanced settings options for a page:

Instructions

Page URL

Lock blocks

Name display format

Anonymise

new in Mahara 18.10 Page instructions: Write your instructions for setting up the page in the editor to scaffold the portfolio creation.

Note

The instructions are displayed in both edit and view mode of the page where you can collapse them if you don’t need them.

Page URL: Choose the name for your page if you do not like the default one. It must be 3-30 characters long. You can only use lowercase letters from a-z, numbers and - (hyphen).

Note

If you are just setting up your page, the default URL “untitled v.2” (or similar) is displayed. As soon as you save the page, the URL is changed automatically to reflect your actual page title.

new in Mahara 18.10 Lock blocks: If you set this option to “Yes”, you cannot remove blocks from the page. You can still add new blocks, re-arrange them, but cannot delete any blocks.

Note

This is to prevent accidental deletion of blocks from a page, in particular if it is a template page that people copied into their own account.

Portfolio authors can remove the lock from the blocks through this setting if they wish and delete blocks once they copied the page to their own portfolio area.

Name display format: Choose how you want your name to appear on the page to others.

Anonymise: If the site administrator allowed anonymous pages, you can choose this option here. Instead of your (display) name, “Author’s name hidden” will be displayed to everyone. Administrators and staff can still see your real name.

Layout: Click the icon to display all layout options. You can change the layout to decide the overall distributon of your blocks on the page.

Skins: Click the icon to select a skin for your page.

Click the Save button to save your changes and to continue to the Edit content part.

4.1.5. Edit an existing page

You can edit an existing page in two ways:

Click the Edit button when you are on the Pages overview page.

Click the Edit this page button when you are on the actual page.

See also

You find more information on how to edit artefacts on a portfolio page in the Edit content part.

If the site administrator activated clean URLs, your portfolio pages have human-readable URLs which you can change to a certain extend.

Change the URL for your portfolio page

When you are in the page edit mode, click the Settings button.

Page URL: Choose the name for your page if you do not like the default one. It must be 3-30 characters long. You can only use lowercase letters from a-z, numbers and - (hyphen).

Click the Save button at the bottom of the page.

Warning

Though you can change the URL to your page at any point, you shouldn’t do that because people who already know the URL to your page will not be able to access it anymore after you have changed it.

The original, internal Mahara URL, e.g. https://mahara-university.org/view/view.php?id=789 will still work.

4.1.6. Add a collection

If you want to organize your portfolio into multiple pages so as to find individual sections more easily, you can create a collection that holds multiple pages.

Create a collection

On the Pages and collections page, click the Add button. In the modal that comes up, click the Collection button. On the next screen…

Collection name: Provide a title for your collection.

Collection description: Optionally, you can write a short description about your collection. You do not have a visual editor, but just a plain text box.

Tags: Enter tags to find your collection more easily at a later stage. You can choose from your existing tags by starting to type a letter and then selecting the tag you want to use. You can also type a new tag, and it is added to your list of tags.

Page navigation bar: Choose whether you wish to display a tabbed navigation or not. If you choose not to, you will have to include the navigation block for you to go from one page to the next on the individual pages that belong to this collection.

SmartEvidence framework: Select the framework that you want to associate with your collection. You can change the collection as long as you have not put an annotation onto a page within the collection.

Note

This functionality is available if your institution administrator allowed the use of SmartEvidence.

Click the Next: Edit collection pages button or click Cancel if you want to abort adding your collection.

4.1.7. Add pages to a collection

In the next step after you have created your collection, you choose which portfolio pages you wish to include in this collection. You see all the potential pages that you can use. If you had already placed a page into another collection, it is not shown here.

Add pages to a collection

On Main menu → Create → Pages and collections, click the More options icon for the collection and then the Manage icon . On the next screen…

Put a check mark next to each page that you wish to include in your collection.

Alternatively, you can click the All link to add all pages available to the collection or the None link to revert your selection.

Click the Add pages button to add the pages to your collection.

If you do not wish to click all pages, you can also drag and drop them into the collection by clicking their title and dragging them to the area Pages already in collection.

A dotted line shows you where you can drag your page so you can already drag the pages into the collection in the order that you prefer.

Click the Done button to finish this step.

4.1.8. Manage pages in a collection

Once you have added your pages to your collection. You can move them around or remove them.

Manage the pages that are displayed within your collection

If you are not already in the page management, click the More options icon for the collection and then the Manage icon . On the next screen…

Use the Move up and Move down buttons to arrange your pages in a different order. Alternatively, you can drag and drop the pages within the list.

Click the Remove icon to take a page out of a collection. The page itself is not deleted.

Put a check mark next to each page that you wish to include in your collection in addition to the ones already in it.

Click the Add pages button to add the pages to your collection and then move them around with the Move up and Move down buttons. Alternatively, you can drag and drop the pages to the position where you would like to have them in the list.

Click the Done button.

When you add pages to your collection that have different access permissions than the collection has, the page’s access permissions get added to the collection and the page is available under the same access permissions as the entire collection because it is part of the collection.

Notice about changes in permissions

If there is a change in access permissions, a warning will be displayed so that you are informed that changes have taken place.

View your collection by clicking on the collection title or any page that is part of your collection.

Note

On a mobile device, you can swipe left and right to navigate through a collection when it has the page navigation bar.

A collection with the page navigation bar

Title of the collection.

Drop-down menu: Select the page to which you want to jump within the collection.

Previous page button to navigate to the previous page.

Next page button to navigate to the next page.

Title of the page you are currently viewing.

4.1.9. Copy a portfolio

You can copy a portfolio by:

Clicking the Copy button when you view a portfolio and are allowed to copy it.

Searching for it.

4.1.9.1. Copy a portfolio directly from its location

You can copy a page or collection directly when you view it by clicking the Copy button when you see it. The button is displayed on your own pages and collections as well as on pages and collections owned by others when you have the permission to copy them.

Copy a page or collection

Click the Copy button when you want to copy a page or collection that you can duplicate.

If the page is part of a collection, you need to decide in the pop-up window whether you want to copy the entire collection by clicking the Collection button…

Or just the page that you can see currently by clicking the Page button.

Edit the page or collection as you would do any other.

Note

When you allow copying on public portfolios or portfolios shared via a secret URL, people who are not logged into Mahara can download the portfolio as a Leap2A export.

4.1.9.2. Copy a portfolio by searching for it

You can duplicate your own pages or pages of other users if they allowed you to do that.

Copy a portfolio

Click the Copy button under Main menu → Create → Pages and collections. On the next screen…

Search: If there are many pages or collections from which you can choose, search here for a keyword in the page or collection title or for the name of the page owner.

Collection title: Click on the title of a collection to preview it before copying it.

Note

Results are listed alphabetically according to their collection title.

Page name: Click on the title of the page to see a preview of it before you copy it.

Owner: Click on the name of the owner to view a larger profile picture and the self description if the owner provided one or to see information about a group it that is the owner.

Note

Click the Copy page button to copy one page only into your own portfolio or

Click the Copy collection button to copy an entire collection with multiple pages into your portfolio. All pages within this collection are copied.

You can navigate through the list of pages and collections to which you have access.

You see the total number of pages you can copy.

Results per page: Use this drop-down menu to change how many results you want to see per result page.

Edit the portfolio.

Note

If your copied pages and collections start with “Copy of”, the site administrator decided to have copies renamed.

4.1.10. View a page

You can view a page to check what it looks like when somebody else sees it. Go to the Pages and collections overview page and click on the title of a page.

An example portfolio page.

Title of the portfolio page.

Author of the portfolio page.

Tags which you provided for your page.

Description of the page.

The Edit this page button Edit this page is only visible if you are the page owner or belong to a group of users who can make changes to the page if it is in a group, institution or site level.

The Copy button Copy is visible when you can copy the page or collection that you are viewing. You see it on your own pages as well as pages of others.

Click the More options button to reach lesser used functionality on a page.

Note

On your own pages you can:

Click the Print link to open the print dialogue. Using this print functionality, your portfolio pages are printed in the current layout, with collapsed blocks or artefacts uncollapsed so you can see their content easily. Note: Links are not yet active and linked files or embedded media are not accessible.

Click the Delete link to delete your page.

new in Mahara 18.10 Click the Timeline link to view previous versions of your portfolio. This icon is only visible when you saved your page to your timeline.

new in Mahara 18.10 Click the Save to timeline link when you want to save a particular state of your page to your timeline so you can go back to it later and compare it to your current state. The comparison would be manual.

As someone viewing another person’s portfolio, you can:

Add or remove a page from your watchlist: Click the Add page to watchlist link if you want to be informed when changes are made to the page. When you make changes to the page or a block on the page, a notification is triggered and sent to anyone who is watching the page. This is also the case when you add a new journal entry to a journal that is displayed on your page even when you do not add the entry via the page. If you no longer wish to receive these notifications, remove the page from your watchlist by clicking the link Remove page from watchlist.

Report objectionable content for this page: If a page contains offensive artefacts, you can report them to the administrator and provide an explanation why you think the content is offensive. Once you have reported the material, you see Objectionable material reported instead of Report objectionable material.

new in Mahara 18.10 Click the Timeline link if you want to view an older version of the page.

The artefacts that you placed in the page.

Click the Add a comment link Add comment to be taken to the Details page for this artefact to leave a comment.

Click the Details icon Details to be taken to the Details page for this artefact if there is one.

If you belong to a group which allows the submission of pages for feedback / assessment, you see the group displayed here or can choose it from the drop-down menu and can submit your page directly from here. For more information see the section on feedback for assessment.

Comments from users is displayed at the bottom of the page unless you display it with the comments block elsewhere on the page. Each comment includes:

Profile picture and name of the commentator that are linked to the profile page.

The comment itself.

The creation date of the comment and potentially the last update date and time of the comment.

Comment rating.

Any attachments.

A note if the comment is private only to the commentator and the portfolio page author.

Note

For more information on giving and receiving comments, please see section Feedback.

The total number of comments is displayed.

You and others can use the Add comment section to leave comments on the page.

See also

Please refer to the section on making comments to see how that can be done.

Display the last update date and time of the page.

View how many times your page was accessed.

4.1.11. Give others access to your portfolio

See also

Please refer to the section on sharing your pages and collections for further information.

4.1.12. Delete a portfolio

You can delete a portfolio at any time unless it has been submitted for feedback.

Warning

When you delete a page, text blocks and external content blocks are completely deleted. You cannot recover them. There is no revision history. All other artefacts are not deleted because they reside in your Content area.

When you delete a collection, the pages and artefacts within it are not deleted.

If you are allowed to delete a page, you see the Delete this page option in the More options button when you view your page directly.

Click the “More options” button to find the “Delete” option

If you want to delete an entire collection, you can do so on Main menu → Create → Pages and collections by clicking the More options icon and then the Delete icon .

Delete a collection

When you attempt to delete a page or collection, you get the chance to export the portfolio first so that you can make an archive. If your page is part of a collection, the warning message also contains the title and a link to the collection for you to check whether you really want to delete the page and thus make changes to your collection.

Warning when you attempt to delete a page that is in a collection

The title of the portfolio you are about to delete is displayed so you can double-check it is the correct one.

An explicit warning about the deleting of the portfolio is displayed. Deletion cannot be undone.

If you delete a page that is part of a collection, the collection is linked so you can view your collection and double-check deleting of the page is OK.

If you want to continue deleting your portfolio, you may want to export it first so you have a copy in case you do need it later again. Click the export link to be taken to the options for the export.

Note

We recommend you export your portfolio in both HTML and Leap2A formats so that you can view them without the need of Mahara (HTML) or can import them back into the same or another Mahara instance or another portfolio software that supports the Leap2A format.

Click the Yes button if you want to continue with the portfolio deletion or the No button if you want to keep it.

4.1.13. new in Mahara 18.10 Timeline of a page’s development

Warning

This feature is experimental.

Portfolios often show progress over time. However, what did a particular portfolio page look like at the start of the development process, a month ago or two days ago? The timeline makes those changes over time visible and allows the viewer to go back in time and look at an old version of the portfolio page.

Note

Versions are not saved to the timeline automatically so as not to overload it with tiny changes in rapid succession. You can decide when you want to save a version of your portfolio to your timeline.

Jump between old versions of a portfolio

After you clicked the Timeline link on a page that has a timeline, you can see the page title.

The word “Timeline” indicates that you are in the timeline view of the page.

You can always return to the live view of the page by clicking the Display page link.

From: Choose a starting date for the first version that you want to see.

To: Choose an end date. The default date is the one is tomorrow’s date so that any version saved to the timeline today are still displayed.

If there is no previous version, the Previous version button is greyed out .

The dates for which timeline versions are available.

The date of the active version that you are viewing is highlighted.

Click the Next version button to scroll to later versions of the page.

The page title is shown.

The date and time when the version was saved is displayed.

The version number is shown.

Click the Go to the previous version button to go to the previous version of the portfolio.

Click the Go to the next version button to advance to the next version.

The content of the page is displayed as it appeared in that version.

4.2. Page editor

The page editor is important in Mahara because it allows you to compose your portfolio pages. It consists of a large number of components:

Editor navigation

Content chooser

Page layout area

4.2.1. Editor navigation

Page editor navigation bar

Display page: Preview your page to see how others, who have access to it, would see it. You can also use the Display page button Display page at the bottom of the page.

Edit: Place your content on a page. See content chooser, individual content blocks and page layout area.

Settings: Add and modify page settings like title and description, layout, and skin.

Share: Decide who shall have access to your page (or collection if the page is part of one). See “Edit access” for more details.

4.2.2. Edit layout

The layout editor is very flexible and allows you to design your layout not only in columns but also in rows. You can decide how many columns each row shall have and how each row shall differ.

Note

Be careful when choosing 4 or more columns. Your portfolio page may look very good on your big 21” screen, but a user looking at it on a notebook or tablet may not have the same experience. In most cases, up to 3 columns is the best choice.

4.2.2.1. Choose a basic layout

Edit the overall layout of a page by choosing the number of columns and rows

Click the Settings button.

Note

When you work on a small screen, the text on the button is removed and you only see the icon.

Layout: Click the icon in the Layout panel and the panel content will be visible. If you want to close the panel, click the icon. You can change the layout at any time. When you reduce the number of columns, your blocks simply move to the first column. You can then move them around to their correct position (see page layout area).

Click the radio button below a layout that you want to use.

Create custom layout: If you don’t like any of the built-in layouts, you can create your own in this section.

Click the Save button to save your layout choice.

Note

You can add or remove columns directly in the page layout area when you enable the Show controls to add and remove columns when editing a page setting in your account options.

You can use the Add and Remove buttons for quick changes to the layout when you have enabled them.

4.2.2.2. Create a custom layout

You can set up your own custom layout under Create custom layout where you can be more precise in how many rows and what sort of column width you’d like to have.

Custom layout options

Click the Settings button.

Layout: Click the icon in the Layout panel and the panel content will be visible. If you want to close the panel, click the icon. In the Create custom layout section…

Number of columns: Choose the number of columns that you want to display in a particular row. You can choose up to 5 columns.

Column layout: Choose the percentages for the distribution of your columns in the row that you are editing.

Click the Add a row button to add more rows with a different column layout. You can create up to new in Mahara 18.10 20 rows.

Click the Demove this row button to remove a row if you do not want it in your layout anymore.

Layout preview: You can see what your layout is going to look like.

Click the Create new layout button to generate your new page layout. You can use it in all your pages.

Click the Save button to return to the content editor.

Note

You can add more than one block to a row. The blocks will then be placed underneath each other in the column that you have chosen. If you wish to change the block layout, you can always add another row that has the same or a different column distribution.

4.2.3. Content chooser

All different types of content as well as blocks that pull in external content into a portfolio page are accessible via the content chooser.

The content chooser is available on the left-hand side of a page when you are in the edit mode. It does not scroll. Thus, it makes it easy to add content items also further down on the page.

All content items are accessible in the content chooser

You can select the Text or the Image block directly as these are two of the more frequently used content items.

Note

You may see additional or different blocks in this list of frequently used content items as it is up to the administrator of the site that you use which blocks to display here. There is an API [https://reviews.mahara.org/#/c/3943/] available to make adding different items easier.

You can access all other content items via the individual panels:

Media: holds blocks for files that can be displayed as links, in folders or in the case of images and videos directly in the page

Journals: various content blocks which allow you to place journals / journal entries into a page

General: content items that are of a general nature

Personal info: choose profile information or your résumé to display in a block

External: contains blocks to place RSS feeds, external media or GoogleApps documents etc. into a page

See also

The functionality of each block that you can use in your portfolio pages and in group pages is outlined in the section on the individual artefact blocks.

Theme: You may be able to choose a theme for your portfolio page. If that is the case, you see the Theme drop-down menu. That allows you to select a theme in which that page is displayed to others who view your portfolio page.

See also

The site administrator must allow page themes in the site’s user settings for this option to be available.

Click the Block help icon to be taken to the user manual’s block section for the version of Mahara that you are using.

Click the arrow pointing to the left to reduce the size of the content chooser. Only the icons will be displayed giving you more space on a page.

Click the arrow pointing to the right to show the block descriptions in the content chooser.

Note

The content chooser is displayed per default only with its icons shown on small devices to maximize the screen size that is available to edit a page.

4.2.4. Page layout area

The page layout area is the place where you arrange all your content items for display in a portfolio page. You should know the following about this area:

All content is placed into it by dragging and dropping blocks into this space.

Note

If you use only a keyboard to navigate Mahara, you can place blocks using that.

The content is arranged as a series of continuous blocks per column. You can also align it vertically in rows if you wish.

You can re-arrange blocks by clicking their headings and dragging and dropping them.

You can change the settings of a block by clicking its Configure button .

Changes to the layout and arrangment of blocks are saved automatically. As soon as you made saved changes inside blocks, they are also visible to any visitor of your page.

Drag a block into the page layout area and configure its settings

Click on the block of the content item that you want to include in your page and drag it into the page layout area.

Note

If you navigate the site with a keyboard or long-click on the block, you see a pop-up modal in which you can choose the position of the block.

When you see the dotted rectangle, drop the block into it to put it onto your page.

Follow the on-screen instructions on choosing the specific content item you wish to display. Please refer to the content block section for more information on each block’s settings.

See also

Please refer to the section edit layout to learn how to change the number of columns and rows on a page and make certain columns wider than others.

Click the Display page button to view your page without the editing tools.

Click the Return to pages and collections button to go back to the overview page for your portfolios.

4.2.5. Edit access

The Edit access screen is displayed for the selected page. You can only select the sharing options for the page that you are editing (and the collection if the page is in a collection).

You can set a secret URL immediately rather than having to provide a secret URL separately from the other sharing options.

Edit access for the page you are editing

Click the Share button.

Secret URLs: Give your page a secret URL. For all available options, check out how to set up a secret URL.

Share with others: You can share your page with people who have an account on the site.

4.3. Blocks

Blocks for internal and external artefacts are used to compose portfolio pages and group pages. There is a large number of blocks available in Mahara. More can be used when plugins [https://wiki.mahara.org/wiki/Plugins] are installed.

Content of blocks can be shown on a page immediately, or just the block’s heading can be displayed. The retractable blocks allow you to be more flexible in what you want to show immediately on a page.

Note

If you choose not to give a block a title, you cannot retract that block as there would be no place to unretract it.

When you started editing information in a block and you navigate away from it accidentally without having saved your block, you are being asked whether you wish to stay on the page or leave the page.

This does not only apply to editing of blocks, but also pages.

4.3.1. Files, images and video

4.3.1.1. Embedded media

4.3.1.2. File(s) to download

4.3.1.3. Folder

4.3.1.4. Image

4.3.1.5. Image gallery

4.3.1.5.1. Image gallery with uploaded images

4.3.1.5.2. Image gallery from external images

4.3.1.6. PDF

4.3.1.7. Some HTML

4.3.2. Journals

4.3.2.1. Journal

4.3.2.2. Journal entry

4.3.2.3. Recent journal entries

4.3.2.4. Tagged journal entries

4.3.2.4.1. Add new tagged journal entries directly from a page

4.3.2.4.2. Select tags to include or exclude

4.3.2.4.3. Know which tags to include and exclude

4.3.3. General

4.3.3.1. Annotation

4.3.3.1.1. Write an annotation

4.3.3.1.2. Respond to an annotation on the SmartEvidence map

4.3.3.1.3. Respond to an annotation on a page

4.3.3.1.4. Delete an annotation

4.3.3.2. Comments

4.3.3.3. Creative Commons license

4.3.3.4. Group info

4.3.3.5. Group members

4.3.3.6. Group portfolios

4.3.3.7. Inbox

4.3.3.8. Latest changes I can view

4.3.3.9. Navigation

4.3.3.10. Note

4.3.3.10.1. Add a new note

4.3.3.10.2. Add an image into a note

4.3.3.10.3. Attach a file to a note

4.3.3.10.4. Re-use text from an existing note

4.3.3.11. Peer assessment

4.3.3.11.1. Add the peer assessment block to a page

4.3.3.11.2. Set up a peer assessor

4.3.3.11.3. Add a peer assessment

4.3.3.11.4. View a peer assessment

4.3.3.12. Plans

4.3.3.13. Recent forum posts

4.3.3.14. Sign-off

4.3.3.14.1. Set up a page for sign-off and verification

4.3.3.14.2. Set up a manager for verification

4.3.3.14.3. Sign off a page

4.3.3.14.4. Verify a page

4.3.3.15. Text

4.3.3.16. Watched pages

4.3.3.16.1. Pages on my watchlist

4.3.3.16.2. Activities of my friends

4.3.4. Personal info

4.3.4.1. My friends

4.3.4.2. My groups

4.3.4.3. My portfolios

4.3.4.4. Profile information

4.3.4.5. Social media

4.3.4.6. Wall

4.3.4.7. Résumé

4.3.4.7.1. My entire résumé

4.3.4.7.2. One résumé field

4.3.5. External content

4.3.5.1. External feed

4.3.5.2. External media

4.3.5.3. Google Apps

4.3.5.4. Badges

4.3.5.4.1. Configure the block

4.3.5.4.2. Create a collection of badges in the Mozilla Backpack

4.3.6. Blocks in various pages

4.3.6.1. Files, images and video

4.3.6.2. Journals

4.3.6.3. General

4.3.6.4. Personal info

4.3.6.5. External content

4.3.1. Files, images and video

These artefacts are internal Mahara ones to display:

links to files that you have uploaded

folders that contain files

show images

embed audio and video files

If you are on a mobile device and select to upload a file, you can take a photo or make a video or audio recording (Android only for audio) directly.

4.3.1.1. Embedded media

Display an embedded video or audio file from your uploaded files. Mahara comes with the Video.js [https://videojs.com/] media player that allows for the display of a number of file formats without having another player installed on the device.

Note

The site administrator must allow media formats. Some of them can be displayed directly within Mahara while others need additional software installed on a device. See the list of allowed media formats.

Videos placed onto a page in this block scale to the width of their column. They also scale automatically when your browser space gets smaller.

Configure the Embedded media block

Block title: Choose a title for your block.

Files area: Choose from which files area you would like to select a media file:

My files: You see all the folders and files that you have created.

Group files: You see all the folders and files that you are allowed to publish.

Institution files: If you are an institution administrator, you will see institution folders and files.

Site files: If you are a site administrator, you will see all site folders and files. Otherwise, you can only see the ones that are in the folder public in the Site files.

License information: You see these fields if the site administrator turned on license metadata. Additionally, if you are in an institution, your institution administrator may require you to provide a license.

License: Your default license is displayed. You can set your default license in your account settings. You may choose a different license for each individual artefact.

Licensor: If you are uploading a file that somebody else created, you can attribute the work to them here and provide their name for example.

Original URL: If you are uploading somebody else’s file, provide a link to the original Internet address so that others can go there and view the original file.

File: You do not have to go back to your Files area in Content in order to upload a file. You can do so directly from this screen.

Folder path: The breadcrumbs show in which folder you are currently.

Click the Edit button to change any component of a folder or file, i.e. its name, description and tags. If you have a folder or file included in a page that you submitted for feedback, you will not be able to edit them.

Note

You can still select files that have been submitted in another portfolio page.

Click into the row that contains the file you wish to display in the block to select it or click the Select button .

Warning

When you place group, institution or site files into a page, beware that these files may not be available at some point anymore when the person in charge deletes them.

Click Remove if you want to revert your selection.

Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:

No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.

Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .

Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon to view its content.

Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

You can also click the Close button in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

Note

Only the files that you are allowed to embed are displayed. If you uploaded a mp4 file but it does not show here, you may have to check if it has the correct codec. Only H.264 mp4 files can be embedded.

iOS devices can even be trickier as these devices may only recognize the MPEG4 “Baseline” profile rather than the “High” profile. You can read the Apple specifications [https://developer.apple.com/library/iad/documentation/AudioVideo/Conceptual/Using_HTML5_Audio_Video/Device-SpecificConsiderations/Device-SpecificConsiderations.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40009523-CH5-SW1] and convert a video if needed using Handbrake [https://handbrake.fr/downloads.php]. Newer iOS devices (from the iPhone 5S on) should play “High” profile videos.

4.3.1.2. File(s) to download

Select files that viewers of your portfolio can download.

Configure the File(s) to download block

Block title: Choose a title for your files block.

Files area: Choose from which files area you would like to select a file:

My files: You see all the folders and files that you have created.

Group files: You see all the folders and files that you are allowed to publish.

Institution files: If you are an institution administrator, you will see institution folders and files.

Site files: If you are a site administrator, you will see all site folders and files. Otherwise, you can only see the ones that are in the folder public in the Site files.

License information: You see these fields if the site administrator turned on license metadata. Additionally, if you are in an institution, your institution administrator may require you to provide a license.

License: Your default license is displayed. You can set your default license in your account settings. You may choose a different license for each individual artefact.

Licensor: If you are uploading a file that somebody else created, you can attribute the work to them here and provide their name for example.

Original URL: If you are uploading somebody else’s file, provide a link to the original Internet address so that others can go there and view the original file.

If the site administrator turned on the image resizing option, you can decide whether you want to have your images resized if they are larger than the specified dimensions. This option is recommended to save space in your portfolio.

File: You do not have to go back to your Files area in Content in order to upload a file. You can do so directly from this screen.

Folder path: The breadcrumbs show in which folder you are currently.

Click the Edit button to change any component of a folder or file, i.e. its name, description and tags. If you have a folder or file included in a page that you submitted for feedback, you will not be able to edit them.

Note

You can still select files that have been submitted in another portfolio page.

Click into the row that contains the file you wish to display in the block to select it or click the Select button .

Warning

When you place group, institution or site files into a page, beware that these files may not be available at some point anymore when the person in charge deletes them.

Click Remove if you want to revert your selection.

Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:

No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.

Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .

Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon to view its content.

Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

You can also click the Close button in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

Note

You cannot re-order files once you have selected them. You would need to remove them and select them again in the correct order.

When the block is placed on the portfolio page, you can view more information or download the files.

file name

file description

size

upload date

a link to more details

Details about files that can be downloaded.

View information about the file:

file name

file description

size

upload date

Click the file name to be taken to the details page for this file.

Hover over a file and click anywhere into the row or on the download icon to download the file.

When you click the file name, you are taken to the details page for that particular file and see some more metadata.

More details about a file that can be downloaded.

The name of the file is displayed.

The title of the page in which the artefact appears is linked.

The author of the page is displayed and a link to the profile page provided.

Additional metadata is displayed for the file:

file type

description

tags

owner

creation date

last modified date

size

license (if license information is turned on by the site administrator)

Click the Download button to download the file to your computer.

If the owner of the file allowed comments, you can comment directly on the file.

Click the button with the three dots to reach lesser used functionality:

Add the page that contains the file to your watchlist or remove it.

Report the file as containing objectionable content.

4.3.1.3. Folder

Select a folder to display all files within it as links on your page.

Configure the Folder block

Block title: If you do not set a title, the name of the folder that you choose to display will be used.

Files area: Choose from which files area you would like to select a folder:

My files: You see all the folders and files that you have created.

Group files: You see all the folders and files that you are allowed to publish.

Institution files: If you are an institution administrator, you will see institution folders and files.

Site files: If you are a site administrator, you will see all site folders and files. Otherwise, you can only see the ones that are in the folder public in the Site files.

Folder path: The breadcrumbs show in which folder you are currently.

Click the Expand icon if you want to reach a sub folder.

You can edit any component of the folder, i.e. its name, description and tags by clicking the Edit button .

Click into the row that contains the folder you wish to display in the block to select it or click the Select button .

Note

You can also still select folders that have been submitted in another portfolio page.

Click Remove if you wish to revert your choice.

Sort order of files: Decide on the sort order of files in the block when they are displayed on the page. You can choose between:

Ascending

Descending

See also

Site administrators decide on the default sort order of content within folder in the Blocktype: File / folder settings.

Show download link: Switch this option to “Yes” if you wish to allow the viewers of your page to download the folder contents as zip file.

See also

Site administrators decide in the Blocktype: File / folder settings whether users are allowed to display the download link or not.

Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:

No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.

Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .

Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon to view its content.

Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

You can also click the Close button in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

Warning

When you place a folder with group, institution or site files into a page, beware that these files may not be available at some point anymore when the person in charge deletes them.

You can see information about the folder as well as the files contained within it when the block is placed on a page.

“Folder” block on a page

Block title.

Click the file name to be taken to the details page for this file.

Hover over the file and click anywhere into the row or on the Download icon to download the file.

Click the Download folder content as zip file to download all files in one go to your computer.

Click the Details link Details to be taken to the details page for the block.

On the details page for the Folder block you see the following.

Details page of a “Folder” block

Block title.

The title of the page in which the block appears is linked.

The author of the page is displayed and a link to the profile page provided.

Click the file name to be taken to the details page for this file.

Hover over the file and click anywhere into the row or on the Download icon to download the file.

Click the Download folder content as zip file to download all files in one go to your computer.

Click the button with the three dots to reach lesser used functionality:

Add the page that contains the file to your watchlist or remove it.

Report the file as containing objectionable content.

When you clicked on a file, you are taken to that file’s details page. You always see which folder contains the file.

Details page of a file within a “Folder” block

4.3.1.4. Image

Display a single image in a block.

Note

In a default Mahara instance, this block is available in the content chooser at the top together with the simple Text block. It does not appear in the section Media as well.

Configure the Image block

Block title: Choose a title for your block.

Files area: Choose from which files area you would like to select an image:

My files: You see all the folders and files that you have created.

Group files: You see all the folders and files that you are allowed to publish.

Institution files: If you are an institution administrator, you will see institution folders and files.

Site files: If you are a site administrator, you will see all site folders and files. Otherwise, you can only see the ones that are in the folder public in the Site files.

License information: You see these fields if the site administrator turned on license metadata. Additionally, if you are in an institution, your institution administrator may require you to provide a license.

License: Your default license is displayed. You can set your default license in your account settings. You may choose a different license for each individual artefact.

Licensor: If you are uploading a file that somebody else created, you can attribute the work to them here and provide their name for example.

Original URL: If you are uploading somebody else’s file, provide a link to the original Internet address so that others can go there and view the original file.

If the site administrator turned on the image resizing option, you can decide whether you want to have your images resized if they are larger than the specified dimensions. This option is recommended to save space in your portfolio.

File: You do not have to go back to your Files area in Content in order to upload a file. You can do so directly from this screen.

Folder path: The breadcrumbs show in which folder you are currently.

Click into the row that contains the file you wish to display in the block to select it or click the Select button . You only see image files that you are allowed to use in the block.

Warning

When you place group, institution or site files into a page, beware that these files may not be available at some point anymore when the person in charge deletes them.

Click the Edit button to change any component of a folder or file, i.e. its name, description, rotation, and tags. If you have a folder or file included in a page that you submitted for feedback, you will not be able to edit them.

Note

You can still select files that have been submitted in another portfolio page.

If you rotate an image via this dialogue, it will be rotated in all other places where it is used as well.

Click Remove if you want to revert your selection.

Show description: Set the switch to “Yes” if you wish to display the description of your photo. It could contain the source of it for example.

Width: Choose the width (in pixels) for your image. If you do not provide a number, the image will be scaled to the width of the block.

Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:

No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.

Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .

Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon to view its content.

Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

You can also click the Close button in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

4.3.1.5. Image gallery

Select a folder with images or individual images to show in a gallery or embed an external image gallery.

4.3.1.5.1. Image gallery with uploaded images

Configure the Image gallery block with internal images

Block title: Choose a title for your image gallery block.

Image selection: You can choose to display all images from a specific folder or you can select the images individually. See embedding images from an external gallery for that option.

Note

If you choose to display an image gallery based on a folder and you rename images within that folder, they will be reordered accordingly.

Files area: Choose from which files area you would like to select an image:

My files: You see all the folders and files that you have created.

Group files: You see all the folders and files that you are allowed to publish.

Institution files: If you are an institution administrator, you will see institution folders and files.

Site files: If you are a site administrator, you will see all site folders and files. Otherwise, you can only see the ones that are in the folder public in the Site files.

Folder path: The breadcrumbs show in which folder you are currently.

Click the Expand icon if you want to reach a sub folder.

Click the Edit button to change any component of the folder, i.e. its name, description and tags. If you have a folder or file included in a page that you submitted for feedback, you will not be able to edit the file.

Click into the row that contains the folder or image you wish to display in the block to select it or click the Select button . You only see image files that are allowed to be used in the block. You can also still select folders or files that have been submitted in another portfolio page.

Note

If you selected to display an entire folder in your image gallery, new images that you upload to that folder are added to your gallery automatically.

Click Remove if you want to revert your selection.

Style: Decide to show all selected images as thumbnails or as slideshow where you only see one image at a time. If you select the option “Thumbnails (square)”, all your images will be displayed in the same size as thumbnails.

Note

If you select to display your images in a slideshow, you can navigate all images with the help of the icons Next and Previous . Use the icons First and Last to start or end your slideshow.

Show descriptions: Turn this option on if you want to display the image descriptions in the gallery.

Use photo frame: Using this option will put a frame around each photo.

Width: Specify the width (in pixels) for your images. The images are scaled to this width.

Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:

No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.

Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .

Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon to view its content.

Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

You can also click the Close button in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

Warning

When you place group, institution or site files into a page, beware that these files may not be available at some point anymore when the person in charge deletes them.

4.3.1.5.2. Image gallery from external images

Configure the Image gallery block with external images

Block title: Choose a title for your image gallery block.

Image selection: Select the option “Display images from external gallery”.

Gallery URL or RSS: Copy the link to the external gallery and past it into the text box. You can embed the following external galleries:

Flickr, e.g. https://www.flickr.com/photos/12345678@N01/sets/98765432123456789/

Photobucket, e.g. http://s1234.photobucket.com/albums/ee123/username/ or http://s1234.photobucket.com/albums/ee123/username/AlbumName/

Picasa, e.g. http://picasaweb.google.com/user.name/AlbumName#

Windows Live Photo Gallery, e.g. http://cid-123456ab7890cd12.photos.live.com/self.aspx/AlbumName/photo.jpg

Note

To use Flickr, the site administrator has to provide a valid API key.

To use Photobucket, the site administrator has to provide a valid API key and a secret API key.

For Windows Live Photo Gallery to work properly, the link to one of the photos inside the album must be copied and pasted into the text box in order to show the entire album.

new in Mahara 18.10 Panoramio was discontinued and thus removed from Mahara.

Style: Decide to show all selected images as thumbnails or as slideshow where you only see one image at a time. If you select the option “Thumbnails (square)”, all your images will be displayed in the same size as thumbnails.

Show descriptions: Turn this option on if you want to display the image descriptions in the gallery.

Use photo frame: Using this option will put a frame around each photo.

Width: Specify the width (in pixels) for your images. The images are scaled to this width.

Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:

No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.

Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .

Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon to view its content.

Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

You can also click the Close button in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

4.3.1.6. PDF

Embed PDFs into a page.

Configure the PDF block

Block title: Choose a title for your PDF block.

Files area: Choose from which files area you would like to select a file:

My files: You see all the folders and files that you have created.

Group files: You see all the folders and files that you are allowed to publish.

Institution files: If you are an institution administrator, you will see institution folders and files.

Site files: If you are a site administrator, you will see all site folders and files. Otherwise, you can only see the ones that are in the folder public in the Site files.

License information: You see these fields if the site administrator turned on license metadata. Additionally, if you are in an institution, your institution administrator may require you to provide a license.

License: Your default license is displayed. You can set your default license in your account settings. You may choose a different license for each individual artefact.

Licensor: If you are uploading a file that somebody else created, you can attribute the work to them here and provide their name for example.

Original URL: If you are uploading somebody else’s file, provide a link to the original Internet address so that others can go there and view the original file.

File: You do not have to go back to your Files area in Content in order to upload a file. You can do so directly from this screen.

Folder path: The breadcrumbs show in which folder you are currently.

Click the Expand icon if you want to reach a sub folder.

Click the Edit button to change any component of a folder or file, i.e. its name, description and tags. If you have a folder or file included in a page that you submitted for feedback, you will not be able to edit them.

Note

You can still select files that have been submitted in another portfolio page.

Click into the row that contains the file you wish to display in the block to select it. You only see PDF files.

Warning

When you place group, institution or site files into a page, beware that these files may not be available at some point anymore when the person in charge deletes them.

Click Remove if you want to revert your selection.

Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:

No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.

Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .

Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon to view its content.

Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

You can also click the Close button in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

Once the PDF is embedded on a page, you can scroll through it and also download it for example. The PDF is displayed in its best possible fit to show one page completely.

Embedded PDF on a page

Title of the block.

Toggle to the sidebar where you can jump from one page to another either in the thumbnail or document outline view.

Click the Search icon to search within the document.

You can move to the previous or next page using the Arrow icons.

The number of the current page is displayed. You can put a different number in and hit the Enter or Tab key and jump to that directly.

The total number of pages is shown.

Decrease the page size by clicking the Minus, or increase the page size by clicking the Plus. The block size does not increase.

Use the Automatic zoom drop-down menu to choose a different zoom size instead of using the Plus and Minus buttons.

Click the Print icon pdf print to print the PDF.

Click the Download icon pdf download to download the PDF to your computer. The suggested file name is the one the file has on the site.

Click the Tools icon pdf tools to see more options available for this PDF.

Use the scrollbar to move through the document.

Click the Details link Details to be taken to the details page for the block.

See also

If you have trouble embedding a PDF file, you might have come across an issue that others have also experienced [https://mahara.org/interaction/forum/topic.php?id=5855]. The mimetype of the PDF may not be recognized correctly. The correct “mimetype” is “pdf”, but programmes can circumvent using this mimetype for PDFs to ensure that their file is downloaded instead of viewed in the browser for example. There is not an easy fix to this issue, and the discussion of possible solutions has started [https://bugs.launchpad.net/mahara/+bug/1249166].

In the meantime, you can delete the incorrect mimetypes from your browser and ensure that only “PDF” is left.

Follow these steps to delete the incorrect mimetypes:

Close Firefox.

Locate your profile folder [http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox#Finding_the_profile_folder].

Open the mimeTypes.rdf file in a text editor.

Search for pdf.

Leave only the entry that is application/pdf.

Delete all other PDF references by deleting everything for that entry from <RDF:Description ...> to </RDF:Description>.

Open Firefox and go to Preferences → Applications.

Search for pdf. You should now only see one entry that reads “Portable Document Format (PDF)”.

4.3.1.7. Some HTML

Display the content of an HTML file in a page.

Configure the HTML block

Block title: Choose a title for your block.

Files area: Choose from which files area you would like to select an HTML file:

My files: You see all the folders and files that you have created.

Group files: You see all the folders and files that you are allowed to publish.

Institution files: If you are an institution administrator, you will see institution folders and files.

Site files: If you are a site administrator, you will see all site folders and files. Otherwise, you can only see the ones that are in the folder public in the Site files.

License information: You see these fields if the site administrator turned on license metadata. Additionally, if you are in an institution, your institution administrator may require you to provide a license.

License: Your default license is displayed. You can set your default license in your account settings. You may choose a different license for each individual artefact.

Licensor: If you are uploading a file that somebody else created, you can attribute the work to them here and provide their name for example.

Original URL: If you are uploading somebody else’s file, provide a link to the original Internet address so that others can go there and view the original file.

Upload file: You do not have to go back to your Files area in Content in order to upload a file. You can do so directly from this screen.

Folder path: The breadcrumbs show in which folder you are currently.

Click the Edit button to change any component of a folder or file, i.e. its name, description and tags. If you have a folder or file included in a page that you submitted for feedback, you will not be able to edit them.

Note

You can still select files that have been submitted in another portfolio page.

Click into the row that contains the file you wish to display in the block to select it or click the Select button . You only see HTML files.

Warning

When you place group, institution or site files into a page, beware that these files may not be available at some point anymore when the person in charge deletes them.

Click Remove if you want to revert your selection.

Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:

No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.

Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .

Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon to view its content.

Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

You can also click the Close button in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

Note

You can only display a self-contained HTML file in a page, but not an entire site because the links to the files are not retained correctly when you upload files.

4.3.2. Journals

You can embed content from your journals in various ways in a page:

display an entire journal

display only one journal entry

show the latest journal entries

display journal entries with a specific tag

You must create at least one journal in order to see anything in this block.

Warning

You can allow the copying of your journal (entries). Choose this option wisely because once a user copied your journal content into their portfolio, it looks as if they had written the journal entries. This could lead to plagiarism. However, it can be used very nicely to create templates and to scaffold learning.

Journals exist in all areas of Mahara:

Personal portfolio

Groups

Institution level

Site level

You can display journals or journal entries in these different contexts the following way:

Personal journals: You can include personal journals and journal entries in your own portfolios and in group portfolios. If somebody else changes the block configuration in a group portfolio, they will not be able to choose your journals or journal entries though. Only you can place them there.

Group journals: You can display group journals and entries only in the group in which they were created.

Institution journals: An institution’s journals are only available for inclusion in pages for that institution.

Site journals: You can add site journals only to site portfolios.

4.3.2.1. Journal

Display an entire journal on your portfolio page.

Configure the Journal block

Block title: The title for the block is chosen automatically from the title of the journal unless you provide a different one.

Journal: Select the journal you wish to display. If you have many journals, you can also search for the one you want to use.

Note

The search is performed in the title, description, and tags.

Entries per page: Decide how many entries you want to display. Entries beyond this number are accessible via a navigation bar.

Block copy permissions: You decide what shall happen with this block when you allow other users to copy your page. The options are:

Skip this block entirely when copying the page

Others may display your journal in their page

Others will get their own copy of your journal

Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:

No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.

Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .

Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon to view its content.

Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

You can also click the Close button in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

Note

If you share the page publicly in which you make an entire journal visible, your journal receives an RSS feed address to which your readers can subscribe in their favorite RSS readers.

Once you have included the Journal block into a page, you can create a new journal entry directly from that block when you are in the Edit mode for the page. When you click the New entry button, you will be taken to your journal and a new entry is started for you. It is then added to the journal automatically.

Create a new journal entry directly from the Entire journal block

4.3.2.2. Journal entry

Display one journal entry on your portfolio page.

Configure the Journal entry block

Block title: The title of the journal entry is chosen automatically unless you provide a different one.

Journal entry: Select the journal entry you wish to display. If you have many, you can also search for the one you want to use. You always also see the title of the journal in which the entry appears.

Note

The search is performed in the title, description, and tags.

Block copy permissions: You decide what shall happen with this block when you allow other users to copy your page. Options are:

Skip this block entirely when copying the page

Others may display your journal entry in their page

Others will get their own copy of your journal entry

Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:

No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.

Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .

Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon to view its content.

Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

You can also click the Close button in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

4.3.2.3. Recent journal entries

Display recent journal entries across all your journals on your portfolio page. You can use this block also in group, institution and site pages.

Configure the Recent journal entries block

Block title: Choose a title for your block.

Journals: Select the journal(s) from which you wish to display the latest entries. If you have many journals, you can also search for the one(s) you want to use.

Note

The search is performed in the title, description, and tags.

Entries to show: Decide how many entries you want to display.

Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:

No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.

Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .

Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon to view its content.

Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

You can also click the Close button in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

Note

If you have multiple journals, you can display recent entries from all of them.

Once you included the Recent journal entries block into a page, you can create a new journal entry directly from that block when you are in Edit mode for the page. When you click the New entry button, you will be taken to your journal, and a new entry is started for you. It is then added to the journal automatically.

Create a new journal entry directly from the Recent journal entries block - one journal only

If you enabled multiple journals and selected more than one for which to display recent journal entries, you will see a slightly different display.

Create a new journal entry directly from the Recent journal entries block - multiple journals available

Choose the journal to which to add your entry from the drop-down menu.

Click the Add button to create your new entry.

4.3.2.4. Tagged journal entries

Display tagged journal entries across all your journals on your portfolio page.

Configure the Tagged journal entries block

Block title: Choose a title for your block.

Display entries tagged with: Choose the tags that you want to use to filter all your journal entries for display. Only tags you used on journal entries are available. You can include or exclude tags. See below for more information.

Block copy permissions: You decide what shall happen with this block when you allow other users to copy your page. Options are:

Skip this block entirely when copying the page

Others will get a copy of the block configuration: The block is copied, but not the journal entries. When the user creates journal entries with the tag(s) used in the block, they will be displayed.

Items to show: Decide how many entries you want to display.

Show journal entries in full: If you switch this option to “Yes”, your journal entries will be displayed. Otherwise, only their titles are shown and people need to click on them to read your entries.

Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:

No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.

Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .

Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon to view its content.

Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

You can also click the Close button in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

4.3.2.4.1. Add new tagged journal entries directly from a page

Once you have included the Tagged journal entries block into a page, you can create a new journal entry directly from that block when you are in Edit mode for the page. When you click the New entry button, you will be taken to your journal and a new entry is started for you. It is then added to the journal automatically with the tag(s) whose journal entries are displayed on the page.

Create a new journal entry directly from the Tagged journal entries block - one journal only

If you enabled multiple journals and have a minimum of two journals, you will see a slightly different display.

Create a new journal entry directly from the Tagged journal entries block - multiple journals available

Choose the journal to which to add your entry from the drop-down menu.

Click the Go button to create your new entry.

4.3.2.4.2. Select tags to include or exclude

When you want to choose which tags to use in your block, you can select multiple tags to include or exclude. That way you can be very flexible in which entries to display in your block and which ones to leave out. You must have tagged your journal entries beforehand. If you haven’t done that, please go to your journal entries and tag them. You can find them under Main menu → Create → Journals.

Display all the tags that you used on journal entries

Click in the text field for the tag entries. You can start typing the tag that you are looking for if you know it. The result list that you see underneath gets shorter based on what you type. If you want to exclude a tag, type the minus sign and then the tag.

In the tag result list, click the tag that you want to include. If you want to exclude a tag, type the minus sign and then select the tag.

Once the tags are in the field, you can see directly which ones are included and which ones are excluded.

A selection of tags for the tagged journal entries

Tags that are excluded from your journal entries are displayed in red.

Tags that your journal entries must have are displayed in light grey.

You can remove any tag by clicking the x to the left of it.

Note

When you display your page that has a tagged journal entries block, you see which tags are used to filter your journal entries. For example: Journal entries with tag “learning” but not tag “conference”.

4.3.2.4.3. Know which tags to include and exclude

You can add multiple tags to limit the results as well as indicate which tags you want to ignore. If you select multiple tags, a journal entry must match all selected tags in order to be listed.

Let’s assume, you tagged your journal entries with the following tags:

learning, formal, education

learning, formal, education, music

learning, formal, education, language

learning, nonformal, education

learning, nonformal, education, music

learning, nonformal, education, language

teaching, nonformal, education

teaching, nonformal, education, music

teaching, nonformal, education, language

When you select:

the tag “education”, all journal entries would be displayed in the block.

the tags “learning” and “language”, journal entries 3 and 6 would be displayed, i.e. the entries that are tagged “learning” and “language”.

the tags “education” and “language”, journal entries 3, 6, and 9 would be shown, i.e. the entries that are tagged “education” and “language”.

You can also exclude tags from the results by putting a minus sign before the tag you want to select.

If you select:

the tag “learning” and exclude “formal” (exclude the tag by typing “-formal” without the quotation marks), journal entries 4, 5, and 6 would be displayed. You search for journal entries tagged “learning” and not “formal”.

the tag “nonformal” and “education” and exclude “music” and “language” (exclude the tags by typing “-music -language” without the quotation marks), journal entries 4 and 7 would be shown. You search for journal entries tagged “nonformal” and “education” and not “music” and not “language”.

Note

The operators and and not are two of the so-called “Boolean operators”.

4.3.3. General

The artefacts in this tab are of a general nature or do not fit into any other category and can be used around the site.

When you create a page in a group, you do not have the plans block available as you cannot create plans in groups. Additionally, you can choose the following blocks when you edit the group homepage:

Group info

Group members

Group pages

4.3.3.1. Annotation

Add a block to your page which lets you add an annotation for your page.

Note

This feature is used in conjunction with SmartEvidence.

4.3.3.1.1. Write an annotation

Configure the Annotation block

Block title: The block title is set automatically based on the standard selected. It takes the form of “Annotation: Shortname of the standard” and cannot be changed.

Annotation: Write your annotation for your portfolio page. The annotation helps connect the evidence on the page to the standard or competency you selected to associate it with in the competency framework.

Note

You can change the text as long as no feedback has been placed on the block. In order to change the text, you go into Edit mode of the page and then choose the Configure icon of the Annotation block that you want to change. You cannot change the annotation from the SmartEvidence map.

Allow feedback: When you allow feedback on your annotation, others can leave feedback as usual. However, as soon as the first feedback has been added, you will not be able to make changes to your annotation text anymore. That is to ensure that the feedback still relates back to the annotation.

Tags: Enter tags to find your annotation more easily at a later stage. Separate your tags with commas. If you already have tags, you can click on the link Show my tags and select the ones that you think will fit for this collection as well. They will be entered into the text field for you.

Standard: When you place the Annotation block on the page, you can select the standard with which the page shall be associated based on the SmartEvidence framework selected for the collection. You can change the standard until somebody leaves feedback or makes an assessment. If you select the page from the SmartEvidence overview page, the standard is pre-selected and cannot be changed.

Note

You can use the Annotation block without SmartEvidence, but then you can’t choose a competency standard.

The description of the selected standard is displayed so you can easily reference it.

Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:

No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.

Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .

Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon to view its content.

Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

You can also click the Close button in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

4.3.3.1.2. Respond to an annotation on the SmartEvidence map

When you have access to a collection that contains a SmartEvidence map, you can leave feedback on an annotation. You may be able to assess it if you have staff or institution administrator permissions in the same institution as the portfolio author unless it is a self-assessment framework.

Respond to an annotation

Click the annotation on the SmartEvidence map that you wish to take a closer look at. A modal window opens with the annotation.

Read the annotation.

Place feedback: You can leave feedback on the annotation.

Make public: Decide whether everybody who has access to the page can view your feedback or just the portfolio author.

Click the Place feedback button to add your feedback to the annotation.

You can view the feedback of others.

If an assessment was already made, you can see it here. This also serves as log of the assessment changes throughout the lifetime of the annotation.

Assessment: If you have the permission to assess the standard, you see a drop-down menu here with the possible statuses that you can use. Select one of them.

Note

The assessment statuses are defined in the SmartEvidence framework file.

Click the Save button to keep your selection or click Cancel to abort the assessment.

You can also click the Close button in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

4.3.3.1.3. Respond to an annotation on a page

You can provide feedback to an annotation, and assess it if you have the appropriate permission, also from the portfolio page on which the annotation is placed.

Respond to an annotation on a page

Click the Place feedback link at the bottom of the Annotation block.

Write your feedback.

Assessment: If you have the permission to assess the standard, you see a drop-down menu with the possible statuses that you can use. Select one of them.

Note

The assessment statuses are defined in the SmartEvidence framework file.

Make public: Decide whether everybody who has access to the page can view your feedback or just the portfolio author.

Click the Place feedback button to add your feedback to the annotation or click Cancel to abort the assessment.

You can also click the Close button in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

4.3.3.1.4. Delete an annotation

When you delete an annotation, all its feedback is deleted as well. You cannot retrieve it again easily.

4.3.3.2. Comments

You can move the comments section from the bottom of a page elsewhere onto your page to integrate it better with your page content. Please note the following:

There is no configuration possible for this block.

You only see comments when you display a page, but not in edit mode.

You can only place 1 comment block onto a page.

Comments for individual artefacts is still placed at the bottom of the artefact details pages because you cannot put a block onto these pages.

You can move the block like any other block on your page. If you delete the block, the comments are displayed at the bottom of the page again.

What the feedback block looks like on a page

The block has the heading “Comments” unless your Mahara installation uses a different word.

When you click the Add comment link, a modal window is displayed in which you can enter your comments with all the usual functionality.

4.3.3.3. Creative Commons license

Add a block to your page which lets users know under which Creative Commons license [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/] your page is published.

Configure the Creative Commons license block

Block title: Choose a title for your block.

Allow commercial uses of your work? Decide whether users can re-use your work for commercial purposes.

Allow modifications of your work? Decide whether others can remix your work and create something new and if so under which conditions.

License version: Select under which Creative Commons license you wish to publish your work. You can choose between

Creative Commons 3.0

Creative Commons 4.0

See also

Check out what is new in Creative Commons 4.0 [https://creativecommons.org/version4], and why you may want to choose that license.

Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:

No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.

Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .

Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon to view its content.

Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

You can also click the Close button in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

4.3.3.4. Group info

This block is a default block on the group homepage. There is no configuration possible.

Note

This block can only be used on a group homepage.

Items in the group info block

The block contains information about:

Description of the group

Group creation date

Type of group

Group category if any was chosen

Dates between which regular group members can participate in group activities. This information is only visible if any dates were entered in the group settings.

Group statistics

number of group members

number of pages created in the group

number of files uploaded to the group

number of folders created in the group

number of forums created in the group

number of forum topics created in the group

number of posts in forum topics in the group

Group administrators

4.3.3.5. Group members

This block is a default block on the group homepage. You can display member profile pictures and their names.

Note

This block can only be used on a group homepage.

Configure the Group members block

Block title: The automatic title for this block is “Members”. You can set another one if you wish.

Shown members: Choose how many members (between 1 and 100) are shown on the group homepage. All others are accessible via the Members tab in the group. The default number of members displayed is 12.

Order: Choose the order in which members are displayed. Options are

Latest: Display members according to their group joining date in reverse chronological order.

Random: Let Mahara decide which members to display.

Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:

No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.

Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .

Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon to view its content.

Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

You can also click the Close button in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

4.3.3.6. Group portfolios

This block is a default block on the group homepage. You can display pages and collections created in and / or shared with the group in this block.

Note

This block can only be used on a group homepage.

Configure the Group portfolios block

Block title: The automatic title for this block is “Group portfolios”. You can set another one if you wish.

Display group pages and collections: Decide whether to display pages and collections that were created in the group. “Yes” is the default option.

Sort group pages and collections by: Choose in which order to display portfolios created in the group. “Alphabetical” is the default option, but you can also display them based on when they were last updated.

Display shared pages: Decide whether to display pages that users shared with the group. Pages that are in collections are not displayed. The options are:

None: No shared pages are displayed.

By members of this group: Display only pages that have been shared by members of the group.

Note

This option is particularly well-suited for groups that are used for class purposes. That way, students can share their pages or collections with the group for a long time, but the administrator can choose to display only pages of group members but not those that are not members anymore. The pages of non-group members are still accessible via the Shared with me functionality.

By anybody: Display all pages that have been shared with the group.

Display shared collections: Decide whether to display collections that users shared with the group. The options are:

None: No shared collections are displayed.

By members of this group: Display only collections that have been shared by members of the group.

By anybody: Display all collections that have been shared with the group.

Note

Submitted pages are not displayed in the section of “Shared pages” and “Shared collections” to avoid confusion whether they have been shared with the group or not.

Sort shared pages and collections by: Choose in which order to display pages and collections shared with the group. “Alphabetical” is the default option, but you can also display them based on when they were last updated.

Display submitted pages and collections: Decide whether to display pages and collections that group members submitted to the group. There is no distinction made between pages and collections. “Yes” is the default option.

Note

When you choose this option, you also see which members have not yet submitted a portfolio to the group. This is helpful in particular in large groups with lots of portfolio submissions.

Sort submitted pages and collections by: Choose in which order to display pages and collections submitted to the group. “Alphabetical” is the default option, but you can also display them based on when they were last updated.

Entries per page: Choose the maximum number of pages or collections you wish to see on the group homepage for the above before a paginator is displayed. You can display a maximum of 100 items per category.

Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:

No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.

Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .

Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon to view its content.

Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

You can also click the Close button in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

Note

A page is considered as modified when the content of at least one block is updated, including the adding of a new Mahara journal entry into the journal block.

4.3.3.7. Inbox

The Inbox block displays the latest messages that you have received.

Note

This block can only be used on your dashboard.

Configure the Inbox block

Block title: The automatic title for this block is “Inbox”. You can set another one if you wish.

Message types to display: Change the switch to “Yes” for each message type that you want to display in this block.

Administration messages: If you are an institution or site administrator, you see this option. All administration messages such as for objectionable content, virus upload, contact, etc. are grouped in “Administration messages”.

Maximum number of items to display: Decide how many messages shall be shown on your dashboard. You can choose between 1 and 100.

Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:

No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.

Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .

Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon to view its content.

Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

You can also click the Close button in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

When you display messages from other users on your dashboard through the Inbox block, you can see quickly which messages you have not read. They are marked in bold.

Unread messages are displayed in bold

4.3.3.8. Latest changes I can view

The Latest changes I can view block displays the latest portfolios to which you have access across Mahara by other people. This includes pages and collections. Prior to Mahara 15.10 this block was called Latest pages.

Note

This block can only be used on your dashboard.

Configure the Latest changes I can view block

Block title: The automatic title for this block is “Latest changes I can view”. You can set another one if you wish.

Maximum number of results to show: Decide how many pages and collections shall be shown on your dashboard. You can choose between 1 and 100.

Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading without the block content automatically. The options are:

No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.

Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking on the heading of a block where the Retractable icon is shown.

Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click on the heading of a block where the Retracted icon is shown to view its content.

Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click the Cancel button to leave the block’s content as it is. The Remove button is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

You can also click the Close icon in the top left-hand corner to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

The block on your dashboard page looks like the following.

Example of the Latest changes I can view block

Title of the block.

If you chose a retractable option, you can click on the title or anywhere in the title space to change the block’s behaviour.

Title of the page or collection to which you have access.

If it is a collection, you see the number of pages contained within.

Name of the portfolio author, and when the portfolio was last updated.

Page or collection description.

4.3.3.9. Navigation

Add a navigation block to display links to pages in a collection.

Note

You must create at least one collection in order to use this block.

Configure the Navigation block

Block title: The title of the collection is chosen automatically unless you provide a different one.

Collection: Choose the collection from the drop-down menu for which you wish to display links in the block.

Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:

No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.

Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .

Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon to view its content.

Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

You can also click the Close button in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

4.3.3.10. Note

Add a note to your page. This feature is used when you do not want to keep the text in a journal, but still want to be able to re-use the text on other pages.

4.3.3.10.1. Add a new note

Configure the Note block

Block title: Provide a title for your note.

Block content: Write your text. You can include formatting, external images etc.

Alternatively, you can also use text from another note that you have already written. Click the Use content from another note button to do so.

License: You see this drop-down menu if the site administrator turned on license metadata. Additionally, if you are in an institution, your institution administrator may require you to provide a license. Your default license is displayed. You can set your default license in your account settings. You may choose a different license for each individual artefact.

Advanced licensing: If you can / must enter license information, you can also provide information about the original licensor and a URL where the original can be found.

Allow comments: Switch this setting to “No” if you do not want others to comment on your note. This option is set to “Yes” by default.

Tags: Enter tags to find your note more easily at a later stage. You can choose from your existing tags by starting to type a letter and then selecting the tag you want to use. You can also type a new tag, and it is added to your list of tags.

See also

You can find more information on how to use the tag selector in the “Tags” section.

Attachments: Attach a file to a note as additional evidence for the text you are writing.

Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:

No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.

Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .

Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon to view its content.

Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

You can also click the Close button in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

4.3.3.10.2. Add an image into a note

Note

Please refer to the section “Insert an image into text” for more information.

4.3.3.10.3. Attach a file to a note

Attach a file to a Note block

Click the Attachments panel if you wish to add one or more files to a note.

Files area: Choose from which files area you would like to select a file:

My files: You see all the folders and files that you have created.

Group files: You see all the folders and files that you are allowed to publish.

Institution files: If you are an institution administrator, you will see institution folders and files.

Site files: If you are a site administrator, you will see all site folders and files. Otherwise, you can only see the ones that are in the folder public in the Site files.

License information: You see these fields if the site administrator turned on license metadata. Additionally, if you are in an institution, your institution administrator may require you to provide a license.

License: Your default license is displayed. You can set your default license in your account settings. You may choose a different license for each individual artefact.

Licensor: If you are uploading a file that somebody else created, you can attribute the work to them here and provide their name for example.

Original URL: If you are uploading somebody else’s file, provide a link to the original Internet address so that others can go there and view the original file.

If the site administrator turned on the image resizing option, you can decide whether you want to have your images resized if they are larger than the specified dimensions. This option is recommended to save space in your portfolio.

File: You do not have to go back to your Files area in Content in order to upload a file. You can do so directly from this screen.

Folder path: The breadcrumbs show in which folder you are currently.

Click the Edit button to change any component of a folder or file, i.e. its name, description and tags. If you have a folder or file included in a page that you submitted for feedback, you will not be able to edit them.

Note

You can also still select files that have been submitted in another portfolio page.

Click into the row that contains the file you wish to display in the block to select it.

Warning

When you place group, institution or site files into a page, beware that these files may not be available at some point anymore when the person in charge deletes them.

Click Remove if you want to revert your selection.

Continue editing your note and save it.

4.3.3.10.4. Re-use text from an existing note

You can re-use text from other note from one page in another without having to copy the page first.

Warning

If you do not make a copy of the note content in the block configuration and change it, the text is changed in all other instances where this note is used.

Configure the Note block by copying text

Click the button Use content from another note to view all notes to which you have access. These can be:

your own notes

notes from group pages that you can copy

notes from institution or site pages to which you have access

Click Browse or Search to find the note that you want to re-use.

Note

The search is performed in the title, description, and tags.

Click the Manage all note content link to be taken to your personal Notes if you can’t find what you are looking for.

All notes are listed with their title and the first line. If a note does not belong to you but for example to a group, you see the author next to the note’s title.

Use the paginator to move between your notes if more than 5 are displayed.

You see the number of notes that you have access to.

Click the radio button in front of a note that you want to use in this page.

The content of the note that you have selected is displayed in the Block content box. Now you can make changes.

Warning

The text will be changed in all other instances where this note appears.

If you wish to make changes to the note, but do not want to change it everywhere else, click the Make a copy link above the Block content. The text is then retained, but it is treated like a new note and the original note is not changed.

Block title: Review the block title and make changes if necessary. Once you copied a note, the original block title is entered here.

Note

You can change the block title no matter whether you change the content of the note or not.

All other functionality that you see on the screen is the same as for adding a new note.

Open a note that is submitted for assessment in another portfolio

Block content: When you open a note that is used on a page that is currently submitted, you cannot make changes to the note.

Click the Make a copy link in order to make changes to this note on this page only. It is not changed on the other page that is submitted or on any other page where the text appears.

4.3.3.11. new in Mahara 18.10 Peer assessment

Allow peer reviewers to give blind feedback.

4.3.3.11.1. Add the peer assessment block to a page

This block allows somebody else to provide blind feedback on the portfolio author, e.g. in a formal assessment context where skills and competencies need to be assessed by the peer independently of what the portfolio author has stated.

The peer reviewer can see block headings, but not the content in the blocks themselves. If the portfolio consists of multiple pages, and one of them does not contain a peer block, the peer reviewer does not see the page content at all.

Note

You must give a person the “Peer” role when sharing the portfolio page for them to be able to add their assessment.

Configure the Peer assessment block

Block title: The title that you want to give this particular block.

Instructions: Provide instructions for the peer reviewer to help them with their assessment.

Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:

No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.

Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .

Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon to view its content.

Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

You can also click the Close button in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

4.3.3.11.2. Set up a peer assessor

You can give someone the peer assessment permissions on the Edit access screen of your portfolio page.

Give someone peer assessment permissions

In the Share with drop-down menu, select “Users” under “Search for…”.

In the second drop-down menu that becomes available, type the name of the person who shall be the peer assessor and select them.

In the third drop-down menu, select the “Peer” option. You can also select the “Peer and manager” option if the peer is also the manager and can verify the page in the end.

Click the Save button to keep your selection or click the Cancel link to abort your changes.

Note

If the page is in a collection that contains pages that don’t have the peer assessment block, the peer assessor doesn’t see any content on those pages but the notice “You cannot see the content on this page because it does not require a peer assessment.”

4.3.3.11.3. Add a peer assessment

Peer assessments are blind assessments at the moment allowing the peer assessor to give their feedback independently of the portfolio author.

Add a peer assessment

When you are the peer assessor on someone’s portfolio, and a page contains a peer assessment block, you can add your assessment by clicking the Add peer assessment link.

Write a peer assessment

Click the Instructions link to view the instructions for the peer assessment.

Write your peer assessment.

Click the Save draft button if you are not yet ready for the portfolio author to view your assessment, and you want to save a draft status.

Click the Publish button when you finished your assessment, and the portfolio author can view it. A notification is also sent to the portfolio author.

Note

If the peer assessment block is used in conjunction with the sign-off block, the portfolio author must sign off the page before anybody other than themselves and the peer assessor can see published peer assessments.

4.3.3.11.4. View a peer assessment

If a peer assessment is in draft mode, only the peer assessor can see it. Once it’s published, others can view it as well.

View a peer assessment

Click the Add peer assessment link if you want to add (another) peer assessment when you cannot edit an earlier one in the same block anymore.

The profile picture and name of the peer assessor are displayed along with the date and time when the peer assessment was made.

The peer assessment is displayed.

The Edit button is only displayed to the peer assessor for 10 minutes after publishing the assessment in case there are last minute changes they want to make.

The Delete button is only shown to the peer assessor, and they can delete their assessment at any point. If they do, the portfolio author receives an email about that with the text of the assessment included.

4.3.3.12. Plans

Display your plans in a block.

Note

You must create at least one plan in order to use this block.

Configure the Plans block

Block title: The title of the plan is chosen automatically unless you provide a different one.

Plans to show: Choose the plan new in Mahara 18.10 or plans which you want to display in your page.

new in Mahara 18.10 Tasks to display: Decide how many tasks you want to display for each plan before a paginator is displayed.

Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:

No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.

Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .

Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon to view its content.

Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

You can also click the Close button in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

Result of an embedded plan in a portfolio page. By clicking on the linked titles, you can show the descriptions of the individual tasks.

4.3.3.13. Recent forum posts

Display a specified number of recent forum posts from one group on a page.

Note

You must be a member of at least one group in order to use this block.

Configure the Recent forum posts block

Block title: The title of the block is generated automatically unless you provide a different one. The default title is “Recent forum posts”.

Group: Choose the group whose forum posts you wish to display.

Maximum number of posts to show: Decide how many of the latest forum posts you wish to show. The default value is 5. You can show up to 100 posts.

Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:

No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.

Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .

Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon to view its content.

Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

You can also click the Close button in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

4.3.3.14. new in Mahara 18.10 Sign-off

Portfolio authors can sign off a page, and a manager can verify it.

The sign-off and verification process allows for a visual indicator on a portfolio page showing whether the page has been finished and whether a manager has verified it before it can go for the final assessment. The verification by a manager is optional.

4.3.3.14.1. Set up a page for sign-off and verification

Configure the Sign-off block

Block title: Give the block a title. This is not required as the options will sit right below the page heading rather than in a block on the page itself when in view mode.

Sign off: A sign-off by the portfolo author is always required.

Verify: Give a person with the “Manager” permission the opportunity to verify a page and state that fact to carry it one step further in the assessment. Page content will not be locked when the verification has been made.

Note

The manager cannot revoke the verification. This can only be done by the portfolio author in form of revoking the sign-off for the page.

4.3.3.14.2. Set up a manager for verification

You can give someone the manager permissions on the Edit access screen of your portfolio page to allow them to verify your portfolio.

Give someone manager permissions

In the Share with drop-down menu, select “Users” under “Search for…”.

In the second drop-down menu that becomes available, type the name of the person who shall be the manager and select them.

In the third drop-down menu, select the “Manager” option. You can also select the “Peer and manager” option if the manager is also the peer and can write a peer assessment.

Click the Save button to keep your selection or click the Cancel link to abort your changes.

4.3.3.14.3. Sign off a page

When you have a sign-off block on your page and you view it, you can see the sign-off and verification options below the page heading to the right.

View the sign-off as portfolio autor

When you are ready to sign off your page, you can click the red dot icon , and it will turn into a green tick icon to indicate that the page has been signed off.

If the page also needs a verification, your manager can now perform it.

4.3.3.14.4. Verify a page

As manager, you can see the sign-off and verification options below the page heading to the right. You can only tick the verification option.

Verify a page as manager

When you are ready to verify a page that allows for verification, you can click the red dot icon , and it will turn into a green tick icon to indicate that the page has been verified.

Note

You cannot revoke the verification. Only the portfolio author can do so by revoking the sign-off.

4.3.3.15. Text

Add text to your page. This feature is used when you want to put a snippet of text onto a page that does not have to be re-used.

Note

In a default Mahara instance, this block is available in the content chooser at the top together with the Image block. It does not appear in the section General as well.

Configure the Text block

Block title: Provide a title for your text.

Block content: Write your text. You can include formatting, external images etc.

new in Mahara 18.10 Tags: Enter tags for this block to find this content more easily. The tags are displayed as part of the page tags.

Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:

No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.

Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .

Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon to view its content.

Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

You can also click the Close button in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

Note

Please refer to the section “Insert an image into text” for more information on adding an image to the text block.

4.3.3.16. Watched pages

The Watched pages block displays the pages that are either on your watchlist or belong to your friends and you have access to them.

Note

You can only use this block on your dashboard.

4.3.3.16.1. Pages on my watchlist

If you want pages to be displayed, you need to add them to it first by clicking the 3 dots button on a page and then add the page to your watchlist.

Configure the Watched pages block for your watchlist

Block title: The automatic title for this block is “Watched pages”. You can set another one if you wish.

Select to display Pages on my watchlist.

Items to show: Decide how many pages shall be shown on your dashboard. You can choose between 1 and 100.

Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading without the block content automatically. The options are:

No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.

Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .

Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon to view its content.

Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click the Cancel button to leave the block’s content as it is. The Remove button is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

You can also click the Close button in the top right-hand corner to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

View your watchlist on your dashboard.

View the Watched pages block

Title of the block.

Note

If you chose a retractable option, you can click on the title or anywhere in the title space to change the block’s behaviour.

Title of the watched page. You can click the link to be taken to her.

View the page owner and the date when the page was last updated. This is in particular important information when all your watched pages have the same or a similar title.

4.3.3.16.2. Activities of my friends

If you have friends on Mahara, then you can use this block to display their portfolios when they have shared them with you:

personally

as a member of a group

as an institution member

as a registered user

publicly

Configure the Watched pages block for your friend activity

Block title: The automatic title for this block is “Watched pages”. You can set another one if you wish.

Select to display Activities of my friends.

Click Additional filters and settings to make additional changes.

Filter by time: You can select the time period over which you want to see changes. Your options are:

Last week

Last month

Last 2 months

Last 3 months

Last 6 months

Last year

Since last login

Order by: Decide how the portfolios are to be ordered. Your choices are:

Reverse chronological order: Display the latest changes first

Page owner: Display all pages by their owner with the one having made changes last first.

Items to show: Decide how many pages shall be shown on your dashboard. You can choose between 1 and 100.

Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading without the block content automatically. The options are:

No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.

Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .

Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon to view its content.

Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click the Cancel button to leave the block’s content as it is. The Remove button is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

You can also click the Close button in the top right-hand corner to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

4.3.4. Personal info

The artefact blocks in this tab allow you to include information that you provided in the profile into your portfolio. If you want to make changes to the text or the images, go to User menu → Profile.

Furthermore, you can also put certain blocks on your profile page that only exist for that particular page:

My friends

My groups

My pages

Wall

4.3.4.1. My friends

Add a block that displays your friends’ profile pictures and their names to your profile page. This is a default block on your profile page.

You only need to place the block on your profile page. There is no further configuration possible.

4.3.4.2. My groups

Add a block that displays your groups on your profile page. It is a standard profile page block. You can decide on the sort order of the groups and also limit the number of groups to be shown before a paginator is displayed.

Configure the My groups block

Sort groups: Decide in which sort order your groups should be displayed:

Most recently joined: Groups are displayed in chronologically reverse order to show the groups that you joined recently first.

Earliest joined: This option displays your groups in the order in which you joined them.

A to Z: Alphabetically from A to Z. This is the default option.

Maximum number of groups to display: Decide how many groups you wish to display in the block before the paginator is shown and the remaining pages can be seen on the next page within the block. Leave this field empty if you wish to display all your groups.

Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:

No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.

Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .

Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon to view its content.

Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

You can also click the Close button in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

4.3.4.3. My portfolios

Add a block that displays your pages and collections on your profile or dashboard page. It is a standard profile page block. This block should stay on your profile page because other users can see all your pages and collections to which they have acceess.

You only need to place the block on your profile page. There is no further configuration possible.

Note

When other users view your profile page, they only see the pages and collections to which they have access. That also means that you see all your pages and collections while others may see none or just a few.

You see the following when you use the block.

The My portfolios block displayed in a page

Block title

Title of the page or collection to which you have access.

If it is a collection, you see the number of pages contained within.

Page or collection description.

Paginator to view more portfolios.

Number of portfolios that you can view.

If you would like to see fewer or more portfolios, you can change that here. Per default, 10 portfolios are displayed.

4.3.4.4. Profile information

Add a block with profile fields to your page.

Note

Only display as much information as you wish anybody to see. Especially when you make your pages available to the public, i.e. everybody on the Internet, or all logged-in users, decide carefully whether you want to display your street address and / or phone number.

Configure the Profile information block

Block title: Choose a title for your block.

Fields to show: Decide which fields shall appear on the page. Put a check mark in front of each one that you want to show. Displayed are only the ones for which you provided content.

Profile picture: Choose to display one of your profile pictures or “Don’t show a profile picture”.

Email address Decide whether to display one of your email addresses that you have entered in your profile under Content.

Introduction text: If you do not want to display the introduction text from your profile, you can write another one just for this page here. However, it will be lost when you delete this block.

Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:

No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.

Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .

Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon to view its content.

Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

You can also click the Close button in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

4.3.4.5. Social media

Add a block with links to your social networks to your page.

Configure the Social media block

Block title: Choose a title for your block.

Social media accounts to show: Decide which accounts shall appear on the page. Put a check mark in front of each one that you want to show. Displayed are only the ones for which you provided content.

Display settings: Click this panel heading to show the possible display settings.

Display social media accounts as: Decide which way you want to display the links to your social media accounts:

Buttons with icons only: Show only the logos of the social media accounts. This option is a good one if you have lots of accounts and want to save space on your page. However, it might be trickier for people to know instantly which accounts are displayed if they are not familiar with the logos.

Note

If you added a lot of social media accounts through the option “Other”, this option here would not be a good one as the logo for all the services is just a generic icon.

Buttons with icons and text: This is the default option. The logo of the social network is displayed along with its name.

Buttons with text only: This option only displays the name of the social network.

Display default email link as button? Switch this option to “Yes” if you want to provide a button for your primary email address.

Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:

No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.

Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .

Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon to view its content.

Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

You can also click the Close button in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

This is how the individual options are displayed on your page.

The 3 options for displaying your social media accounts

Buttons with icons only.

Buttons with icons and text.

Buttons with text only.

4.3.4.6. Wall

Add a block that displays your wall on your profile page. It is a standard profile page block. Other users can leave messages for you, i.e. write on your wall, and they can decide whether everyone looking at your profile page can see them or only they and you.

You only need to place the block on your profile page. There is no further configuration possible.

When you view your wall (or someone else’s wall) on your profile page, you see the following.

A wall on a profile page

Enter your message in the text box. You can use the visual editor to format your message.

Make your post private: Decide who shall see your wall post. If you make it private, only you and the person to whose wall you are posting will see the post.

Click the Post button to add your message to the wall.

A wall post always contains the name of the person who made the post, the date and the actual message. A public wall post can be viewed by anyone who has access to the profile page.

Wall posts that are private are highlighted.

Click the Delete icon if you do not want to have a specific post on your wall. The post authors and you as owner of your wall can delete posts.

Click the View whole wall link to see all wall posts.

When somebody else leaves a message on your wall, you receive a notification and have that sent to your inbox. Other people are not notified about new messages on your wall.

4.3.4.7. Résumé

You can display either your entire résumé or parts of it in any portfolio page. If you choose to display only parts of your résumé, you have more control over the arrangement of the information.

4.3.4.7.1. My entire résumé

Add a block with your entire résumé to your page.

Configure the My entire résumé block

Block title: Choose a title for your block.

new in Mahara 18.10 Tags: Enter tags for this block to find this content more easily. The tags are displayed as part of the page tags.

Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:

No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.

Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .

Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon to view its content.

Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

You can also click the Close button in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

Note

When you use this block, you do not have control over the order in which the information is displayed, but Mahara decides that. In order to be more flexible, you can choose to display one résumé field at a time with the One résumé field block.

4.3.4.7.2. One résumé field

Add a block with one résumé field to your page.

Configure the One résumé field block

Block title: The title of the résumé field you want to display is chosen automatically unless you provide a different one.

Field to show: Choose the résumé information that you want to display. You can select one area at a time.

You can jump to the résumé section directly from this modal window in order to fill in more content.

new in Mahara 18.10 Tags: Enter tags for this block to find this content more easily. The tags are displayed as part of the page tags.

Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:

No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.

Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .

Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon to view its content.

Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

You can also click the Close button in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

4.3.5. External content

With the help of the external content blocks, you can include RSS feeds, external media or GoogleApps documents etc. into a page.

4.3.5.1. External feed

Embed an external RSS or ATOM feed, e.g. to display an external blog.

Configure the external feed block

Block title: If you leave the title blank, the title of the feed will be used.

Feed location: Put the entire feed URL from a valid RSS or ATOM feed in here. If the feed is not displayed, try to view it in a regular feed reader to make sure that the URL is correct. You must provide a feed URL here.

Note

Unfortunately, Firefox and Chrome do not display the RSS feed icon for a page immediately near the address bar anymore. In Firefox you will have to go to View → Toolbars → Customize and then drag the RSS icon to your toolbar. It lights up orange / white when a feed is available.

If you use Chrome, you will have to install the RSS Subscription Extension [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nlbjncdgjeocebhnmkbbbdekmmmcbfjd].

Insecure SSL mode: Switch this option to “Yes” if you wish to enable the insecure SSL mode. This mode allows you to override certificate errors generated by a feed.

HTTP username: Provide a username if you wish to access a feed that requires authentication. This is the username to access the feed and not your portfolio system.

HTTP password: Provide a password to access a feed that requires authentication. This is the password to access the feed and not your portfolio system.

Items to show: Decide how many of the latest items in the feed you wish to display. You can choose up to 20.

Show feed items in full: Switch this option to “Yes” if you want to see the entire feed content and not only the heading of a blog post.

new in Mahara 18.10 Tags: Enter tags for this block to find this content more easily. The tags are displayed as part of the page tags.

Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:

No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.

Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .

Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon to view its content.

Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

You can also click the Close button in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

Note

If your feed is not updated automatically, please ask your site administrator to check the cron settings.

If you click an entry in the RSS feed, it will open in a new window.

4.3.5.2. External media

With this block you can embed content from a wide variety of third-party sites. The sites that are allowed are listed below the text area in the configuration screen. You see only their favicons, but when you hover over an icon with your mouse, you see the site’s name as well.

See also

Mahara comes with a number of sites that are allowed per default. These are listed on the page. Your site administrator can add additional iframe sources.

Configure the external media block

Block title: Choose a title for your embedded content.

URL or embed code: Paste the URL or the embed code of a page where the content is located.

Embed code: Content from the sites listed in this section can be embedded using the <iframe> embed code. Any new site that the site administrator allows will be added in alphabetical order. The default sites are:

Glogster [http://www.glogster.com]

SlideShare [https://www.slideshare.com]

Vimeo [https://vimeo.com]

Voki [https://www.voki.com]

WikiEducator [http://www.wikieducator.org]

YouTube [https://youtube.com]

URLs: Content from the sites listed in this section can be embedded by simply grabbing the page URLs where the content can be found. The default sites are:

Google Videos [https://video.google.com]

Prezi [https://prezi.com]

Scivee.tv [http://www.scivee.tv]

SlideShare [https://www.slideshare.com]

TeacherTube [https://www.teachertube.com]

Vimeo [https://vimeo.com]

VoiceThread [https://voicethread.com]

Voki [https://www.voki.com]

WikiEducator [http://www.wikieducator.org]

YouTube [https://youtube.com]

You can also paste an Embedly [https://embed.ly/] embed code and display your content that way.

Width: Choose the width (in pixels) that the content should take up on the page. This only goes for the content for which you provided the URL.

Note

If you use the embed code, you need to provide the correct width and height directly in the embed code and can ignore this setting here.

Height: Choose the height (in pixels) that the content should take up on the page. This only goes for the content for which you provided the URL.

Note

If you use the embed code, you need to provide the correct width and height directly in the embed code and can ignore this setting here.

new in Mahara 18.10 Tags: Enter tags for this block to find this content more easily. The tags are displayed as part of the page tags.

Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:

No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.

Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .

Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon to view its content.

Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

You can also click the Close button in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

Note

You can use the same iframe embed code around Mahara in notes, text and journal entries as well.

See also

Watch the video Saving a video from iPad to MyPortfolio [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QRl9b0_mP8] if you want to see how you can embed a YouTube video into your Mahara portfolio using an iPad. You can use a similar work flow for adding YouTube videos also via Android or on your computer. “MyPortfolio” is the name of a Mahara instance in New Zealand for schools.

4.3.5.3. Google Apps

Embed any of the following content available via Google (Apps):

books

calendars

documents, spreadsheets, presentations

maps

You can only display the content, but not immediately edit documents, spreadsheets or presentations. You will have to be logged in to your Google (Apps) account to do so. You can use this block with a regular, personal Google account or if you have a Google Apps account via an institution, e.g. your school or university.

Note

If certain documents are restricted to a Google Apps domain or to specific people, a login screen is displayed.

Configure the Google Apps block

Block title: Choose a title for your embedded content.

Embed code or URL: Depending on what kind of content you wish to display, you either provide the embed code or the URL. Click the Help button for more information on how to embed each Google component.

Height: Choose the height for the embedded content. The width is adjusted to the column width of the block automatically.

new in Mahara 18.10 Tags: Enter tags for this block to find this content more easily. The tags are displayed as part of the page tags.

Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:

No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.

Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .

Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon to view its content.

Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

You can also click the Close button in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

Google document

Open the document.

Click File in the menu bar and then Publish to the Web.

Click the Start publishing button.

Copy the document link or embed code.

Paste the link or embed code into the Embed code or URL box in the Google Apps block.

Google spreadsheet

Open the spreadsheet.

Click File in the menu bar and then Publish to the Web.

Click the Start publishing button.

Read through the other options and decide on them.

Copy the link for the option Web page or the embed code for the option HTML to embed in a page.

Paste the link or embed code into the Embed code or URL box in the Google Apps block.

Google presentation

Open the presentation.

Click File in the menu bar and then Publish to the Web.

Click the Start publishing button.

Copy the link or embed code.

Paste the link or embed code into the Embed code or URL box in the Google Apps block.

Google Drive folder

Select the folder that you want to share.

Click the Link icon. A shareable link is created.

Copy the link.

Paste the link into the Embed code or URL box in the Google Apps block.

Google Calendar

Open Google Calendar.

Click on the little triangle next to the calendar that you wish to embed.

Click on Calendar settings.

On the Calendar details tab scroll down to Embed This Calendar.

Customize the calendar appearance and then copy the embed code.

Paste the embed code into the Embed code or URL box in the Google Apps block.

Google Maps

Open Google Maps.

Click the My Places button.

Click on the name of the map that you wish to embed.

Click on the Link icon to the left of the map.

Customize the appearance of the map and copy the embed code.

Paste the embed code into the Embed code or URL box in the Google Apps block.

Note

Use steps 2 and 3 only if you wish to embed one of your Google maps. If you wish to embed any Google map, you can skip these steps.

Google Books

Open Google Books.

Find the book that you wish to embed.

Click on the book title.

Click on the Link icon above the book.

Copy the embed code of the book.

Paste the embed code into the Embed code or URL box in the Google Apps block.

Note

The link icon only appears if you are allowed to embed this book.

4.3.5.4. Badges

Open Badges [https://www.openbadges.org/] are an answer for showing recognition of skills and competencies online with the help of an open framework.

4.3.5.4.1. Configure the block

Configure the Open Badges block

Block title: Choose a title for your block.

If you do not see all your public badge collections, click the links to verify that you have made all badges publicly available that you want to see.

Mahara checks the backpacks for all email addresses that are associated with your account. If it can’t find any badges to display for a particular address, it’ll show a notice.

Open Badge Passport: All public badge collections from your Open Badge Passport are displayed.

See also

If you have other “backpacks” that contain badges, the site administrator would need to allow them in the config.php.

Use the Select all or Select none buttons to select all badge collections or to revert your selection.

You can also select individual badge collections if you prefer by ticking their checkboxes.

Mozilla Backpack: All public badge collections from your backpack are displayed.

Use the Select all or Select none buttons to select all badge collections or to revert your selection.

You can also select individual badge collections if you prefer by ticking their checkboxes.

new in Mahara 18.10 Tags: Enter tags for this block to find this content more easily. The tags are displayed as part of the page tags.

Retractable: Choose whether you want to allow users to reduce the block to its heading on a page or see just the heading only automatically. The options are:

No: The block and its content is displayed at all times.

Yes: Allow users to reduce the block to just the heading by clicking the Retractable icon .

Automatically retract: Only the heading of the block is visible, and the user can click the Retracted icon to view its content.

Click the Save button to accept your changes, or click Cancel to leave the block’s content as it is. Remove is shown only when you place the block into the page for the first time.

You can also click the Close button in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to either remove a newly created block before it is being saved or to cancel any changes and leave the block’s content as it is.

Note

Since your badges need to be fetched from an external service, it may take a little bit until they are displayed on the page.

4.3.5.4.2. Create a collection of badges in the Mozilla Backpack

Drag a badge onto a new collection space

Go to your Mozilla Backpack [https://backpack.openbadges.org]. You must have already pushed at least one badge to it to complete the following steps.

Click the Collection navigation item to enter your badge collection area.

Drag one of your badges onto a (new) collection space.

Create a new collection

Give your new collection a title by clicking onto “New collection” and typing your title.

Tick the checkbox public so others can see your badges.

Click the Share icon. You will be taken to a page where you can see all the badges in the collection that you created.

4.3.6. Blocks in various pages

Certain blocks can only exist in certain page contexts. For example, the wall can only be placed on the profile page whereas a note can be used on any page. There are a number of page contexts which can have different blocks:

portfolio page

group page

institution page

site page

profile page

dashboard page

The following list shows in which contexts a specific block and therefore a specific artefact can be used. It also shows which blocks can be copied. The original idea came from Synergy Learning for Mahara 1.3.

Note

Blocks in a page that are copied from one user to another need to be checked for content accuracy and whether they can be retained as they are or need to be updated.

new in Mahara 18.10 Blocks that display a * next to their check mark can be added to a group, institution, or site page and configured where possible. No content is displayed though when the page is viewed because user-specific content is required. The blocks can be added though to create better templates.

4.3.6.1. Files, images and video

Block

User

Group

Institution

Site

Dashboard

Profile

Group homepage

Copyable

Embedded media

File(s) to download

Folder

Image

Image gallery

PDF

Some HTML

4.3.6.2. Journals

Block

User

Group

Institution

Site

Dashboard

Profile

Group homepage

Copyable

Journal

Journal entry

Recent journal entries

Tagged journal entries

4.3.6.3. General

Block

User

Group

Institution

Site

Dashboard

Profile

Group homepage

Copyable

Annotation

Comments

Creative Commons license

Group info

Group members

Group portfolios

Inbox

Latest changes I can view

Navigation

Note

Peer assessment

Plans

*

*

*

*

Recent forum posts

Sign-off

*

*

*

*

Text

Watched pages

4.3.6.4. Personal info

Block

User

Group

Institution

Site

Dashboard

Profile

Group homepage

Copyable

My friends

My groups

My portfolios

My entire résumé

*

*

*

*

One résumé field

*

*

*

*

Profile information

*

*

*

Social media

*

*

*

Wall

4.3.6.5. External content

Block

User

Group

Institution

Site

Dashboard

Profile

Group homepage

Copyable

External feed

External media

Google Apps

4.4. Skins

Main menu → Create → Skins

If you see the menu item Skins under Portfolio, you can create skins yourself, edit them, use other people’s skins, and use them on your portfolio pages and your profile page.

Note

If you do not see the menu item Skins, please check with the site administrator. There are two possibilities why you may not be able to use skins:

Skins have not been enabled for the site. A server administrator will need to enable skins for the site.

If skins are enabled for the site in general, but your Mahara institution does not yet allow the use of skins. Your institution administrator can change that in the institution settings.

Your Skins overview page

Click the Create skin button to design a new skin.

Click the Import skin(s) button to import skins that others have shared online.

Click the Export skin(s) button to export all your personal skins.

You can decide which skins you want to display:

All skins: All skins that you have access to

Site skins: Only skins created by a site administrator

My skins: Skins created by yourself

Public skins: Other people’s skins that they shared publicly on the site

Click the View skin information icon to see metadata in a pop-up window about the skin such as:

Title

Owner

Description

Creation date

Modified date

Click the Edit button to make changes to this skin.

Click the Export button to export only this one skin.

Click the Delete button to remove this skin.

Note

You only see the Edit, Export and Delete buttons when you have the permission to perform these actions for a skin.

Click the Like button to mark someone else’s skin as one that you want to use on your own pages. The icon will turn grey. Clicking the button again will allow you to remove the skin from your list of favourite skins.

Note

You can only like another user’s skin, but not site skins. You can always select a site skin for a page, but only select other people’s skins when you liked them.

4.4.1. Create a skin

You can create skins as:

individual user

site administrator

Depending on the settings of your skin, it will be available only to you or others.

In the following, the individual skin settings will be described. You do not have to change all settings for a skin but can pick and choose which elements of the theme that your page has you would like to change.

See also

Watch this video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvckRIkZdJs] demonstrating the page skin feature.

4.4.1.1. General

General settings for your skin

Skin title: Give your skin a title. You will see that on the Skins overview page.

Skin description: Describe your skin here and add any details that will help you in the future to remember why you created the skin, what is special about it etc. You can expand the text box if you need to enter a long description by dragging its bottom right corner.

Skin access: Decide here who shall have access to your skin. The default is This is a private skin.

This is a private skin: Only you can use this skin on pages.

This is a public skin: Others can see your skin and use it.

Click the Save button to accept your changes or click Cancel to abort your changes.

4.4.1.2. Background

Choose the background for your skin

Background colour: You can tick the checkbox to have no special skin background but use the theme’s background. Alternatively, you can click into the field and select the colour you would like to use or type the colour code in.

Background image: You can choose to use an image as background. Click the Add a file button to choose an image from your files area.

Background image repeat: Decide whether you want to repeat the background image. This setting is useful if your image is smaller than your page. If you do not choose a repeat option, the background will not be filled with the image entirely. Your options are:

Don’t repeat: No repetition of the image. This option should only be used if you have a very large image or if the image is larger than your page.

Repeat only horizontally: Your image will only be repeated horizontally, but not vertically. This setting can work for a very wide but short page.

Repeat only vertically: Your image will only be repeated vertically, but not horizontally. This setting can work for a narrow but long page.

Repeat both directions: Your image will be repeated both horizontally and vertically. This setting is the most flexible for your page.

Background image attachment: Decide whether your background should scroll or stay fixed.

Fixed: If you select this option, your background stays in place and does not move. Only the page content will scroll.

Scroll: If you select this option, your background will scroll together with the page.

Background image position: Decide where your background image shall be anchored. Click one of the options to select the position.

Click the Save button to accept your changes or click Cancel to abort your changes.

4.4.1.3. Fonts and colours

Change font properties

Heading font: Choose the font for your headings. You can choose from any of the installed fonts. The font will be applied to all your headings, e.g.

page title

block titles

headings in the text if you marked them as headings

Text font: Choose the font for all other text. You can choose from any of the installed fonts.

Font size: Choose a relational font size. Headings will be changed proportionally.

Text colour: Decide on the colour for text that appears on the page.

Heading text colour: Choose the colour of your page heading.

Emphasized text colour: Choose the colour of your block titles and other emphasized text.

Normal link colour: Choose the colour in which links shall be displayed.

Underline link: Change the switcher to “Yes” if you want your links to be underlined.

Highlighted link colour: Choose the colour of your links when you hover over them.

Underline link: Change the switcher to “Yes” if you want your highlighted link to be underlined.

Click the Save button to accept your changes or click Cancel to abort your changes.

Note

Wherever you have a colour field, you can either click into the field and select the colour you would like to use or type the colour code in.

If you do not want to use a custom colour but retain the theme colour, tick the checkbox Default.

4.4.1.4. Advanced

Add custom CSS

Custom CSS: If you know how to change CSS, you can change other styles for your skin here and overwrite other elements on a page. You can expand the “Custom CSS” text box if you need to enter a a lot of custom CSS code by dragging its bottom right corner.

Click the Save button to accept your changes or click Cancel to abort your changes.

4.4.2. Choose a skin

Main menu → Create → Pages and collections → Edit a page

When the Skins feature is turned on, you see another item in the page editor navigation: Choose skin.

Choose a skin

Click the Choose skin navigation item to see all skins that are available to you for this page.

If you do not see a skin that you are looking for, click the Manage skins button. You will be taken to Main menu → Create → Skins where you can add or remove skins.

My skins: Skins that you created are displayed in this area. Click the title of a skin or the preview image to select it.

Favourite skins: Skins from other people that you like are displayed here. If you do not see a skin, click the Manage skins button. You will be taken to Main menu → Create → Skins where you can favourite more skins. Click the title of a skin or the preview image to select it.

Site skins: Skins created by site administrators on the site level are displayed. Click the title of a skin or the preview image to select it.

You can see skin information such as:

Title

Owner

Description

Creation date

Modified date

Once you have selected your skin, click the Save button to select it for your page. You are taken out of the edit mode because you can only view your skin when the page is displayed. If you want to make further changes to your page content, click the Edit this page button.

If you do not want to use the skin that you selected, click the No skin button to reset your selection.

Note

The skin is only shown when you display your page. When you edit your page, you see the standard theme.

4.4.3. View a page with a skin

This is what a skin applied to a page could look like.

Example of a skin on a page

Background. This is either a solid colour or an image.

Heading font and Heading text colour.

Heading font and Emphasized text colour.

Text font and Text colour.

Font size.

Normal link colour and decision on whether to underline the link or not.

The header is not changed. You may be able to do so if you employ Advanced CSS.

The bottom of the page is not changed either.

4.4.4. What is the difference between themes and page skins?

Themes

Have been present in Mahara in their current form since 1.2.

Must be uploaded directly onto the web server by a system administrator.

Can override the page template for every single screen in Mahara, giving total control over how everything is displayed.

Depending on site and institution settings, there may be:

a single theme for the whole site

a theme for every institution

the possibility for users to choose their own theme for browsing the site

the possibility for users to apply a particular theme to each portfolio page, the page themes

Skins

Can be created, shared, exported and uploaded by users via Main menu → Create → Skins.

Are less powerful than themes. They can only change page colours, fonts and background images, and add extra CSS. Basically they add one additional user-controlled CSS stylesheet to a page.

Can only be applied to user-created portfolio pages. They don’t change the way any other part of Mahara is displayed.

When skins and themes collide

If users apply a skin to one of their pages, it adds one additional CSS stylesheet to the page. This is in addition to the CSS from the theme.

Naturally, any particular skin might not look good in all themes, especially if the theme has changed the underlying page templates for portfolio pages.

If you’re a theme designer, the good news is that the skin stylesheet is itself a page template (skin/style.tpl). So, you can specify which page elements each of the skin settings should apply to by overriding that page template.

4.4.5. Disallow skins on a theme

If you use Mahara at an institution, you may wish to prevent anyone making changes to your institution theme with a skin so that your corporate design is preserved and that portfolios created for assessment purposes or as showcases of work done at your institution for example are easily recognizable as belonging to your institution. However, at the same time, you do want to give portfolio authors in your institution the freedom to create personal portfolios with other themes and apply skins to them.

Themes are allowed to use skins per default. If you want to change that, you need to add the parameter $theme->skins = false; to the file themeconfig.php in your theme folder. Once done, users of this theme will see the following message:

‘Your Mahara site theme “Name of the theme” does not support page skins. This means the skin you select will have no effect on how you see this page, but it may affect the page’s appearance for other users viewing the site with a different theme.’

Warning that skin cannot be applied

Note

This option works best when users cannot choose the theme in which they want to browse the site. If they do, and choose a different theme from the institution theme, then they could see the skin applied to the page because then the underlying theme is their personal one which may allow skins.

4.5. Tags

Tags are keywords that you can give to artefacts, pages and collections in your portfolio to find them more easily later on.

Note

A site administrator must have the tag cloud enabled for you to use this feature.

4.5.1. Add a tag

You can select tags from a drop-down menu.

Add tags

If you already added tags, you see them in the search box. You can remove them by clicking the little x to the left of the tag or by deleting it with the keyboard’s Delete key.

Start typing a word and…

… a drop-down menu becomes visible in which all the tags are shown that have this letter or letter combination.

Select the tag that you wish to add to your list of tags.

The number after the tag indicates how many times you have used this tag already.

new in Mahara 18.10 If your institution set up tags, they are displayed, starting with the name of the institution.

Save the page for your tags to be added.

If you do not already have a tag in your list, you can type your tag and hit the Enter key to transform it into a tag. It will be added to your list of tags once the page is saved.

Note

If you use the tag “profile”, the tagged artefact or page is added to your profile sideblock as a shortcut.

4.5.2. Tag cloud

You can see your tag cloud in the sidebar when you are in the Content and Portfolio areas. Configure how many different tags you wish to display in your tag cloud in your account settings.

Tag cloud

Click on the Tags heading to be taken to all your tags.

Click on any tag to see all artefacts and pages from your portfolio area that have this tag associated.

Note

The more you use a tag for your files, journal entries and pages, the bigger its font size gets in the tag cloud.

4.5.3. My tags

On the My tags page you see all your tags and the artefacts, blocks, pages, and collections associated with them. You have a number of filter options to show only the resources that you wish to see.

My tags overview page

Sort tags alphabetically: The default view is to sort your tags alphabetically.

Sort tags by frequency: You can also sort tags by frequency showing the most frequently used tags first.

Click the Edit tags button to make changes to your tags without having filtered for a specific tag just yet.

You can click on any tag and filter the content items and pages you have for it. The number behind the tag tells you how many times you have already used it. If you selected a specific tag, it is highlighted.

new in Mahara 18.10 Institution tags are listed as well with the institution name before the tag.

Note

Institution tags do not appear when you edit your tags as you cannot edit them.

Search results for: The tag you filtered on is displayed.

Click the Edit this tag button to make changes to the tag that is currently the filter.

Click the Tag filter button

All

if you want to filter your results. The options are:

All: Displays all results.

Files: Shows any files.

Images: Displays only images tagged with that particular tag.

Text: Only shows text, including journal entries.

Pages: Shows only results from your pages.

Collections: Retrieves only collections that you tagged.

Journal: Displays only journals.

Journal entry: Shows only journal entries.

Plan: Restricts the results to plans.

Plan task: Filters the results and only displays plan tasks.

External: Only displays results from the “External media” block.

Résumé: Shows only results from the résumé.

Sort results by: You can sort the results by their name or creation date. The default sort order is by name.

The title of a resource, its description if available, creation date and time for pages and collections, the tags used, as well as the type of resource are displayed.

new in Mahara 18.10 If a collection is displayed, its pages are listed along with the tags used on those pages.

If an artefact is displayed, the pages in which it has been used are displayed along with a direct link to the artefact.

4.5.4. Edit tags

You can edit your tags to correct spelling mistakes or delete a tag.

Edit your tags

On the My tags screen, click the Edit tags button.

On the Edit tags screen, you can then click the tag that you want to edit. Once you have selected your tag, it is highlighted in the list and you have more options available on the screen.

Note

If you clicked the Edit this tag button on the My tags screen, the tag is already selected for you.

Name: You can provide the new name for your tag by replacing the old one. This field is mandatory.

Click the Submit button to save your change.

Alternatively, click the Delete button to delete this tag entirely. All occurrences of it will be removed.

Note

The items themselves that were associated with the tag are not deleted though.

You can click the My tags button to be taken back to the overview page of all your tags and their associated resources.

4.5.5. new in Mahara 18.10 View tagged content from others

You can explore the content of another person’s portfolio by clicking a tag on their page. By doing so, you get to see a list of all artefacts, blocks, pages, and collections that have been tagged with this tag and to which you have access.

Note

You can only view tagged content of other people, but not group, institution, or site portfolios.

Click a tag on the page to view the content to which you have access

Click a tag underneath the page heading or on any artefact that you can see on the page to be taken to the page where all tagged content is displayed that you can view based on your permissions.

View a list of content items to which you have access

The page heading tells you that you are viewing the content of the portfolio owner.

Note

When the portfolio owner shared their portfolio publically or via a secret URL and a person who is not logged in views the page and follows a tag, they can only see content tagged on that particular portfolio but not anywhere else.

You see the tag that you selected.

You can filter according to content types.

Note

If the portfolio owner shared more than one portfolio with you in which the tag was used, you see that content as well.

Sort: You can sort the results by name or date.

You see the content item. If it is a page or collection you can click it directly. All tags are mentioned associated with that content item.

If it is an artefact, you see the page title and have a direct link to the artefact. Blocks only point to pages as they do not have artefact details pages.

4.6. Commenting

Commenting or giving feedback is an essential component for portfolio work. You can give feedback not only on individual artefacts but on entire portfolio pages.

The author of an artefact or portfolio page decides whether you can leave comments or not. Find the comment options for:

files: when editing a file.

journal entries: when editing a journal entry.

notes: when editing a note.

pages: in the advanced options.

Note

“Feedback” and “comments” are used interchangeably. It can be argued that feedback and comments denote different qualities of responding. From Mahara 15.10 on, “comments” are used throughout instead of having a mix of “feedback” and “comments”.

4.6.1. View page comments

You can see the comments left so far at the bottom of each portfolio page or the artefact page that contains the artefact’s metadata.

View comments on a page

The profile picture and name of the author of the comment are shown. The name links to the author’s profile.

You can see when the comment author wrote the comment and also when the last change to it was made.

The comment is displayed.

If comment or portfolio authors decide to remove comments, they are marked as such.

Note

Deleted comments retain the section “Comment removed by author / owner” if more comments come after them as they could have been referenced. Without that indicator, some conversations may not be easy to follow as context would be missing. If no additional comment comes after a deleted one, the deleted comment is removed entirely.

If a deleted comment needs to be retrieved, it can be undeleted in the database as comments are not deleted from the database itself, but only set to be hidden.

Comments can contain a rating which shows quickly how well the person commenting likes your page or artefact.

Note

This feature is only available if the site administrator turned it on in the extensions.

As page / artefact owner you see all comments. A comment marked as private by the comment author is only displayed to you and the person commenting.

You or the comment author can make a private comment public by clicking the Make public link.

Comment authors can attach a file to their comment to give you longer feedback or oral or video feedback. The files that they add are placed into your personal Files area so you can use that feedback later on.

You and the comment author can delete a comment by clicking the Delete button . The comment text is not displayed anymore. In addition, if you delete the comment by someone else, they will receive a notification about it, which includes their comment text.

You can reply directly to a comment when this functionality was enabled for your institution.

Note

When you reply to a public comment then your reply can be seen by anyone with access to the page. They also receive a notification about the comment when they had previously left a comment themselves.

When you reply to a private comment or reply privately, then only you and the comment author to whom you are replying can see your reply and are notified about it.

You can edit your own comments, and comment authors can edit their comment if it is the last comment and / or the editing time of 10 minutes has not elapsed yet.

If a comment is less than a day old, its time is displayed in seconds, minutes or hours.

As owner of a page or artefact, you receive a notification about new comments that have been placed on it. Others will receive notifications if they placed a comment themselves.

4.6.2. View artefact comments

You do not have to go to the artefact’s details page to view comments left on an artefact. Instead, you can view them directly on a page.

View artefact comments on a page

See how many comments this content item has already received. If you click it…

You will see the comments directly on the page in the separate modal window. If you have permissions, you can perform certain actions on the comments, such as deleting them or making them public.

Click the Close icon to collapse all comments.

Click the Add comment link to leave a comment on the artefact’s details page.

Note

You can also simply click the Add comment link Add comment at the bottom of the block, and you’ll be taken directly to the artefact’s details page where you can view all other comments.

If you want to have all feedback management options available, please click the little Details icon Details at the bottom of the block. That will take you to the details page of the artefact where you have more options available for viewing your feedback.

Note

If you do not see “Comments” and / or “Add comment” on an artefact, then you are not allowed to leave comments (anymore). If comments have already been left, you can still view them, but you may not be able to add your own.

4.6.3. Comment on portfolios

You can comment on a page and individual artefacts if the page / artefact author allowed that.

4.6.3.1. Leave comments being logged in

Leave a comment

Add comment: Write your comment into the editor window.

Note

At the bottom of the editor window, you see a line that usually contains some letters (in the screenshot that is “p”). That’s just the HTML notation of the current style that you are working in.

Click the Window resizer icon tinymce resizer to make the editor window larger.

Rating: If the site administrator turned on comment ratings, you can use the 5-star rating scale in addition to your written comments and / or an uploaded file.

Make public: Switch this to “Yes” if you want everyone, who has access to this page or artefact, to see your comment. If you do not make your comment public, only you and the page / artefact author can see it. This setting is switched on by default.

License: You see this field if the site administrator turned on license metadata. Choose the license for your feedback. You can set your default license in your account settings.

Advanced licensing: You see this option if the site administrator turned on license metadata. If you click it, you see two additional license fields, “Licensor” and “Original URL”, that you can fill in if this is not your own feedback.

Note

At the moment, you cannot display that license information on a portfolio page, but it is stored for future use when the functionality is expanded.

Attach file: Click the Browse button to attach a feedback file from your computer. This file is placed into the Files area of the author of the page.

Click the Add attachment button Add attachment to add another file.

Click the Comment button to save your feedback or click Cancel to abort your changes.

Once you have commented, the author receives a notification about it.

Note

Those who comment receive notifications about additional comments made by others after they submitted theirs on portfolio pages when that comment is public. A person leaving a comment is added automatically to the watchlist for the page.

4.6.3.2. Give feedback when you are not logged in

Note

When you are not logged in, you can only give feedback on public pages and pages with secret URLs if the site administrator allowed anonymous feedback / comments.

Comment anonymously

Name: You must provide your name to identify yourself. This field is required.

Write your comment into the editor window.

Note

You have a simple text box available but no advanced editing tools for security reasons and because you wouldn’t be able to use the full image selector.

Rating: If the site administrator turned on comment ratings, you can use the 5-star rating scale in addition to your written comments.

Make public: Switch this to “No” if you don’t want everyone who has access to this page to see your comment. If you do not make your comment public, only you and the page / artefact author can see your comment. This setting is set to “Yes” by default.

Note

Comments that are left on portfolios shared publicly or via secret URL by people who do not have an account are always moderated. They are only made public if the portfolio author wishes to do so.

License: You see this field if the site administrator turned on license metadata. Choose the license for your feedback. You can set your default license in your account settings.

Advanced licensing: You see this option if the site administrator turned on license metadata. If you click it, you see two additional license fields, “Licensor” and “Original URL”, that you can fill in if this is not your own feedback.

Note

At the moment, you cannot display that license information on a portfolio page, but it is stored for future use when the functionality is expanded.

Click the Comment button to save your comment or click Cancel to abort your changes.

Once you have commented, the author receives a notification about it.

4.7. Feedback for assessment

4.7.1. Submit a page or collection for assessment

When you are a member of a group that allows submissions, you can submit portfolio pages and collections for feedback / assessment. This allows an instructor to view the portfolio with much of the content locked into place.

Note

You do not have to give the group permission to access your page or collection when you want to submit your page or collection for feedback or assessment. When you submit your page or collection, the group administrators and tutors are able to see them and give you feedback whereas regular group members do not have access to them.

During the feedback phase, you cannot make any changes to

files

journal entries

text boxes

notes

links to external content

You can still

edit plans

update profile information

change résumé information

add new journal entries to a journal

any external content on the source site, e.g. adding comments to a YouTube video, adding audio to a SlideShare presentation etc. or deleting the media

4.7.1.1. Submit from the group homepage

Submit a page or collection to a group

Go to the group homepage of the group in which you want to submit a page or collection.

You can choose the collection from the drop-down menu under Submit a page or collection to this group.

Alternatively, you can select a page, which is not part of a collection, from the drop-down menu.

Click the Submit button to lock page content. On the next page you are asked whether you really want to submit your page as your content will be locked at least temporarily.

You see all the portfolios you submitted to this group, but won’t be able to see other people’s portfolios

4.7.1.2. Submit from the page itself

You can also display the page or collection that you wish to submit and click the Submit button right above the comments and the select the group to which you want to submit your work.

Submit a page or collection to a group from the page or collection itself

Go to the page / collection that you want to submit.

Right above the Comments section, choose to which group you want to submit the page.

Click the Submit button.

On the next page you are asked whether you really want to submit your page as your content will be locked at least temporarily.

4.7.2. Instructor feedback

If you have the role of a tutor or group administrator in a group that allows submissions, you can see all submitted pages and collections with a time stamp on the group’s homepage.

Submitted portfolios with time stamp

Title of the portfolio. This can be either a page or a collection.

Owner of the portfolio. You can click the name in order to view the profile page.

Time when the portfolio was submitted to this group.

You can now give feedback on the submitted individual pages or pages in a collection and then click on the Release page / Release collection button so that the authors can continue working on them.

Provide feedback as tutor or group administrator on a submitted page

Add comment: Write your comment into the editor window.

Note

At the bottom of the editor window, you see a line that usually contains some letters (in the screenshot that is “p”). That’s just the HTML notation of the current style that you are working in.

Click the Window resizer icon tinymce resizer to make the editor window larger.

Rating: If the site administrator turned on comment ratings, you can use the 5-star rating scale in addition to your written comments and / or an uploaded file.

Make public: Switch this to “Yes” if you want everyone, who has access to this page or artefact, to see your comment. If you do not make your comment public, only you and the page / artefact author can see it. This setting is set to “No” by default to prevent accidental publishing of assessment comments that should be kept private.

License: You see this field if the site administrator turned on license metadata. Choose the license for your feedback. You can set your default license in your account settings.

Advanced licensing: You see this option if the site administrator turned on license metadata. If you click it, you see two additional license fields, “Licensor” and “Original URL”, that you can fill in if this is not your own feedback.

Note

At the moment, you cannot display that license information on a portfolio page, but it is stored for future use when the functionality is expanded.

Attach file: Click the Browse button to attach a feedback file from your computer. This file is placed into the Files area of the author of the page.

Click the Add attachment button Add attachment to add another file.

Click the Comment button to save your feedback or click Cancel to abort your changes.

Once you have commented, the author receives a notification about it.

Click the Release page / Release collection button to unlock the portfolio for the owner to be able to make changes again.

Note

new in Mahara 18.10 While a portfolio is submitted, the portfolio owner cannot delete any feedback from the page.

4.8. SmartEvidence

SmartEvidence allows you to work with competency frameworks in Mahara and associate them automatically with an evidence map for a visualisation of the competencies already gained, in progress, and not yet started.

“Competencies” is used in a wide sense here. SmartEvidence can be used for multiple purposes including competency-based assessment, graduate attributes, skills accomplishment and many more. It can also be used for self-assessment purposes.

The implementation of SmartEvidence is experimental. While the majority of the functionality works as intended there are a few areas that still need to be sorted out, e.g. the export of the SmartEvidence map in both HTML and Leap2A.

4.8.1. Set up a SmartEvidence framework

Refer to the SmartEvidence administration for more details on how to set up SmartEvidence frameworks.

4.8.2. Select a framework

When an institution allows SmartEvidence, any user in that institution can work with the frameworks that are available. The framework is selected on the collection’s Edit screen for institution or personal collections.

Note

Your institution administrator needs to allow SmartEvidence in the institution settings before you can use this feature.

Create a collection

On the Pages and collections page, click the Add button. In the modal that comes up, click the Collection button. On the next screen…

Collection name: Provide a title for your collection.

Collection description: Optionally, you can write a short description about your collection. You do not have a visual editor, but just a plain text box.

Tags: Enter tags to find your collection more easily at a later stage. You can choose from your existing tags by starting to type a letter and then selecting the tag you want to use. You can also type a new tag, and it is added to your list of tags.

See also

You can find more information on how to use the tag selector in the “Tags” section.

Page navigation bar: Choose whether you wish to display a tabbed navigation or not. If you choose not to, you will have to include the navigation block for you to go from one page to the next on the individual pages that belong to this collection.

SmartEvidence framework: Select the framework that you want to associate with your collection. You can change the collection as long as you have not put an annotation onto a page within the collection.

Click the Next: Edit collection pages button or click Cancel if you want to abort adding your collection.

4.8.3. Add an annotation

Refer to the section “Write an annotation” for more information on how to add an annotation and associate it with a standard.

You can add as many annotations to a page for different standards as you wish. When you place an annotation onto the SmartEvidence map, it is automatically added to your page.

4.8.4. Give feedback on an annotation

There are two ways of giving feedback on an annotation.

Anyone who can comment on the collection can provide feedback to the portfolio author on an annotation.

Staff members or institution administrators can assess the evidence linked to the annotation unless the SmartEvidence framework is a self-assessment one when only the portfolio authors can assess themselves.

Note

The staff or institution administrators need to be in the same institution as the portfolio author in order to assess the portfolio.

Refer to the section “Respond to an annotation” for more details.

4.8.5. SmartEvidence map

The SmartEvidence map, which is displayed as the first page in a collection that is associated with a framework, is modelled after an evidence map. It visualizes which areas of the framework have already been completed and where there is still more work to be done.

SmartEvidence map with competencies in different states of completion

Click the Previous button to go to a page in the collection that comes before the first one shown if there are many pages in the collection.

Click the Next button to go to a page in the collection that comes after the last one shown if there are many pages in the collection.

The titles of the pages are displayed.

Heading for the standard group.

Click the Collapse icon to only show the heading of the standard group. Click the Uncollapse icon to show all items in the group.

The shortname of a standard or sub-standard is displayed. Click it an a full description is shown.

A count of how many pages have been set to fulfill the criteria for a particular standard.

A dot means that the page has not been associated with the selected standard.

Note

Everybody but the portfolio author sees a grey line.

The circle indicates that this page is ready for assessment for the selected standard.

The cross means that the evidence displayed on the page is not sufficient to demonstrate this particular standard.

The half moon shows that this page still needs some work before it can be marked as fulfilling the standard.

The checkmark is displayed when the assessor agreed that the page fulfills the criteria for this particular standard.

4.8.6. Copy a SmartEvidence collection

You can copy a SmartEvidence collection. When doing so, the annotations are retained, but the feedback on the annotations is not. You can then make changes to the collection and update the annotations before submitting the new collection for assessment.

4.9. Objectionable material

4.9.1. Report objectionable material

You can report content as objectionable when you think it is:

Offensive

Inappropriate

Or otherwise violates the terms and conditions of the site

Individual content items, e.g. files, journal entries, and notes, can be reported as objectionable as can entire pages.

Report content as objectionable

On the item that you want to report as objectionable, click the button with the three dots .

Then click the item Report objectionable material. A modal window appears on the page.

Complaint: In the text field, provide information why you think the content is objectionable and should be removed or changed.

Click the Notify administrator button to send a notification to the administrators for review.

Note

The site administrator and the institution administrator of the institution, in which the user is a member whose content was reported as objectionable, receive the objectionable material notification.

You must confirm that you want to report content as objectionable in the modal window to prevent accidental reports.

4.9.2. Manage objectionable material

If you are an administrator who receives a notification about objectionable material, you can click a link in the notification and are taken to the page or the artefact in question directly. You can view notifications in your Mahara inbox or via email.

4.9.2.1. Inbox notification with objectionable material

The inbox notification contains vital information about the objectionable material.

Inbox notification about objectionable material

The name of the person who reported the objectionable material. It is linked to the user’s profile page in case you have clarification questions.

The complaint itself.

More…: A link to the page or artefact in the page that was marked as objectionable.

4.9.2.2. Email with objectionable material

The email notification that you receive contains important information.

Email notification about objectionable material

The complaint itself.

Complaint relates to: A link to the page or artefact in the page that was marked as objectionable.

Reported by: A link to the user’s profile page who reported the objectionable material in case you have clarification questions.

4.9.2.3. Review objectionable material as administrator

Once you received the notification as administrator, you can go to the item in question.

Review objectionable material

new in Mahara 18.10 Click the Still objectionable button if you want to contact the portfolio author and give them pointers on what to fix in their portfolio.

Click the Not objectionable button if the content is in line with the terms and conditions of the site.

When you click either button, every administrator who got the initial objectional material notification receives a notification mentioning that you dealt with the complaint.

Note

Normally, as administrator you do not have immediate access to a user’s content. However, since you need to view the content to evaluate it, you have access to it without needing to log in as the user or request access permissions. Once content is marked as not being objectionable, you do not have access to it anymore.

new in Mahara 18.10 If you think a portfolio author needs to review their portfolio content as it is not in line with the terms and conditions of the site, you can send them a notification about that and also revoke access to the portfolio until the issue has been resolved.

Revoke access to a portfolio containing objectionable material

Complaint: Once you’ve clicked the Still objectionable button, a modal window is opened in which you see the original complaint.

Review of complaint: Add your comments for the portfolio author so they know what they have to do in order to remove the objectionable material.

Remove access: Set this to “Yes” if you want to revoke access to this portfolio until the problem has been resolved. The access permissions are suspended and nobody but the portfolio author and the institution / site administrators can view the portfolio.

Note

Once the access has been revoked for a portfolio, the portfolio author sees that highlighted on Shared by me.

4.9.2.4. Remove objectionable material as portfolio author

As portfolio author, you receive a notification about the objectionable material review and can fix the issues. You can then send a message to the administrator and ask them to perform another review.

Portfolio author asks for review of the changes

On the portfolio page, click the Review objectionable material button.

A modal window opens in which you can type your message to the administrator, detailing the changes you have made to your portfolio that will lift the objectionable material notice.

Click the Notify administrator button to send your message or click Cancel to abort your action.

The administrator receives a notification and can review the portfolio again, either marking it as not objectionable or asking for more changes.

See also

Administrators can view a report on current objectionable material that still requires an action in the administration area.

4.10. Files

Main menu → Create → Files

The Files area is a repository, i.e. a document storage for folders and files, that you can use within your portfolio. Both folders and files are considered artefacts and as such can be added to a page. You may create any number of folders or sub folders. To view which subfolders and files sit within a folder, click on the folder name. Use the Home link to return to the top level folder directory.

You can arrange files and folders by dragging and dropping the icon in front of the file / folder name onto another folder icon. A suitably named and organised filing structure will help you with the long-term organisation and retrieval of your artefacts. If you want to move a file or folder out of a subfolder, move it onto the parent folder icon .

You will find that some folders are automatically created by the system such as viewfiles or images. The viewfiles folder includes files from imported pages whereas the images folder includes your uploaded profile pictures. As with any other file, you can move them out of this folder and store them in a different folder.

Note

You can move files and folders to your heart’s content without having to re-link them in the pages where you use them. Also renaming them will not have a negative impact on links.

4.10.1. File browser

In the Files area you have a file browser in which you can organise your files so you can find them more easily. You can sort your files into folders and also create subfolders.

Your file browser

Click a file or folder icon and drag and drop it onto a folder to move the file or folder within that folder.

Name: You see all your folders and files that are not in folders listed to access them easily.

Note

When you click on the name of an image, you see a preview of it.

When you click on another file, you are presented with a download option.

Description: View the description of your folders or files to know quickly what the content of them is.

Note

If you do not give an image a description, the file name is used as alt tag to identify the image when you place it into an image block or display it in text.

Size: The size of your files and folders is displayed here.

Date: The date you created a folder or uploaded a file is shown.

Click the Edit button to edit folder or file properties. Continue with editing a file.

Click the Delete button to delete a file or folder. A pop-up window requires you to confirm the deletion because you will not be able to recover the file once it is deleted. If you use a file in a journal entry and / or on a page, the warning message tells you that this file is in use elsewhere so that you don’t delete it by accident.

If a folder or file is an artefact in a page that has been submitted, you are not able to edit or delete it.

Click the Download folder content as a zip file link in order to get a zip file which contains all files and folders of the current folder.

See also

Site administrators decide in the Artefact type: File settings for how long the zip file is kept on the server.

4.10.2. Upload a file

Before you upload a file, make sure that you are allowed to do so. For any artefacts that you publish in your portfolio, you must have the sufficient rights. That means:

the artefact is your own or

you are allowed to reproduce and distribute it, i.e. it does not violate any copyright legislation and

the artefact also adheres to the Terms and Conditions of the Mahara site you are using

Note

It can be that you have to agree to an upload agreement before you can upload any files to your Files area. The site administrator decides about that in Administration menu → Extensions → Plugin administration → Plugin type: artefact: file.

Upload a file

License: You see this field if the site administrator turned on license metadata. Choose the license for the artefact that you are about to upload. You can set your default license in your account settings.

Licensor: You see this field if the site administrator turned on license metadata. If you are uploading a file that somebody else created, you can attribute the work to them here and provide their name for example.

Original URL: You see this field if the site administrator turned on license metadata. If you are uploading somebody else’s file, provide a link to the original Internet address so that others can go there and view the original file.

If the site administrator turned on the image resizing option, you can decide whether you want to have your images resized if they are larger than the specified dimensions. This option is recommended to save space in your portfolio.

Upload file: Upload a file by clicking on the Browse button to search for the file on your computer. Make sure that it is not larger than the maximum upload size that is shown in the parentheses.

Instead of clicking the Browse button to upload files, you can drag and drop files from your computer directly onto the “drop zone”. You must still observe the maximum file size upload for each file and the maximum total file size cannot be exceeded either.

Note

This functionality is not available in all browsers. Generally, users of Chrome 7+, Firefox 4+, Internet Explorer 10+, Opera 12+ (Windows only) and Safari 6+ can use drag and drop.

You can drag and drop an entire folder without zipping it into the Files area using Chrome. The files are uploaded, but not the folder itself. So if all files should be in a separate folder, create a folder in Mahara first. This feature does not exist in Firefox and Safari.

Type the folder name and click the Create folder button if you want to create a folder before uploading files. Click the folder to upload files directly into it.

4.10.3. Upload multiple files

You can upload multiple files at once in three different ways:

You can upload multiple files when you are browsing for them after having clicked the Browse button. Hold down the Ctrl key (or Command key on a Mac) and click on all the files that you wish to upload at once.

You can drag and drop multiple files into the drop zone.

You can also place all files into a compressed file, a .zip file, and upload that to Mahara. This method allows you to upload multiple files from different folders on your computer at once. You can create a zip file from any number of files that you have selected in your document management program by making a right mouse click and selecting Compress… (or something similar).

Zip files in the Finder under MacOSX

Zip files in Ubuntu’s Nautilus

Zip files in Windows Explorer

Once you have uploaded your zip file to Mahara, you can unzip it there. Click on the Unzip button next to the Edit button . Please follow the on-screen instructions.

4.10.4. Edit a file or folder

You can edit the properties of a file or folder at any time. The file does not have to be re-linked in portfolio pages, but the properties you changed will be updated automatically.

Edit a file

Click the Edit button to edit folder or file properties.

Name: Change the name of the file (or folder). It is not necessary to keep the file extension as Mahara stores it internally. However, it can be good to leave it in case somebody has problems opening the file if no default programme is associated with the file after downloading it. This field is mandatory and each file (or folder) must have a name.

Description: Give the file (or folder) a description to find it again more easily.

Note

If you do not give an image a description, the file name is used as alt tag to identify the image when you place it into an image block or display it in text.

Tags: Give the file (or folder) one or more tags. You can choose from your existing tags by starting to type a letter and then selecting the tag you want to use. You can also type a new tag, and it is added to your list of tags.

See also

You can find more information on how to use the tag selector in the “Tags” section.

License: You see this field if the site administrator turned on license metadata. Choose the license for the artefact that you are editing.

Licensor: You see this field if the site administrator turned on license metadata. If you are editing a file that somebody else created, you can attribut the work to them here and provide their name for example.

Original URL: You see this field if the site administrator turned on license metadata. If you are editing somebody else’s file, provide a link to the original Internet address so that others can go there and view the original file.

Allow comments: Decide if users should be allowed to comment directly on the file artefact page when they view it.

Click the Save changes button to keep your changes or click Cancel to abort the action.

4.10.5. Rotate an image

When you upload images directly from a mobile device, the orientation may not be correct, and a landscape image might be displayed in portrait mode. By rotating the image in Mahara on the fly, you can correct its orientation.

Rotate an image

Click the Edit button next to the image that you want to rotate.

Orientation: Click the Rotate button until you reach the desired orientation. The new orientation is applied wherever that image is used in blocks on a page.

Click the Save changes button to keep your changes or click Cancel to abort the action.

4.10.6. File quota

The site administrator of your Mahara site decides how much space you can have to store files. This can vary across institutions. You can check your file quota in the sidebar in your Files area.

File quota

4.11. Journals

Main menu → Create → Journals

The Journal is a tool with which you can record your thoughts and experiences online. By adding your journal or individual posts of it to a page you can allow other users to place feedback and comments on it. Thus, you can create a dialogue with your audience.

Per default, every user has one journal available. You can also have multiple journals.

Overview of a journal with journal entries

Journal title

Journal description (optional)

Click the New entry button to create a new entry in this journal.

Click the Settings button to change certain journal settings (see below).

Title of the journal entry

Creation date of the journal entry

Tags associated with the journal entry

Beginning of the journal entry

If a journal entry is labeled Published, you can click the Unpublish button to revert it back to draft status.

If a journal entry is labeled Draft, only you can view it. You can then click the Publish button to publish this entry to your journal for others to see when it is included in a page.

Note

When you publish a journal, you do not automatically make it available to others or make it public on the internet. The journal or journal entry still needs to be put into a page that is then shared with others in order for them to see it.

Click the Edit button to make changes to your journal entry.

Click the Delete button to delete your journal entry.

Number of entries in your journal

4.11.1. Change your journal settings

You can change the title of your default journal (and all others if you have enabled multiple journals) and add a description as well as tags.

Journal settings

Click on the Settings button of your journal.

Title: Change the title of your journal. This is a mandatory field.

Description: Add a description for your journal. You can format it as you wish.

Tags: Add tags to your journal for easier searching later on. You can choose from your existing tags by starting to type a letter and then selecting the tag you want to use. You can also type a new tag, and it is added to your list of tags.

See also

You can find more information on how to use the tag selector in the “Tags” section.

License: You see this field if the site administrator turned on license metadata. Choose the license for the journal. You can set your default license in your account settings.

Advanced licensing: You see this option if the site administrator turned on license metadata. If you click it, you see two additional license fields, “Licensor” and “Original URL”, that you can fill in if this in not your own journal.

Click the Save settings button to save your changes or the Cancel button to abort your changes.

4.11.2. Add a journal entry

All journal entries you make are private to you until you put them into a page. Thus, the publishing of a journal / journal entry is a three-step process:

You write your entry and save it.

In a page, you choose one of the journal blocks that suits your purpose best.

You give those who shall see that page access to it.

Post your journal entry by following the steps below.

Journal entry

In your journal, click on New entry.

Title: Provide a title for your journal entry that expresses what you are writing about. This field is mandatory.

Entry: You must also write some text, add pictures etc. The visual editor helps you format your journal entry. This field is mandatory.

Tags: Add tags to your journal for easier searching later on. You can choose from your existing tags by starting to type a letter and then selecting the tag you want to use. You can also type a new tag, and it is added to your list of tags.

See also

You can find more information on how to use the tag selector in the “Tags” section.

License: You see this field if the site administrator turned on license metadata. Choose the license for the journal entry. You can set your default license in your account settings.

Advanced licensing: You see this option if the site administrator turned on license metadata. If you click it, you see two additional license fields, “Licensor” and “Original URL”, that you can fill in if this in not your own journal entry.

Attachments: Add an attachment or more to your journal entry, e.g. PDF files associated with it or images. You can add files either from your files area or upload new ones directly onto your journal entry.

Draft: Mark your entry as draft if you have not finished it yet. This is especially helpful if you have published your journal in a page, but do not want anybody to read this particular entry (yet). It is always visible to you, but not others.

Allow comments: Change the status of the switch box to “Yes” if you want to receive comments on the journal entry.

Click the Save button to save your entry or the Cancel button to abort your changes.

4.11.3. Add an image into a journal entry

Note

Please refer to the section “Insert an image into text” for more information.

4.11.4. Add a file as attachment to a journal entry

When you attach files directly to a journal entry, others can see them whenever they have access to the journal entry.

Attachments for journal entries

Click the Add a file button and in the pop-up click on the file name to select the file(s) from your Files area that you wish to attach.

Note

You can click anywhere in the space around the file that you want to add as an attachment to select it for your journal entry.

Alternatively, you can upload additional files directly.

License: You see this field if the site administrator turned on license metadata. Choose the license for the artefact that you are uploading. You can set your default license in your account settings.

Licensor: You see this field if the site administrator turned on license metadata. If you are uploading a file that somebody else created, you can attribut the work to them here and provide their name for example.

Original URL: You see this field if the site administrator turned on license metadata. If you are uploading somebody else’s file, provide a link to the original Internet address so that others can go there and view the original file.

If you wish, you can have your uploaded images resized automatically if they are larger than the recommended size. You can only see this option if the site administrator made the image resizing option available.

Click the Browse button to select a file from your computer to upload.

Instead of clicking the Browse button to upload files, you can drag and drop files from your computer directly onto the “drop zone”. You must still observe the maximum file size upload for each file and the maximum total file size cannot be exceeded either.

Note

This functionality is not available in all browsers. Generally, users of Chrome 7+, Firefox 4+, Internet Explorer 10+, Opera 12+ (Windows only) and Safari 6+ can use drag and drop.

Click the Close icon to return to your journal entry.

If you attached a file that you do not wish to attach anymore, you can click the Remove button Remove to take it off your list of attachments.

Once you are done, you can click the Save button to save the changes to your journal entry.

Note

You do not need to attach an image in order to display it in your journal entry. You can insert it easily.

4.11.5. Work with multiple journals

If you wish to use more than one journal, e.g. to put your writing into categories for making all posts from one category available in a page without having to select each journal entry, you can go to your Settings and set the switch box for Multiple journals to “Yes”.

Multiple journals enabled

Once you can create multiple journals, click the Create journal button to set up a new journal.

All your journals are listed on Main menu → Create → Journals with their titles. The titles link through to the individual journals.

You can see the description of the journal.

You see how many entries you have in each journal.

Click the Arrow icon to be taken to the journal and see all journal entries.

Click the New entry button to create a new journal entry directly from this screen.

Click the Edit button to make changes to your journal title, description or tags.

Click the Delete button to delete the journal and all its entries.

Warning

When you click the Delete button, you receive a confirmation message whether you really want to delete the journal or not. If you used the journal or an entry of it in a page, Mahara lets you know so you can decide whether to delete the journal or not. Once you agree to delete the journal, your journal and all its content are removed permanently.

4.12. Notes

Main menu → Create → Notes

Notes are bits and pieces of text that you can re-use from one portfolio page in another without having to copy the entire page.

4.12.1. View your notes

Though you cannot create notes directly from this page, you can edit your notes. Their content will be changed wherever that note is used.

Notes viewed in the Content area

Note title: This column contains the titles of the notes where they appear for the first time. When you click the title, you see the content of the note.

Block title: This column shows the title of the note blocks so that you can find the requisite note more easily esp. when you changed the title considerably.

The Contained in column lists all the pages in which this note is used. It is matched up with the Titled column.

Attachments : This column displays the number of attachments you have per note.

Click the Edit button to make changes to the note. Beware that any changes you make here are made to all instances of the note.

Click the Delete button to permanently delete the note. This action cannot be undone and all instances of the note are deleted from portfolio pages.

When you submitted a portfolio page that contains notes, you cannot change the note’s content or delete it until the page is released again.

You see the number of notes you have in total.

4.12.2. Edit your notes

You can edit your notes to make changes to them.

Warning

When you make changes to a note from this page, all instances of this note on any portfolio page will be affected.

Edit a note

A warning message appears at the top of the page if you opened a note that is contained in more than one page. If you edit this note, it will be changed in all locations where this note appears.

Note

If you do not wish the note to be changed everywhere it appears, go to the page where the note should stay as it is, go into the block configuration and click the “Make a copy” link above the text editor.

Title: The title of your existing note is displayed.

Note: The content of your note is displayed. If you make changes here, they will be applied to all instances where the note appears.

Tags: Enter tags to find your notes more easily at a later stage. You can choose from your existing tags by starting to type a letter and then selecting the tag you want to use. You can also type a new tag, and it is added to your list of tags.

See also

You can find more information on how to use the tag selector in the “Tags” section.

License: You see this field if the site administrator turned on license metadata. Choose the license for this note. You can set your default license in your account settings.

Advanced licensing: You see this option if the site administrator turned on license metadata. If you click it, you see two additional license fields, “Licensor” and “Original URL”, that you can fill in if this in not your own note or if you had published it elsewhere before.

Attachments: Attach files to a note as additional evidence for the text you are writing.

See also

When you edit your note, you can attach files or remove files as you would do on the File(s) to download block.

Allow comments: Set the switch to “Yes” if you want to allow others to leave comments on your note.

Click the Save button to keep your changes or click the Cancel button to abort your changes.

4.13. Plans

Main menu → Create → Plans

Plans are simple ToDo lists. They are particularly well-suited to plan medium and long-term endeavours. A plan can consist of a number of individual activities with which completion dates are associated.

You could use the functionality to:

set yourself individual goals for a large task.

manage your personal learning activities and keep an eye on how many you have already accomplished during the time frame that you have set yourself.

keep track of workshops you have attended for your professional development over time.

Overview page of Plans

Click the New plan button to create a new plan.

Your existing plans, their descriptions and tags are displayed. Click a title to see all the tasks that you associated with that plan.

Click the Edit button to change the title, description, tags (and license) of your plan.

Click the Manage button to add and edit tasks for your plan.

Click the Delete button to delete your plan.

The number of plans you created is displayed.

4.13.1. Create a new plan

Create a new plan

Click the New plan button on the Plans overview page.

Title: Give your plan a title. This field is mandatory.

Description: Give your plan a description. It is visible when you select a plan for inclusion into a portfolio page and on the portfolio page itself.

Tags: Add tags to your plan for easier searching later on. You can choose from your existing tags by starting to type a letter and then selecting the tag you want to use. You can also type a new tag, and it is added to your list of tags.

See also

You can find more information on how to use the tag selector in the “Tags” section.

License: You see this field if the site administrator turned on license metadata. Choose the license for the plan. You can set your default license in your account settings.

Advanced licensing: You see this option if the site administrator turned on license metadata. If you click it, you see two additional license fields, “Licensor” and “Original URL”, that you can fill in if this in not your own plan.

Note

At the moment, you cannot display that license information on a portfolio page, but it is stored for future use when the functionality is expanded. You can view the license information on the artefact’s detail page though.

Click the Save plan button to keep your new plan.

Now you can add individual tasks to your plan.

4.13.2. Add tasks to a plan

There are several ways to add a task to a plan:

Click on Add task right after you saved your plan.

Click on Main menu → Create → Plans → the title of the plan → New task.

Click on Main menu → Create → Plans → the Manage tasks button → New task.

When editing a portfolio page that contains a plan, click the Add task button .

Once you are in the New task screen, you can create your new task.

Add a new task to a plan

Title: Enter a title for your task. This field is mandatory.

Completion date: Provide a completion date. Click into the field to show the calendar or enter it directly in the format YYYY/MM/DD (Year - 4 digits / Month - 2 digits / Date - 2 digits), e.g. 2012/06/27. This field is mandatory and allows for tasks to be marked overdue automatically.

Description: Provide more detailed information about the task.

Tags: Add tags to your task for easier searching later on. You can choose from your existing tags by starting to type a letter and then selecting the tag you want to use. You can also type a new tag, and it is added to your list of tags.

See also

You can find more information on how to use the tag selector in the “Tags” section.

Completed: Set to “Yes” if you have already completed the task.

License: You see this field if the site administrator turned on license metadata. Choose the license for the plan’s task. You can set your default license in your account settings.

Advanced licensing: You see this option if the site administrator turned on license metadata. If you click it, you see two additional license fields, “Licensor” and “Original URL”, that you can fill in if this in not your own plan’s tasks.

Note

At the moment, you cannot display that license information on a portfolio page, but it is stored for future use when the functionality is expanded.

Click the Save task button to finish editing your task.

Add more tasks immediately or at a later point.

4.13.3. Edit tasks in a plan

Click the Manage tasks button or the title of the plan on Main menu → Create → Plans.

Click the Edit button next to a task that you want to change.

Make your changes or mark a task as completed.

Click the Save task button and your changes are recorded.

4.13.4. View all tasks of a plan

You can view the tasks of the plan in two different ways if you are the author of the plan:

At Main menu → Create → Plans → Click on a plan.

Add a plan to one of your pages.

4.13.4.1. View a plan under Content

Plans under Content

The title of the plan under which you created the tasks is shown.

Click the New task button to create a new task in this plan.

Tags: The tags that you associated with the plan are displayed.

Completed: The completion status of each task. Tasks that are overdue show the Overdue icon .

Completed: Tasks that are not yet completed don’t show any icon.

Completed: The completion status of each task. Tasks that are completed display the Completed icon .

Note

new in Mahara 18.10 Not completed and overdue tasks are displayed at the top of a plan when there are already completed tasks so that they can be viewed more easily. All other tasks are displayed in chronological order.

Title: The title of each task is shown.

Completion date: You can see the completion date for each task.

Description: The description for each task is displayed.

Tags: The tags that you associated with a task are shown.

Click the Edit button to make changes to a task.

Click the Delete button to delete a task.

The number of tasks in your plan is displayed.

4.13.4.2. View a plan on a portfolio page

Plan on a portfolio page

The title of the plan. You can change that as part of the block title.

The plan’s description is displayed.

Tags: The tags that you added for this plan are displayed.

The completion status of each task is displayed:

Tasks that are completed display the Completed icon .

Tasks that are overdue show the Overdue icon .

Tasks that are not yet completed show the Not completed icon .

Note

new in Mahara 18.10 You can click the completion icon to change the status of a task and mark it completed or revoke the completion.

Title: The title of each task is shown.

Completion date: You can see the completion date for each task.

Click the title of the task or the Down arrow to see details for this task. Click the Up arrow to hide the details.

The description of this task is shown.

Tags: The tags that you added for the task are displayed.

The number of tasks in this plan is displayed.

By clicking the Details link Details, you are taken to the artefact’s details page.

4.13.4.3. new in Mahara 18.10 Edit a plan on a page in edit mode

Make changes to your plan

The plan’s description is displayed.

Tags: The tags that you added for this plan are displayed.

Click the Edit plan button to make changes to the basic information about your plan. You will be redirected back to this page.

Click the Add task button to create a new task within the plan. You will be redirected back to this page upon saving your new task.

Click the Delete plan button to delete your plan permanently.

Click the completion icon to change the status of a task. The completion status of each task is displayed:

Tasks that are completed display the Completed icon .

Tasks that are overdue show the Overdue icon .

Tasks that are not yet completed show the Not completed icon .

Note

new in Mahara 18.10 You can click the completion icon to change the status of a task and mark it completed or revoke the completion.

View the title and completion date of a task.

Click the title of the task or the Down arrow to see details for this task. Click the Up arrow to hide the details.

Click the Edit task button to make changes to a task. You will be redirected back to this page after you finished editing.

Click the Delete task button to remove the task from your plan and delete it permanently. You will be redirected back to this page after you finished editing.

The number of tasks in this plan is displayed.

4.14. Résumé

Main menu → Create → Résumé

The résumé plugin allows you to create an online résumé / curriculum vitae. You can either publish your entire résumé or individual components of it in your portfolio.

4.14.1. Introduction

Main menu → Create → Résumé → Introduction

In the introduction you can write a Cover letter and also provide some Personal information.

4.14.1.1. Write your cover letter

The visual editor allows you to write and format your résumé.

Write your cover letter

Go to Main menu → Create → Résumé → Introduction and click the Edit button in the Cover letter section to enter the edit mode for the cover letter.

Write your cover letter.

Click the Save button below the editor window when you are happy with your cover letter to save it for future use, or click the Cancel button to abort your changes.

Note

If you write your cover letter or any other text in Microsoft Word instead of directly in the editor in Mahara, please use the Paste as text button tinymce_paste_text to strip out most of the formatting code that Word puts into a document but can interfere online.

4.14.1.2. Provide personal information

None of the fields under Personal information are required. You can choose to include as much or as little information as you wish. Most fields are free form fields.

Note

Mahara is being used around the world. Therefore, some information here or later on in the résumé do not apply to you. If you do not need them, you do not have to fill in the fields.

Add personal information to your résumé

Date of birth: Either choose your date of birth via the calendar by clicking into the text field or enter it in the format YYYY/MM/DD (Year/Month/Day), e.g. 1978/01/30 when you want to say that you were born on 30 January 1978.

Place of birth: Enter your place of birth. You can also enter the country you were born in.

Citizenship: Fill it in as it is shown in your passport.

Visa status: As employment laws vary between countries, you may wish to include your work or travel visa status within your résumé where relevant.

Gender identity: Select the one that applies to you.

(Not specified): Select this option if you do not want to identify with any of the other options.

Woman: Select this option if you identify as a woman.

Man: Select this option if you identify as a man.

Marital status: Provide it if it is relevant.

Click the Save button when you want to keep that information.

Note

None of the fields in the Personal information are required. Decide wisely, which of the above information you want to make available to others.

4.14.2. Education and employment

Main menu → Create → Résumé → Education and employment

This part of the résumé allows you to create a record of your academic and professional qualifications as well as your work experience.

4.14.2.1. Education history

You can enter as many qualifications for your education history as you want.

Enter your education history one qualification a time

Click the Add button to start a new entry.

Start date: Provide the date for starting your qualification. This field is mandatory.

End date: You can fill in an end date for your qualification.

Note

You can enter the dates any which way you want. It is not a calendar date field because different résumés require different date formats.

Institution: Enter the institution at which you worked on your qualification. This field is mandatory.

Institution address: You can provide the address for your institution.

Qualification type: Enter your qualification type if you wish.

Qualification name: You can enter the name of the qualification you were / are earning.

Qualification description: You can provide more details about your qualification, e.g. minor subjects, final grade gained etc.

Note

You can use regular text formatting tools to add URLs and highlight text. We would not recommend you add images and video though as they may not be displayed properly in the available space.

Attach file: Attach a file as evidence of your qualification. Click the Browse button to select a file from your computer.

Click the Add attachment button Add attachment to attach more files.

Click the Save button to save your entry.

Click the Cancel button to abort your changes.

Note

You can add a file only once. If you need to attach it to another item as well, you must upload the file again.

When you edit your entry, you can attach additional files or remove files as you would do on the File(s) to download block.

When you have filled in all your qualifications in your education history, you can re-arrange the individual items if necessary.

Interpreting the Education history table

Use the up and down arrows to change the order of the individual items.

Qualification: Here you see information about the qualifications you entered. The information includes:

Qualification name

Qualification type (in parentheses)

Place where you earned the qualification

Start and end date

If you entered a qualification description, you can see it by clicking on the qualification name.

If you attached a file, you can see it by clicking on the qualification name and then download it.

Attachments: This column displays the number of attachments you have per item.

Use the Edit button to make changes to an entry.

Use the Delete button to delete an entry.

Click the Add button to start a new entry.

4.14.2.2. Employment history

You can enter as many jobs to your employment history as you wish.

Enter your employment history one position a time

Click the Add button to start a new entry.

Start date: Provide the date for starting your job. This field is mandatory.

End date: You can fill in an end date for your job.

Note

You can enter the dates any which way you want. It is not a calendar date field because different résumés require different date formats.

Employer: Enter the employer at which you worked. This field is mandatory.

Employer address: You can provide the address for your employer.

Job title: Enter the title that you held. This field is mandatory.

Position description: You can provide more details about your position, e.g. your primary tasks etc.

Note

You can use regular text formatting tools to add URLs and highlight text. We would not recommend you add images and video though as they may not be displayed properly in the available space.

Attach file: Attach a file as evidence of your work. Click the Browse button to select a file from your computer.

Click the Add attachment button Add attachment to attach more files.

Click the Save button to save your entry.

Click the Cancel button to abort your changes.

Note

You can add a file only once. If you need to attach it to another item as well, you must upload the file again.

When you edit your entry, you can attach additional files or remove files as you would do on the File(s) to download block.

When you have filled in all your job positions in your employment history, you can re-arrange the individual items if necessary.

Interpreting the Employment history table

Use the up and down arrows to change the order of the individual items.

Position: Here you see information about the positions you held. The information includes:

Position title

Employer

Start and end date

If you entered a position description, you can see it by clicking on the position title.

If you attached a file, you can see it by clicking on the position title and then download it.

Attachments: This column displays the number of attachments you have per item.

Use the Edit button to make changes to an entry.

Use the Delete button to delete an entry.

Click the Add button to start a new entry.

4.14.3. Achievements

Main menu → Create → Résumé → Achievements

In Achievements you can collect information on:

certifications, accreditations and awards, e.g. Chartered Accountant, Registered Nurse, Award for Best Actress

books and publications

professional membership, e.g. in the American Philosophical Society

The process of adding, editing and moving entries is similar to the process for Education and employment.

4.14.3.1. Certifications, accreditations and awards

Certifications, accreditations and awards provided in the résumé

Click the Add button to start a new entry.

Date: Provide a date when received your certificate, accreditation or award. This field is mandatory.

Title: Enter the title of your certification, accreditation or award. This field is mandatory.

Description: You can provide more details on your certification, accreditation or award.

Note

You can use regular text formatting tools to add URLs and highlight text. We would not recommend you add images and video though as they may not be displayed properly in the available space.

Attach file: Attach a file as evidence of your certification, accreditation or award. Click the Browse button to select a file from your computer.

Click the Add attachment button Add attachment to attach more files.

Click the Save button to save your entry.

Click the Cancel button to abort your changes.

Note

You can add a file only once. If you need to attach it to another item as well, you must upload the file again.

When you edit your entry, you can attach additional files or remove files as you would do on the File(s) to download block.

When you have filled in all your certifications, accreditations and awards, you can re-arrange the individual items if necessary.

Interpreting the Certifications, accreditations and awards table

Use the up and down arrows to change the order of the individual items.

Title: Here you see information about the certifications, accreditations and awards you received. The information includes:

Title

Date

If you entered a description, you can see it by clicking on the title.

If you attached a file, you can see it by clicking on the title and then download it.

Attachments: This column displays the number of attachments you have per item.

Use the Edit button to make changes to an entry.

Use the Delete button to delete an entry.

Click the Add button to start a new entry.

4.14.3.2. Books and publications

Books and publications provided in the résumé

Click the Add button to start a new entry.

Date: Provide a date for your publication. This field is mandatory.

Title: Enter the title of the journal or book in which your contribution appeared. This field is mandatory.

Contribution: Enter the title of your contribution. This field is mandatory.

Details of your contribution: You can provide more details about your contribution, e.g. the full bibliographic reference.

Note

You can use regular text formatting tools to add URLs and highlight text. We would not recommend you add images and video though as they may not be displayed properly in the available space.

Attach file: Attach a file as evidence of your contribution, e.g. the PDF of the article. Click the Browse button to select a file from your computer.

Click the Add attachment button Add attachment to attach more files.

URL: Enter the URL under which your publication is accessible.

Click the Save button to save your entry.

Click the Cancel button to abort your changes.

Note

You can add a file only once. If you need to attach it to another item as well, you must upload the file again.

When you edit your entry, you can attach additional files or remove files as you would do on the File(s) to download block.

When you have filled in all your publications, you can re-arrange the individual items if necessary.

Interpreting the Books and publications table

Use the up and down arrows to change the order of the individual items.

Title: Here you see information about the publications you entered. The information includes:

Title

Date

If you entered a description, you can see it by clicking on the title.

If you provided a URL to your publication, click the title to see it.

If you attached a file, you can see it by clicking on the title and then download it.

Attachments: This column displays the number of attachments you have per item.

Use the Edit button to make changes to an entry.

Use the Delete button to delete an entry.

Click the Add button to start a new entry.

4.14.3.3. Professional memberships

Professional memberships provided in the résumé

Click the Add button to start a new entry.

Start date: Provide the date for joining the organisation. This field is mandatory.

End date: You can fill in an end date if you left the organisation.

Title: Enter the title of the organisation. This field is mandatory.

Description: You can enter additional information about your membership.

Note

You can use regular text formatting tools to add URLs and highlight text. We would not recommend you add images and video though as they may not be displayed properly in the available space.

Attach file: Attach a file as evidence of your membership. Click the Browse button to select a file from your computer.

Click the Add attachment button Add attachment to attach more files.

Click the Save button to save your entry.

Click the Cancel button to abort your changes.

Note

You can add a file only once. If you need to attach it to another item as well, you must upload the file again.

When you edit your entry, you can attach additional files or remove files as you would do on the File(s) to download block.

When you have filled in all your memberships, you can re-arrange the individual items if necessary.

Interpreting the Professional memberships table

Use the up and down arrows to change the order of the individual items.

Title: Here you see information about the memberships you entered. The information includes:

Title

Start and end date

If you entered a description, you can see it by clicking on the title.

If you attached a file, you can see it by clicking on the title and then download it.

Attachments: This column displays the number of attachments you have per item.

Use the Edit button to make changes to an entry.

Use the Delete button to delete an entry.

Click the Add button to start a new entry.

4.14.4. Goals and skills

Main menu → Create → Résumé → Goals and skills

4.14.4.1. Goals

The Goals area is divided into three sections:

Personal goals

Academic goals

Career goals

Personal or career goals are often provided in a résumé for employers to understand how a particular role might suit your ambitions.

You can use the academic goals section to describe achievements you are seeking in your programme of study.

Writing down goals for use in portfolio pages

The type of goal is displayed.

Click the Edit icon to enter a goal in one of the three goals areas.

The text of the goal is displayed.

Attached files: In this section you see how many files you attached to your goal.

Enter a goal

Click the Edit icon or the goal title itself to enter a goal in one of the three goals areas.

Note

You can also simply click on the title of the goal to enter the edit mode.

Description: Write down your goal(s). You can come back at any time and edit them.

Click the Add a file button to attach one or more files to your goal.

Attachments: If you added one or more files, you see them displayed here.

Note

When you edit your entry, you can attach additional files or remove files as you would do on the File(s) to download block.

Click the Remove link to remove a file from your goal.

Click the Save button to save your changes or click the Cancel link to abort.

4.14.4.2. Skills

The Skills area is divided into three sections:

Personal skills

Academic skills

Work skills

You may include skills that you add here in your portfolio pages.

Employers are always interested in what skills you can bring to a role. You can use this section to display the attributes that you would bring to a collaborative community or working group.

Skills section

The type of skill is displayed.

Click the Edit icon to enter a skill description in one of the three skills areas.

Note

You can also simply click on the title of the skill to enter the edit mode.

The text of the skill is displayed.

Attached files: In this section you see how many files you attached to your skill.

Enter skills

Click the Edit button to enter skills in one of the three skills areas.

Description: Write down your skills. You can come back at any time and edit them.

Click the Add a file button to attach one or more files to your skill.

Attachments: If you added one or more files, you see them displayed here.

Note

When you edit your entry, you can attach additional files or remove files as you would do on the File(s) to download block.

Click the Remove link to remove a file from your skill.

Click the Save button to save your changes or click the Cancel link to abort..

4.14.5. Interests

Main menu → Create → Résumé → Interests

The Interests section allows you to list your personal and / or professional interests. This might include your hobbies, sporting activities, volunteer work, areas of research and expertise etc. Listing your interests will help employers form a better picture of who you are and what you would bring to their organisation.

Example of interests for a résumé

Click the Edit button to enter your interests.

Write down your interests. You can come back at any time and edit them.

Click the Save button to keep your changes or click the Cancel link to abort.

4.14.6. License

Main menu → Create → Résumé → License

Like other artefacts, you can select a license for your résumé.

Note

At the moment, you cannot display that license information on a portfolio page, but it is stored for future use when the functionality is expanded.

Provide a license for your résumé

License: You see this field if the site administrator turned on license metadata. Choose the license for your résumé. You can set your default license in your account settings.

Click the Advanced licensing link to see more options.

Licensor: If you created the résumé of someone else, you can attribute the work to them here and provide their name for example.

Original URL: If the résumé had been posted somewhere else before, provide a link to the original Internet address so that others can go there and view the original résumé.

Click the Save button to keep your changes.

5. Share

The Share menu item holds all parts of Mahara that allow you to share your own portfolios with others and to view the portfolios of other people that have accounts on the site.

5.1. Shared by me

5.1.1. Edit access for users with an account

5.1.1.1. Basic settings

5.1.1.2. Advanced options

5.1.1.3. Select users

5.1.2. Edit access to your profile page

5.1.3. Edit access for users without an account

5.2. Shared with me

5.1. Shared by me

Main menu → Share → Shared by me

When you have created portfolio pages (and collections), you may wish to share them with others, e.g. to receive feedback. You can set the access permissions on the Edit access page. It is accessible via Main menu → Share → Shared by me or directly from the page editor when you edit a portfolio page.

The Share overview page shows you the following.

Share overview page

Decide whether you want to change sharing permissions for a collection or a page.

Collection name (or Page title): Your collections / pages are sorted alphabetically.

Access list: The list of users, groups or institutions who have access to a particular collection or page.

Edit access: The Edit access icon next to each collection or page allows you to change the permission of who can view a page or collection.

Secret URLs: The Secret URL edit icon next to each collection or page allows you to set up one or more secret URLs for a page or collection. The number of secret URLs that you have generated is displayed next to the icon.

5.1.1. Edit access for users with an account

5.1.1.1. Basic settings

The Edit access page allows you to set the permissions for a single user or multiple users who should be able to view some of your portfolio pages or collections.

You can assign access to a single page or collection at a time or to multiple pages and / or collections at once.

Users and groups to whom you can give access to pages and / or collections

Click the Edit access icon next to the collection or page for which you want to give access permissions under Share → Shared by me. On the next screen…

You see the collection displayed if you selected one in step 1. You can add more collections by searching for them in the select box if you want to give other collections the same sharing permissions.

You see the page displayed if you selected one in step 1. You can add more pages by searching for them in the select box if you want to give other pages the same sharing permissions.

Advanced options: You have more settings available that apply to all selected collections and pages.

Use the Share with drop-down menu to select with whom you want to share your selected collections and pages.

Click the Save button to keep your changes or click Cancel to abort the action.

If you select individual people or a group with whom to share your portfolio, they will receive a notification. That notification contains a link to your portfolio. If you restricted access for your portfolio to a particular time, that time frame is mentioned in the notification as well.

Notification with time frame in which portfolio is available

5.1.1.2. Advanced options

You can choose a number of additional options which are applied to all pages and / or collections that you selected.

Advanced options for editing access to pages / collections

Click the Advanced options link to see all available options.

Allow comments: This switch is set to “Yes” by default to encourage you to allow others to comment on your pages and collections.

Moderate comments: If you wish to see any page or artefact comment before it is made public, i.e. can be seen by others who have access to the page on which the comment is made, set the switch to “Yes”.

Note

Comments that are left on portfolios shared publicly or via secret URL by people who do not have an account are always moderated, no matter the decision you make here. They are only made public if the portfolio author wishes to do so.

If people can’t leave comments when they are not logged in, the site administrator did not allow anonymous comments.

Allow copying: Set the switch to “Yes” if you want to allow the people who can view your page / collection to make a copy of it for themselves. Check the blocks that can be copied.

Note

When you allow copying on public portfolios or portfolios shared via a secret URL, people who are not logged into Mahara can download the portfolio as a Leap2A export.

If you edit an institution or site page, you see the additional option Copy for new institution members / Copy for new members when you allowed copying. With this option you can place a page or collection directly into the portfolio of a new user. Existing users still have to copy the page or collection themselves.

Retain view access on copied pages or collections: This option only becomes available if you allow copying. When you set this switch to “Yes”, you as owner of the page / collection will have access to the copied page / collection automatically. However, the owner of the copied page / collection can take that access away at any time.

Access start date/time: You set the time frame from when on all users who have access to your page / collection can view your page or collection. The date here overrides any individual dates you may have set. You can type the date and time in the format YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM or click in the field to select the date and time.

Access end date/time: You set the time frame until when all users who have access to your page / collection can view it. The date here overrides any individual dates you may have set. You can type the date and time in the format YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM or click in the field to select the date and time.

Note

If you set access dates for individual users or groups of users that differ from the access start and end dates here, you get a warning message after saving your settings so you can review the changes you just made and adjust the dates so that your portfolio viewers do not lose access earlier than expected.

If you have not allowed comments in general, you can still choose to allow them for a certain person or group of people who are in your access list. That way you can regulate very flexibly who shall be able to place comments on a page / collection and who cannot.

Allow comments on a user-by-user basis

5.1.1.3. Select users

As owner of your portfolio, you are in control with whom you want to share your work. If you have a lot of portfolios, i.e. pages or collections, you may wish to review the sharing options from time to time and see if they need updating.

You select the users or groups with whom to share your portfolio under Shared with.

Share your pages and collections with others

In the drop-down menu select with whom you want to share. You have many options:

Search for…

Friends: Select this option if you want to share your portfolio with a specific friend. Enter the beginning of their name in the text field that is displayed once you selected this option and you can find them.

Groups: Select this option if you want to share your portfolio with a specific group. You do not need to be a member of this group. Enter part of the group’s name in the text field that is displayed once you selected this option and you can find it. You then also have the option to decide whether to share your portfolio with everyone in the group, only members or tutors or administrators.

Users: Select this option if you want to share your portfolio with a specific user who is not a friend. Enter the beginning of their name in the text field that is displayed once you selected this option and you can find them.

General

Public: Anybody online who knows the URL(s) can see your selection of pages / collections.

Note

This option is only available if the site administrator allowed public pages under Administration menu → Site options → General settions → Allow public pages.

If you are on a multi-tennanted site, the institution administrator must also allow public pages in the institution settings.

Registered users: All users who have an account on the Mahara instance you are using can view your selection of pages / collections.

Friends: All your friends on Mahara can view your selection of pages / collections.

Institutions: If you are a member of one or more institutions, you can select one here in order to share your portfolio with everybody belonging to this institution.

Groups: If you are a member in one or more groups, you see them listed here as a shortcut and can choose them easily.

Note

You are not able to narrow down the sharing options for the group like you can under the general group option above. When you choose a group here form the shortcuts, you always share your portfolio with everyone in the group.

If you selected to share your portfolio with a specific person, you can search for their name in this drop-down menu and select them. Their profile picture and display name are shown during your search. Staff and administrators also see their real name and user name.

new in Mahara 18.10 The third drop-down menu is displayed when you opted to share your portfolio with a specific person. Here you can choose to give them the peer and / or manager permissions.

Note

A manager does not need to have staff permissions in an institution.

From: You can choose a start date and time from when the specific person or group of people shall have access to your selected pages / collections. You can type the date and time in the format YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM or click in the field to select the date and time.

To: You can choose an end date and time until when the specific person or group of people shall have access to your selected pages / collections. You can type the date and time in the format YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM or click in the field to select the date and time.

Click the Delete icon if you want to remove someone from the access list.

Click the Save button to keep your changes or click Cancel to abort the action.

Note

Your friends or individual users with whom you shared your pages / collections receive a notification. Group members also receive a notification that you shared a page with them if the group administrator allowed that. You as page author and member of the group with which you shared your pages / collections do not get notified.

You do not receive a notification when users share their page with the public, all registered users, an entire institution or friends.

See also

If you use the web services plugin [https://wiki.mahara.org/index.php/Plugins/Artefact/WebServices], you can also share pages with “favourite users”. For more information, please refer to the specifications for this feature [https://bugs.launchpad.net/mahara/+bug/799566].

5.1.2. Edit access to your profile page

You can restrict full access to your profile page to the members of your institution if the site administrator allowed that in Administration menu → Configure site → User settings → Profile access for all registered users.

If you allow only members of your own institution(s) to see your profile page, other users who have an account can only see basic information, e.g. your name, your institution membership and messaging information.

Restricted view of a profile

5.1.3. Edit access for users without an account

Besides giving users who have a login or the entire public access to your portfolio, you can also give users who do not have an account on Mahara access to your portfolio pages and / or collections without making your work publicly available and searchable by search engines. This can be interesting, e.g.

when you create a portfolio for a job application and the prospective employer does not have a login and cannot get one.

when you want to share your portfolio with your parents and also get feedback from them.

when an external assessor shall evaluate your work.

Add one or more secret URLs to a page or collection

You can create a secret URL the following way when you are on the share overview page:

Click the Edit secret URL access icon next to the collection or page for which you want to give access permissions under Share → Shared by me. On the next screen…

Click the New secret URL button to generate a new secret URL. You can add as many secret URLs as you wish.

Click the Copy button to copy the secret URL to your clipboard. You can then paste it into an email to send to somebody.

You can click the Edit button

to add a time restriction for access to your page / collection via this URL. The “From” and “To” date fields become visible when you click the Edit button.

Type a start and / or end date (and time) manually following the pattern of YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM or select the date by clicking in the text field.

Click the Delete button if you do not want to use this secret URL anymore.

Click the Save button to save the date access changes.

Note

Logged-out users or those who do not have an account can only leave comments on public pages or pages which they can access via a secret URL if the site administrator turned on the Anonymous comments function under Administration menu → Configure site → User settings.

5.2. Shared with me

Main menu → Share → Shared with me

On this page you can list the most recently modified or commented on pages and collections that have been shared with:

You directly

You as a friend

You as a member of a group

You as a member of an institution

All registered users

The public (excluding secret URLs)

Note

You only see other people’s portfolios and not your own.

The default search options are:

Search the title, description, tags and owner of a portfolio.

Sort the results by last update or last comment.

Show results of portfolios that have been shared with you directly, as a friend or a member of a group.

You can adjust these default settings in the advanced options.

Shared with me is a place where you can find the portfolios that you may be most interested in.

Note

You cannot add or delete anything from this page. It is a display page only.

Shared with me list

Search: Type your search term into the search field. Per default, you search by title, description, tags and the owner of a portfolio.

Use the drop-down arrow to limit your search to tags only.

Sort results by: You can sort the results by the following options:

Last update or comment

Last update

Owner

Title

Click the Search button to perform your search.

Select the group of people with whom the porfolio(s) you search for must have been shared. You can select multiple options:

Me

Friends

My groups

My institutions

Registered users

Public: You only see this option if the site / institution administrator allowed public pages.

The title links directly to the portfolio.

The description of the page is displayed if the author provided one.

When a collection is part of the search result, you see how many pages are contained within it.

The author link takes you to the author’s profile page or in the case of a group to the group’s homepage. The date displays the last time the portfolio was updated.

Tags that are associated with the portfolio are displayed.

You see the number of comments.

The beginning of the latest comment as well as its author and the date when the comment was left are displayed. By clicking on the comment, you can read it in its entirety.

Use the pager to view results that are not listed directly.

View the total number of search results.

You can choose how many portfolios you wish to display at once. Your options are 10, 20, 50, 100 or 500 results. All remaining portfolios can be reached via the pager.

6. Engage

The Engage menu item holds all parts of Mahara that you need to engage with other people. That can be through sharing your own portfolios, viewing other people’s portfolios, and collaborating in groups.

6.1. My groups

6.2. Set up a group

6.2.1. Create a group as a user

6.2.2. Create a group as staff member or institution administrator

6.2.3. Create a group as a site administrator

6.2.4. Edit general group settings

6.3. Inside a group

6.3.1. Group homepage

6.3.1.1. View group homepage as regular group member

6.3.1.2. View group homepage as group administrator

6.3.2. Members

6.3.2.1. Members page

6.3.2.2. Change the role of a member

6.3.2.3. Invite a new member

6.3.2.4. Recommend a group to a friend

6.3.3. Forums

6.3.3.1. Set up a new forum

6.3.3.2. Add a forum topic

6.3.3.3. Reply to a topic or subsequent post

6.3.3.4. Delete a post, topic or forum

6.3.3.5. Administrative forum bulk actions

6.3.3.6. Subscribe to individual forum topics

6.3.3.7. Unsubscribe from individual forum topics

6.3.3.8. View objectionable content on forum topics and posts

6.3.4. Pages and collections

6.3.4.1. Group homepage

6.3.4.2. Regular group pages and collections

6.3.5. Journals

6.3.6. Share

6.3.7. Files

6.3.8. Report

6.4. Find groups

6.5. My friends

6.5.1. Friends overview page

6.5.2. Remove a friend

6.6. Find people

6.6.1. Send a friend request

6.6.2. Accept a friend request

6.6.3. Deny a friend request

6.7. Institution membership

6.8. Topics

6.1. My groups

Main menu → Engage → My groups

Groups can be used for collaboration among users as they offer the possibilities to:

discuss topics in forums

create and edit pages and collections together

share files

share pages

submit pages for assessment / feedback

Note

Groups can be created by every user, staff or administrators only. The site administrator decides that in Administration menu → Configure site → Site options → Group settings.

This page lists all your groups. You can see the groups

you own.

you are a member of.

you have been invited to.

If your site administrator allowed you to create groups yourself, you see the Create group button.

The My groups page lists all your groups

Click the Create group button when you want to set up a new group. You only see this button if the site administrator allows you to create groups.

Filter the groups you are in to only see a subset. Your options are:

All my groups

Groups I own

Groups I’m in

Groups I’m invited to

If group categories exist, you can narrow down your results even more.

Click the Filter button to see the results.

All the groups that you have access to are listed with group title, administrator, description, group type and number of members if the administrator discloses this.

Click the Settings button when you want to update the details for a group in which you are the administrator.

Click the Delete button only when you want to delete your group permanently. Group members receive a notification that the group has been deleted.

Warning

When you delete a group, all its content and contributions from users are deleted permanently and cannot be retrieved again.

If you are a member of any other group but controlled membership, you can leave it at any time.

Click the Accept button to join a group to which you have been invited.

Click the Decline button to decline membership in a group to which you have been invited.

If you are a member of a controlled membership group, you cannot leave the group. You will need to ask the group administrator to remove you.

6.2. Set up a group

Main menu → Engage → My groups → Create group

You can create different groups depending on your role.

All users

Open membership: Any user of the site can become a member simply by visiting your group page and clicking the Join button.

Request membership Any user can request to join your group. However, as owner you can choose to accept or decline this request. The requesting member will be notified of your decision automatically.

In addition, staff and administrators can create groups with controlled membership:

You can add users directly to your group.

The members cannot leave this group.

You can assign tutors to the group. They can give feedback on submitted pages, but not administer group members.

Group members can submit portfolio pages or collections for feedback / assessment. These pages are locked until released by a group administrator or tutor.

Note

The site administrator can limit the creation of groups to users with staff and / or administrator rights. If you cannot create a group, you will most likely not have the appropriate permission and will have to contact your site administrator, e.g. via the Contact us form, to enquire about the process of having a group set up.

6.2.1. Create a group as a user

If you are allowed to create a group, you see the Create group button on the “My groups” overview page.

Create a group as a user

Group name: Provide a name for your group. This field is mandatory.

Note

The group name that you choose does not have to be unique. Other groups can have the same name. In order to distinguish them more easily, you can add a group description.

Associate with institution: The group is automatically associated with the institution in which the person creating the group is a member.

Note

If the person is in multiple institutions or a site administrator, they can select in which institution they want to create the group.

Group description: Briefly describe what your group is about.

Open: Switch this option to “Yes” if you want to create an open membership group. This allows users to join the group without approval from group administrators.

Request: Set this option to “Yes” if you wish to create a request membership group. Users will have to send a membership request that requires group administrator approval.

Note

Open and request membership groups are mutually exclusive.

Friend invitations: Switch to “Yes” if you want to allow group members to invite friends to join the group. Regardless of this setting, group administrators can always send invitations to anyone. If the friends accept, they will be added automatically to the group.

Recommendations: Set this option to “Yes” if you want to allow group members to send their friends a recommendation for joining this group from a button on the group homepage. If a request membership group has been recommended and the friends are interested in it, they would still need the approval of the group administrator to join.

Note

Friend invitations and recommendations are mutually exclusive options.

Create and edit: Decide who shall be able to create and edit content in the group:

All group members

Everyone except ordinary members, i.e. group administrators and tutors depending on the group type

Group administrators only

Publicly viewable group: Set this option to “Yes” if everybody shall have access to content of this group. You only see this setting if the site administrator allowed you to have it. Anybody online can see the group homepage and the discussion forum(s). Depending on the membership visibility, they may also see group members. Only members of the group can see the group’s pages, unless they have been made public, and the files area.

Participation report: Switch this option to “Yes” if you as group administrator want to view a report displaying all group pages and those that have been shared with the group and see who commented on them.

Start date: As group administrator you can decide when regular group members shall be able to create and edit content, forum discussions, pages and collections in the group. Click in the field to see the calendar and select the start date.

End date: You can allow the editing of group content for regular members up to a certain time. After that they will only be able to view forum discussions, pages, collections and files, but not edit them. Click in the field to see the calendar and select the end date.

Note

Group administrators can always edit content in a group.

Group category: Choose a category if you want to associate your group with one, allowing you to filter groups on the My groups and Find groups page more easily. This setting is only available if the site administrator turned it on.

Shared page notification: Select from the drop-down menu who shall be notified when new group pages are created and when group members share their pages with the group. The options in the drop-down menu are:

All group members

Note

You may not want to use this option in very large groups where lots of pages are shared but members do not have to be notified to prevent lots of notifcations going out.

Everyone except ordinary members, i.e. group administrators and tutors depending on the group type

Group administrators only

Note

The page owner who shares their page with the group does not receive a notification.

Comment notifications: Select from the drop-down menu who shall be notified when feedback is placed on a page or artefacts.

All group members

Everyone except ordinary members, i.e. group administrators and tutors depending on the group type

Group administrators only

Click the Save group button to finish creating your group, or click Cancel to abort the group creation process.

6.2.2. Create a group as staff member or institution administrator

In addition to the group settings that a regular user has, institution staff and administrators have a few more options.

Additional options for staff and institution administrators

Controlled: Create a controlled group if you wish to add users who cannot leave the group. This is a useful setting for course groups where you do not want members to leave.

Roles: Choose whether you have only members and administrators or also tutors. The latter can provide feedback and release pages when page submissions are allowed, but they cannot change group settings.

Allow submissions: Use this option to allow group members to submit pages or collections for feedback or assessment. These pages and collections as well as a number of content items in them are locked until released by a group administrator or tutor.

Allow archiving of submissions: Use this option when you want to archive pages or collections that have been submitted to this group. The archive will be made on the server. Administrators can download the archived submissions and vital information about them.

Note

The archive is made at the point of the release of a portfolio.

Hide group: Switch this option to “Yes” if you do not want to list this group on the Find groups page.

Hide membership: You can hide members of the group from non-members. Decide whether to hide:

nobody

all group members (except administrators)

group tutors only

Hide membership from members: Decide whether to hide the group members to people in the group. Only group administrators can see the members listed. Administrators are still shown on the group homepage. You can hide:

nobody

all group members (except administrators)

group tutors only

Note

If users have the My groups block on their profile page, their group memberships are still listed there. The hiding of the membership and / or group only refers to the Find groups page.

6.2.3. Create a group as a site administrator

When you have site administrator rights, you have yet another setting when you create a group: Auto-add users. When you switch this setting to “Yes”, new users to the site are added to the group automatically.

Add users to a group automatically

Note

This is a great option when you want to set up a group which all users should join in order to participate in forum discussions. On mahara.org [https://mahara.org] this is used to make every user a member of the “Community” group in which discussions around Mahara take place.

6.2.4. Edit general group settings

You can start out editing a group’s settings from three places by clicking the Edit button on:

the My groups page

the Find groups page

the group homepage

You are then taken to the same screen as if you were creating a group and make the necessary changes.

Warning

You can change the group type to a different one. Please be careful if you do so especially when you have allowed submissions of pages and collections to the group. If users have submitted portfolio pages or collections to that group, they remain locked when you disable the setting Allow submissions. You must enable this setting again in order to release these pages or collections.

Change the URL for your group homepage

Short name: You can view the group’s short name, which is needed to administer the group in bulk.

Note

Only site administrators can change the short name.

Group short names can be from 2 to 255 characters in length and contain only alphanumeric characters, “.”, “-“, and “_”.

Group homepage URL: If the site administrator activated clean URLs, your group (homepage) has a human-readable URL which you can change to a certain extend. Choose the name for your group (homepage) if you do not like the default one. It must be 3-30 characters long. You can only use lowercase letters from a-z, numbers and - (hyphen). Your group will then be available via a URL like https://sitename/group/name-of-the-group, for example: https://mahara-university.org/group/portfolio-task-force.

Warning

Though you can change the URL to your group at any point, you should not do that because people who already know the URL to your group will not be able to access it anymore after you have changed it.

The original, internal Mahara URL such as https://mahara-university.org/group/view.php?id=456 will still work.

6.3. Inside a group

Note

It depends on your role in the group whether you can access / change certain functionalities that you see in the screenshots and that are described in the text.

6.3.1. Group homepage

Main menu → Engage → My Groups → [Name of the group] → About

The group homepage is the central space for a group. There you can get a quick overview of the group and reach all the places that you wish to take a look at in a group. You see a few things per default on the group homepage. The items displayed on the group homepage do not only depend on the default settings but also the options chosen when the group was created.

6.3.1.1. View group homepage as regular group member

View group homepage as regular group member

Group name and navigation items within the group. You see all the areas that you have access to in the group. If you are not allowed to edit pages, you will not see the “Share” tab, for example.

Group area that you are in and group name.

As member in the group, you see your status.

Group description.

Click the Leave this group button to leave the group.

Note

You only see the button when the group is not a controlled membership group.

If the group administrator allowed group members to recommend the group to friends, you see the Recommend to friends button. If the group administrator allowed users to invite friends, you see the Invite friends button.

Created: Creation date of the group.

Important group attributes, e.g. open or request group, possibility of having submissions etc.

Group category: Category to which this group belongs; great for filtering groups on My groups or Find groups.

Note

This feature is only available if the site administrator allowed group categories.

Editable: If the group administrator defined a time frame within which group content is only editable for group members, it is displayed here. If the group administrator did not set a start and / or end date, this setting will not be shown.

Statistics on the number of group members, pages, files, folders, forums, forum topics and posts.

Group administrators: Click on their names to view their profile pages.

The group administrator can add additional blocks to the group homepage besides the Group info block. The default blocks are generally:

Recent forum posts

Group pages

Group members

6.3.1.2. View group homepage as group administrator

If you are a group administrator, you can put other blocks on the group homepage. Check the blocks in pages context for a list of them.

View group homepage as group administrator

Click the Edit this page button if you want to make changes to the group homepage.

Click the Settings button if you want to make changes to the group settings.

Click the Copy button to duplicate the group. The group’s files, journals, pages, collections and group settings are copied. Group membership and forums are not copied.

Note

You only see the button if you are allowed to create a group. The site administrator decides that in Administration menu → Configure site → Site options → Group settings.

Click the Delete group button if you want to permanently delete the group. Group members will receive a notification about the deletion.

Warning

Once you deleted a group, you cannot retrieve its content anymore. You cannot export forums or group pages. If you wish to keep group pages, you will need to copy them into your own portfolio (or another group). Pages that have been shared with the group are not deleted.

If you have portfolios submitted to a group, they will be released once the group is deleted and can be edited again.

6.3.2. Members

Main menu → Engage → My groups → [Name of the group] → Members

6.3.2.1. Members page

Group members page as seen by a group administrator

On the group members page, a group administrator can:

Search: Search for group members by entering their name.

Sorted by: Sort group members by selecting one of the following options:

Admin first: Display administrators first.

Note

This means that users are displayed according to their roles: First are administrators, then tutors, and members come last.

Name A to Z: Sort everyone alphabetically from A to Z.

Name Z to A: Sort everyone alphabetically from Z to A.

First joined: Sort everyone chronologically starting with those who joined first.

Last joined: Sort everyone in reverse chronological order.

Click the Search button to perform your search.

Invite multiple users to the group at once.

Note

If you are in a controlled membership group, you can add multiple users in bulk and don’t have to wait until they accepted you invitation.

View basic information about group members:

their name

their role

their profile introduction text

their group joining date

Change the role of a user.

Remove a user from the group by clicking the Remove from group button.

Decide how many members you want to display per page.

Note

If you are a regular group member, you are not able to invite or add people from the members page, and you cannot change the role or remove a user from the group.

6.3.2.2. Change the role of a member

A group administrator can always change the role of an existing member. Depending on the group’s setting, there are up to three different roles possible:

Member

Tutor

Administrator

Change the role of a group member

On the Members page of the group, click the link Change role.

Choose the new role from the drop-down menu that the member shall have instead of their old role.

Click the Submit button to make the change.

6.3.2.3. Invite a new member

A group administrator can always invite any user to a group from the Members area of the group by clicking the link send multiple invitations at once. If the group administrator allowed users to invite friends, they can do so via the Invite friends button on the group homepage.

Invite other users to a group

Search: You can search for users in the search box if there are too many names listed. Then select the users you want to invite.

Potential members: Select the users you want to invite to the group.

If you are a group administrator, you see all users on the site.

If you are a regular group member, you only see your friends.

Add the users to the list Users to be invited by clicking the right-arrow button .

If you put a person into the box for users to be invited by accident, you can remove them from that list by clicking on them.

Then click on the left-arrow button , and they are removed from the list.

When you have all the users you wish to invite to this group, click the Submit button.

The invited users will receive a notification. The group will also be listed on the users’ My groups page where they can accept or decline group membership.

Note

You can also double-click a name to move it from one side to the other.

6.3.2.4. Recommend a group to a friend

If the group administrator allowed membership recommendations when creating or editing a group, group members can recommend the group to their friends by clicking the Recommend to friends button on the group homepage.

Recommend a group to friends

Search: You can search for your friends in the search box if there are too many names listed.

Potential members: Select the friends to whom you want to recommend this group.

Add the users to the list Users who will be sent a recommendation by clicking the right-arrow button .

If you put a person into the box for recommendations by accident, you can remove them from that list by clicking on them.

Then click the left-arrow button , and they are removed from the list.

When you have all the users to whom you want to send a recommendation, click the Submit button.

The users will receive a notification and can then decide to request membership for the group.

Note

You can also double-click a name to move it from one side to the other.

6.3.3. Forums

Main menu → Engage → My groups → [Name of the group] → Forums

The forums are visible to all group members. If you create a public group, anybody online will be able to see the forum discussions. However, they would need to log in to participate. Forums in public groups receive an RSS feed to enable users to subscribe to the discussion forum, e.g. the mahara.org community forums [https://mahara.org/forums].

Group forum overview page

If you have appropriate rights, you can create a new forum by clicking the New forum button.

Forum: Name and brief description of the forum.

Moderators: View the forum moderators (if appointed).

Topics: Number of forum topics in each forum.

If you want to receive notifications about new forum posts, you can subscribe to a forum via the Subscribe button. If you already receive notifications, you will see the Unsubscribe button to have the option to not receive updates anymore.

If you are a group administrator, you see the Edit button for making changes to the forum settings.

If you are a group administrator, you see the Delete button for deleting the forum and all of its topics.

Group administrators: View the group administrators.

6.3.3.1. Set up a new forum

A group administrator can set up forums in a group.

Add a forum to a group

Click the New forum button to set up a new forum.

Title: Give your new forum a title.

Description: Write a brief description of your forum. This makes it easier for users to decide whether they want to look at its content or not.

Forum indent mode: Specify how the topics in this forum should be indented.

Fully expand: Indentation is used to indicate the replies to individual posts. There is no limit to the level of indentation.

Expand to maximum: Indentation to indicate the replies to an individual post specifying the maximum level of indentation (pops up once this option is chosen). All replies beyond the chosen level are not indented further.

No indents: There is no indentation of replies to individual posts. The forum structure is flat and posts are listed one after the other without any indication of which one was replied to.

Forum settings: Choose advanced settings for your forum.

Click the Save button to add your forum or click Cancel to abort creating the forum.

In the Forum settings, the administrator can decide on additional settings for a forum.

Choose further settings in the forum

Automatically subscribe users: Choose whether group users will be subscribed to this forum automatically. When subscribed, users will receive notifications when new posts and replies are made in the forum. Users will have the option to unsubscribe if they do not want to be notified.

Order: A default position for your forum is chosen upon its creation - after the last existing forum. Here you may position it elsewhere in the list of forums. Click the radio button above or below a certain forum to position it before or after it.

Moderators: Choose one or more moderators for your forum. They can edit and delete topics and posts as well as open, close, set and unset topics as sticky. Thus, they can perform some administrative functions without having to receive full group administrator rights. Search: You can search for group members in the search box if there are too many names listed.

Potential moderators: Select the member(s) who should become a forum moderator.

Add the users to the list Current moderators by clicking the right-arrow button .

If you put a person into the box by accident, you can remove them from that list by clicking on them.

Then click the left-arrow button , and they are removed.

Who can create topics: Decide who in your group is allowed to create topics within that forum. If set to “All group members”, any group member can create new topics and reply to existing topics. If set to “Moderators and group administrators”, only moderators and group administrators can start new topics, but once topics exist, all users can post replies to them.

Close new topics: If switched to “Yes”, all new topics in this forum will be closed by default. Only moderators and group administrators can reply to closed topics. This is a setting that may be useful for a forum that is solely used for announcements.

Click the Save button to save the settings for the forum or click Cancel to retain the previous settings.

6.3.3.2. Add a forum topic

When you have the right to add a forum topic, you see the New topic button when you click on a forum.

Add a new topic to a forum

Note

An administrator also always has the buttons Edit forum and Delete forum available to make changes to the forum set up.

Add a new forum topic

Subject: Type a concise description of what you wish to discuss in this forum thread. This field is mandatory.

Message: Elaborate on the topic. This field is mandatory.

Sticky: Administrator-only setting to keep the topic at the top of the list of forum topics in the current forum.

Closed: Administrator-only setting to prevent others from responding to this post. Moderators and administrators can still post replies.

Send message now: If switched to “Yes”, the notification about your forum post is sent immediately instead of waiting for the forum post delay time to pass. You can still edit your message normally.

Click the Post button to send off your discussion topic, or click Cancel to abort your action.

Note

When you write your forum topic, i.e. your first post, and any other subsequent post, you have formatting options available in the visual editor (when it is enabled). It also allows you to insert images into your post. Images you upload to your own Files area are displayed in forum posts for other people to see.

In some groups you may be able to upload files into the group. You could link it then in your forum post but must be aware that any group member could delete the image.

Once you have finished writing your forum topic, it is displayed in the list of forum topics. Others can see it immediately. The administrator and moderator of the forum can edit or delete a topic at any time. Regular members can edit their topics up to a certain number of minutes after writing the post. The site administrator defines that time in the forum post delay.

Posts in a forum topic

The title of the forum.

The title of the forum topic.

The person starting the forum topic and the group administrator as well as forum moderator have the Edit topic button to make changes to the initial post.

Group administrators and forum moderators can also click the Delete topic button to delete a forum topic.

The profile picture and name of the person who wrote the post. The name is linked to the profile page.

The number of posts of this person in all groups.

The date and time of the forum post.

The post itself.

The titles of subsequent posts are clickable and give you the permanent link to this post. That allows you to jump to this post directly and view it at the top of the page.

Click the Reply link Reply to comment on the post.

If you are the author of a forum post, you see the Edit link Edit and can make changes to your post until the forum post delay has been reached. Group administrators and forum moderators can always edit and delete any forum post besides replying to it.

Click the Report link Report to report the post as containing objectionable content.

If you are a group administrator or forum moderator, you can delete a forum post by clicking the Delete link Delete.

If your forum topic has more than 10 posts, the posts are paginated and 10 posts per page are shown. You can jump to other posts in the topic by clicking on a page number.

You see the total number of forum posts in this topic.

Note

There are no notifications sent when you edit or delete a forum post. If you wish others to know about your changes, you should write a new post instead of editing an existing one.

6.3.3.3. Reply to a topic or subsequent post

Everybody can reply to a forum topic or other posts therein unless the moderator or administrator had closed the topic. The replies are intended to make it easier to see to which comment you reply except in forum topics that do not use indentation.

Reply to a forum post

Click the Reply link below the forum post to which you wish to reply.

The forum post that you are replying to is displayed beneath your reply window making it easier for you to refer to it if necessary.

Subject Set a different subject if you want to by clicking the button Click to set a subject. This is most often not necessary and usually only used if the topic evolves into a different discussion. However, in such cases, usually it is good to open a new forum topic instead.

Message: Write your reply.

Send message now: If checked, the notification about your forum post is sent immediately instead of waiting for the forum post delay time to pass. You can still edit your message normally.

Click the Post button to save your response or Cancel to abort your forum post.

Note

Once you have saved your post, you usually have time to edit it before it is sent to the forum subscribers unless you opted to send your message immediately or th site administrator decided not to allow for additional time to edit a post. That depends on the site settings for the forum post delay. If you can edit your post, you see the Edit button. In the edit window, you also see how much time you have left until your post is sent.

When you, but also a moderator or an administrator, edit your forum post after this time, it is stated when and by whom the editing was done under “Edits to this post”.

6.3.3.4. Delete a post, topic or forum

A moderator or administrator can always edit a single forum post, a topic or an entire forum by clicking the Edit button. Only group administrators can delete a forum. Moderators can only delete forum posts and topics.

Warning

Once a forum post, topic or forum is deleted, this action cannot be reversed and the content is gone forever.

Delete a forum post

Before a forum post is deleted, moderators and administrators can see it again to ensure that they delete the correct post.

Delete a forum topic

Forum moderators and group administrators can delete an entire forum topic. Once they click the Delete button , the topic itself, but no replies, is displayed so they can double-check that they are deleting the right topic.

Delete an entire forum

Only group administrators can delete an entire forum.

6.3.3.5. Administrative forum bulk actions

Group administrators and forum moderators can perform bulk actions on forums in a group.

Forum bulk actions for administrators and moderators

Click the Edit forum button to make changes to the forum itself. This option is only available to group administrators.

Click the Delete forum button to delete the forum and all of its content permanently. This option is only available to group administrators.

Sticky topics, marked with an Asterisk , are displayed at the top of the list of forum topics, no matter how old they are.

Select the topics for which you want to perform the same action.

Closed topics are marked with a Padlock . Only group administrators and forum moderators can post in them.

Choose the action that you wish to perform from the drop-down menu. You can set all selected topics to

Sticky: They will sit at the beginning of all other forum topics.

Unsticky: They will be placed into the correct chronological order of their last post.

Close: Only the group administrator and forum moderator can add posts to these topics.

Open: Everyone can post to these topics again.

Move to: Move selected topics to another forum.

Note

If you are not subscribed to or unsubscribed from an entire forum, you find two more options in the drop-down menu to subscribe to and unsubscribe from individual forum topics.

Click the Update selected topics button to save your changes.

6.3.3.6. Subscribe to individual forum topics

You can subscribe to individual forum topics if you do not wish to get updates for all forum topics. In order to subscribe to individual forum topics, follow the next steps.

Note

The possibility to subscribe to and unsubscribe from individual forum topics is useful in community groups for example, where there are a lot of discussions in one forum, but you are only interested in a select few.

Subscribe to individual forum topics

Make sure that you are not subscribed to the entire forum. You should see the Subscribe to forum button. Click the Unsubscribe from forum button if necessary. Otherwise, you will not be able to complete the following steps.

Note

If you see the Unsubscribe from forum button, you are subscribed to all forum topics.

Tick the check box in front of the individual forum topic(s) to which you wish to subscribe.

Choose the option Subscribe from the Choose an action drop-down menu.

Click the Update selected topics button to save your changes.

The forum topics to which you are subscribed, get the Subscribed star icon .

6.3.3.7. Unsubscribe from individual forum topics

To complete the next steps, you will have to be subscribed to at least one forum topic. You can identify the subscribed topics easily because they have the Subscribed star icon next to their topic titles.

Unsubscribe from individual forum topics

Select the individual forum topic(s) from which you wish to unsubscribe.

Choose the option Unsubscribe from the Choose an action drop-down menu.

Click the Update selected topics button to save your changes. You are no longer subscribed to the topics that you had selected.

6.3.3.8. View objectionable content on forum topics and posts

Group members can report forum topics and individual forum posts as objectionable. When you want to report an entire forum as objectionable, then you need to report the first forum post as that started the forum topic.

Report a forum post as objectionable

Click the Report link Report to report objectionable content on a forum post or topic. You see the post that you are reporting on the page.

Briefly write why you think the forum post does not comply with the terms and conditions of the site.

Click the Notify administrator button to send your report.

Group administrators, forum moderators, and site administrators receive a notification and can review the report.

The person reporting a forum post or topic as objectionable content, sees it in the forum topic the following way:

What the person reporting objectionable content sees

Note

Other regular group members do not see that a forum topic or post was reported as objectionable.

When an administrator or forum moderator is in a forum that contains a topic or post that was reported as objectionable, they see the topic in question highlighted.

A forum topic containing objectionable content is highlighted in red in the list of forum topics

An administrator or forum moderator can see more details about the topic or post in question.

A forum post containing objectionable content is highlighted and contains additional information

Click the Reported details drop-down to see the explanation why somebody reported this post as objectionable.

Click the Not objectionable button if you think this post does not contain objectionable content. A notification is sent to the group administrators, forum moderators, and site administrators.

You can also edit the forum post if you want to remove part of it to make it nonobjectionable.

6.3.4. Pages and collections

Main menu → Engage → My groups → [Name of the group] → Pages and collections

Members of a group have access to certain portfolios. These can be:

pages and collections that are created in the group

pages and collections that are shared with the group

The latter are portfolios that users make accessible to the group from their personal portfolios by sharing them with the group. Members of the group cannot edit these portfolios.

Depending on the group settings, either only administrators (and tutors if it is a controlled group) or also regular group members can create and edit group portfolios.

Warning

Everybody who can edit a group page can add or delete blocks on that page. There is no version tracking that shows who has edited what. Users should trust each other when collaborating on portfolios. Otherwise, it may be better if they only shared pages with a group.

6.3.4.1. Group homepage

The group homepage can only be edited by the group administrator. It contains a number of default blocks. You can add more blocks to it to customize the page for the group. Please refer to the overview of blocks for a list of all the blocks that you can use on the group homepage.

6.3.4.2. Regular group pages and collections

Creating, editing and sharing a group portfolio is very similar to creating, editing and sharing a personal portfolio.

Not all blocks are available when editing a group page in the page editor though due to the different context. Please refer to the overview of blocks for a list of all the blocks that you can use in a group page.

When you leave a comment on a group page, only group administrators (and tutors if it is a controlled group) can delete feedback on pages.

See also

For submitting a portfolio to a group to receive instructor feedback, please refer to the feedback section.

Similarly to group homepages and users’ personal portfolio, group portfolios can also have human-readable URLs if the site administrator activated clean URLs.

When you create or edit a group page, you can decide whether only the administrator shall have the right to edit the page with the Locked setting. With this setting you can allow the general editing of pages in the group, but still be able to lock down certain pages as administrator.

Lock a group page for editing by the administrator only

When a group page is created, group members (except the page creator) receive a notification unless the group administrator switched the setting Shared page notifications to “No” in the group settings.

6.3.5. Journals

Main menu → Engage → My groups → [Name of the group] → Journals

You create group journals like regular user journals.

Group journals

You can create multiple journals. Click the Create journal button to set up a new journal.

Note

You can only create a journal if you have editing permissions in the group. If you can create and edit pages, you can add to journals.

All your journals are listed on Group → Name of the group → Journals with their titles. The titles link through to the individual journals.

You can see the description of the journal.

You see how many entries you have in each journal.

Click the Arrow icon to be taken to the journal and see all journal entries.

Click the New entry button to create a new journal entry directly from this screen.

Click the Edit button to make changes to your journal title, description or tags.

Click the Delete button to delete the journal and all its entries.

Warning

When you click the Delete button, you receive a confirmation message whether you really want to delete the journal or not. If you used the journal or an entry of it in a page, Mahara lets you know so you can decide whether to delete the journal or not. Once you agree to delete the journal, your journal and all its content are removed permanently.

6.3.6. Share

Main menu → Engage → My groups → [Name of the group] → Share

If you are allowed to edit pages and collections in a group, you can see the Share tab.

See also

The sharing of pages and collections works like in your personal porfolio. The group in which the page or collection was created is added automatically to the access permissions.

new in Mahara 18.10 You can copy a group portfolio into the accounts of existing group members by setting the Copy for existing group members switch in the Advanced options. This is a good way to share templates with a wider group of people efficiently.

Copy a group portfolio automatically

Note

Only regular group members receive the copy of the portfolio. Group administrators and tutors do not get a copy.

The portfolio is copied only once. If changes are made to a page, they are not pushed to the copied page automatically. Also, when new members are added to the group and the template pushed automatically into their accounts, members who had already received the template will not get another copy.

6.3.7. Files

Main menu → Engage → My groups → [Name of the group] → Files

The Files area in a group holds all files that are uploaded by group members who have the permission to do so. The uploading process works like the one in the personal files.

The site administrator can set a group file quota to restrict unlimited uploading of files. The group quota is displayed in the sidebar when you are in the Files area.

In contrast to the files in your personal files area, there is an additional permissions setting:

Setting permissions on a group file

When you have the permission to upload a file, you can also determine additional permissions of who can view the file and edit its metadata. An administrator has all rights, but you can restrict them to regular group members or tutors.

View: You can see the file in the group files area and add it to a page.

Edit: You can edit the file name, description, tags and permissions.

Publish: You can include a group file in your personal portfolio pages.

Note

The owner of / group member uploading a file retains access to the file even if other group members are not able to use the file.

6.3.8. Report

Main menu → Engage → My groups → [Name of the group] → Report

When you are an administrator of a group, you can switch on the participation report in the group settings. The report provides you with information on who commented on what pages that were created in or shared with the group.

Participation report for a group

Pages shared with this group: List of all the pages that people have shared with this group.

Shared by: Displays the author of the page.

Members involved: Shows the group members who have commented on the pages publicly.

Non-members involved: Schows the users who have commented on the pages publicly but are not members of the group.

Next to each person who commented on a page is the count for the number of comments they have left on that page.

The total count for the comments by members and non-members separately is displayed.

Pages owned by this group: List of all the pages that were created within the group.

Note

You can sort each of the columns. The column that is currently sorted, has a little ascending triangle or descending triangle next to it.

6.4. Find groups

Main menu → Engage → Find groups

You see groups and get basic information about them. If a group administrator decided to hide a group, you will not be able to see it unless you have been invited to it.

A list of groups and certain actions you can perform

Search: Search for a certain group using a word / words from its title or description. Per default, you search for groups that you can join. If you want to change the search context, …

Use the drop-down menu to select a different context. You can search within:

Groups I can join. This is the default value and only shows those groups that you are not a member of and that you can join. Thus, it does not show any groups that have controlled membership.

Groups I’m not in: This shows all groups of which you are not a member.

Groups I’m in: A list of all your groups. This is the same list as you can see on “My groups”.

All groups: Display all groups no matter whether you are a member of them or not.

Group category: You can limit your search results to a certain group category if group categories exist.

You can find out more about a group by

clicking on the group name to see the group homepage.

clicking on the name of the group administrator to get to their profile page.

clicking on the member link to see who is already a member of this group if the administrator discloses this.

Note

Users who are staff or administrators in Mahara can hide groups. Thus, you may not be able to see all groups that exist in the system.

If you want to become a member of an open group, click the Join this group button, and you will be a member immediately.

If you already requested to become a member of a group, you see this mentioned and have to wait for the administrator’s approval.

If you want to join a group that needs the approval of the group administrator, click the Request to join this group button next to the group. The administrator will receive a notification and decide about admitting you to the group.

Click the Accept button to join a group to which you have been invited.

Click the Decline button to decline membership in a group to which you have been invited.

Note

Usually, you do not see forums, group pages, group collections and group files unless you are a member of a group. If a group is publicly available, you do see the forum discussions.

6.5. My friends

Main menu → Engage → My friends

Your friends are a special group of users. You can share your portfolio pages or collections easily with them and get in touch with them quickly by going to this page. They differ from a regular group in that they do not have discussion forums, pages or shared files. If you do wish to have access to those with your friends, you have to create a regular group for them.

You can request other users’ friendship in a couple of ways:

Go to their profile page and click the Request friendship link.

Go to the Find people page and search for potential friends there.

6.5.1. Friends overview page

The My friends page is the place for you to see who your friends are.

My friends page

If you have a lot of friends and pending friend requests, you can filter them by showing only the category of friends you wish to view:

All friends: Shows you all current and pending friends.

Note

Pending friends are also displayed in the “All friends” area of the person who is requesting friendship.

Current friends: Shows you all users whose friendship request you have approved.

Pending friends: Shows you all users who wish to be your friend, but whom you have not yet approved.

For users whose friendship request you have not yet approved, you see their profile picture and the reason why they want to become your friend. They have the word pending next to their name as well as the date since their request has been pending.

If a user is in the pending state, you can click the Approve request button to accept their friendship request.

Click the Deny request button if you don’t want to become friends with the user.

You see more information about this friend:

View the profile picture.

Click on the name of your friend to reach their profile page.

See in which institution they are a member, if in any.

Read the introduction that this user has provided under User menu → Profile → Introduction.

The pages of this user to which you have access are listed.

Send a message to the user if you wish to do so. This is only possible if the user allowed that. You can change your personal settings for messages from other users in your account settings.

If you are a group administrator in a group that one of your friends or potential friends belongs to, you can edit their group membership directly here.

If you no longer want to have a user on your friend list, you can remove them by clicking the Remove from friends button.

Note

When you click on the institution name that is listed for a friend, you see a list of institution staff and administrators. You can contact administrators directly from this page by clicking on the Send message button.

The institution membership is only visible if your site administrator set up multiple institutions on Mahara. Users on a site with multiple institutions who do not have one displayed do not belong to any institution.

6.5.2. Remove a friend

You can remove a friend from your friends list easily. Removing a friend can mean that they do not have access to certain portfolios of yours anymore. If you shared your portfolios with “Friends”, they will not see them anymore. If you shared a portfolio directly with this one former friend, they’ll still be able to view it.

Remove a friend

Click the Remove from friends button on Main menu → Engage → My friends. On the next page…

Verify that you have the correct person.

Provide a reason for removing them from your list of friends. This information is optional.

Click the Remove friend button to finalize your action or click Cancel to abort the removal.

6.6. Find people

Main menu → Engage → Find people

If you want to establish your social network, you can use the Find people page to find people to connect to. An alphabetical list of all users in your institution(s) or on the entire system is provided.

Find people page

Use the search box to search for a name of a user.

If you are a member of one institution or more, your search results are limited to people from your institution(s). Choose the option “Everyone” to search for any user on the system.

Click the Search button to start your search.

All results are listed. You can click on the name to view that person’s profile page. You also see if a person is already a friend of yours.

You see more information about this person and can take more actions:

Send this person a friend request.

Send this person a message without requesting friendship.

Edit this person’s group membership for a group in which you are an administrator.

Note

You can prevent others from sending you messages or friend requests if you disabled these options in your account settings.

6.6.1. Send a friend request

You can send a friend request from the Find people page by clicking on the Send friend request link next to the user you want to be friends with.

Send friend request

Give a reason why want to request friendship with this user. This reason can be important if the other person does not know you well and thus may likely reject your request. This field is required.

Note

Your message cannot be longer than 255 characters.

Click the Request friendship button to send off your friend request or click Cancel to abort your action.

Note

You do not need to request the friendship of other users in order to see their portfolio pages or collections. Access permissions are independent of being friends on Mahara.

6.6.2. Accept a friend request

When another user has requested friendship, you receive a notification which is shown in the login box.

Pending friend request

When you click on the friend request, you are taken to your My friends page. All your pending friend requests are shown.

View all your pending friend requests

View the name of the person requesting friendship and a short description if the user had written one in User menu → Profile → Introduction. You can click on the name and view the profile page. You also see when this user requested your friendship.

Read why this user requests friendship if they provided a reason.

Click the Send message button to communicate with the user before making your decision about this friend request.

Click the Approve request button to approve the friend request. Once you approve a friend request, you appear immediately on that user’s My friends page and the user on yours.

Click the Deny request button to deny friendship.

6.6.3. Deny a friend request

When somebody sent you a friend request, go to the My friends page to view your pending requests. Next to the person whose request you wish to deny, click the Deny request button.

Deny a friend request

Provide a reason for your denial if you wish to give one.

Click the Deny friend request button to send your message or click Cancel to abort your action.

The user receives a notification which includes your reason for denial if you provided one.

6.7. Institution membership

Main menu → Engage → Institution membership

You can see in which institution(s) you are a member when you go to Main menu → Engage → Institution membership. You may be able to leave your current institution and join other institutions if they allow self-registration. If you cannot leave your institution, you must ask your institution administrator to remove you.

Warning

Leaving an institution does not mean that your account is deleted. You keep your content and portfolio pages when you move from one institution to another as long as you have your account. Institution administrators should not delete your account when they want to remove you from their institution.

Check on your institution membership

Memberships: Here you see to which institution(s) you belong. Click the Leave institution button to remove yourself from an institution.

Note

If you do not see this button next to an institution, you cannot remove yourself but must ask an institution administrator to do so.

Requests: If you have already requested membership in an institution, it will be listed here. You must wait for an institution administrator to approve your request. If you wish to cancel a request, click the Cancel request button.

Request membership of an institution: Choose the institution from the drop-down menu that you wish to join.

Note

You only see institutions that allow self-registration.

You can provide an ID if you have one for this institution, but that is optional.

Click the Send request button, and the institution administrator is notified of your request and will deal with it.

6.8. Topics

Main menu → Engage → Discussion topics

Topics is a list of the discussion topics from all the groups in which you are a member. The topics are sorted in reverse chronological order starting with the latest comment.

The latest posts in discussion forums

The title of the forum topic as well as the group and the forum in which this topic is discussed are shown. They are all linked so that you can easily go to them.

The beginning of the latest comment in the topic is displayed as well as the name of the author (linked to the author’s profile page) and the date and time when the forum post was made.

The number of posts in this discussion topic is displayed.

The total number of forum topics is displayed. When there are many forum topics, 10 are displayed per page and the rest can be reached via a navigation bar.

7. Manage

The Manage menu item holds elements that you need to export and import portfolios into your account.

7.1. Export

7.2. Import

7.1. Export

Main menu → Manage → Export

You can export your portfolio to keep your files and Mahara-created content offline. You can create an export at any time and as often as you wish. You have two options for the export:

Standalone HTML website: A zip file containing a website with your portfolio data is created. You cannot import this into Mahara or another portfolio system again, but it is readable in a standard web browser and you do not need a Mahara in order to view it. To view this website, extract the zip file and click on the index.html file that is in the folder.

Leap2A: A zip file containing a folder in the Leap2A standard format [http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/LEAP2A] is created. You can then import this into another Leap2A-compliant system [https://wiki.mahara.org/wiki/Developer_Area/Import//Export/Interoperability] or have it imported by an administrator into your current Mahara or another one. A new user is created during the import process. You can also import it into your own account again in Manage → Import

Note

It is recommended that you export your portfolio both in HTML and Leap2A because you never know whether you will be able to import it back into Mahara or maybe even another ePortfolio system.

Export your portfolio

To export your portfolio on Manage → Export:

Choose either Standalone HTML website or Leap2A. You can run through the export twice in order to get both formats.

Choose what you want to export:

All my data: Everything that is stored in your account in Content and Portfolio. Excluded are any of your group contributions.

Just some of my pages: You can choose which pages and the artefacts that are contained within them you want to export.

Just some of my collections: You can select which collections and the artefacts that are contained within them you want to export.

Note

Your pages and collections are listed alphabetically.

If you have chosen to export just some pages or collections, you can select them here by ticking the individual checkboxes to mark them for inclusion.

Use the buttons Select all or Reverse selection to quickly choose the portfolio pages or collections to include in your export.

Click the Click to preview link to preview a page before you select it. You cannot yet preview collections.

When you selected the HTML export, you can choose to Include comments if you want to keep that in your export. In order to do so, set the switch to “Yes”.

Note

This option is only available when you choose the HTML website export. When you choose the Leap2A export, your feedback is always included.

Click the Generate export button to start the export process.

Depending on the size of your portfolio, the export may take a little bit. Once everything has been processed, a file will either be downloaded automatically to your computer or you can decide to save it. That depends on your browser settings.

Note

If your export gets stuck in the process and the progress bar does not move along at all, your server settings may prevent long operations to avoid slowing down the entire system. You will need to contact your site administrator, e.g. via the “Contact us” form in the footer of the page.

Experimental feature: If your site administrator enabled the feature to queue Leap2A exports, you will receive a notification when the export has finished. You then have 24 hours until the link to the archive expires. If you do not download your export within that time frame, you will need to export your content again.

7.2. Import

Main menu → Manage → Import

You can import your portfolio from another Mahara site yourself. During the import process, you will be asked what you want to do with content that is in your import file. You can decide whether you want to add it to your account or whether you want to ignore it.

You can only import a Leap2A file, but not an HTML file. If you want to import content from another Mahara site, go there and export your portfolio as Leap2A file. You do not have to export your entire portfolio, but you can choose which pages or collections and thus the artefacts contained within them you wish to export.

Note

You can also import a Leap2A file from another site that supports the export of content as Leap2A file. You may have a bit of clean-up to do once you imported the data.

Select a file to import

Click the Browse button to select the Leap2A file that you wish to import from your device.

Click the Import button to start the import process.

On the next screen, you can decide which content items and pages and collections you want to import.

Select the content you wish to import

Click the headings of a section to expand it and see all the relevant items. Sections that are collapsed generally don’t have any items that you can change.

On the left you see the content in your Leap2A file.

On the right you can decide what to do with the content from your Leap2A file:

Ignore: Do not import this content item.

Replace: Replace the existing value with the new information from the Leap2A file.

Append: Add the information contained in the Leap2A file to the existing information.

Add new: Add the content item to your account since it doesn’t exist yet.

Click the Import button to finish the import, or click Cancel to abort the import.

8. Settings

8.1. Account settings

8.1.1. New password

8.1.2. Change username

8.1.3. Change profile URL

8.1.4. General account options

8.1.5. Delete account

8.2. Profile

8.2.1. About me

8.2.2. Contact information

8.2.2.1. General information

8.2.2.2. Add and delete email addresses

8.2.3. Social media

8.2.3.1. View your list of social media accounts

8.2.3.2. Add a social media account

8.2.3.3. Delete a social media account

8.2.4. General

8.3. Profile pictures

8.3.1. Pictures uploaded to Mahara

8.3.2. Remote avatars

8.4. Legal

8.5. Notification settings

8.6. Apps

8.1. Account settings

User menu → Settings

The account settings of a user can be accessed via the Settings page in the User menu in the top right of a page.

Acces the Settings page

8.1.1. New password

You can change your Mahara password on the Settings page.

Note

If you do not see this section on your Settings page, you cannot change your password. Your login and password are managed elsewhere. This is the case if your institution has set up single sign-on for example. If you want to change your password in such a case but don’t know where, please contact your institution administrators. They will be able to tell you where you can change your password.

Change your password

Current password: Enter your current password.

New password: Enter your preferred new password.

The password strength indicator shows how strong your password is in relation to the password policy.

The minimum requirements for the password are mentioned in the help text.

Confirm password: Re-enter your new password to confirm its spelling.

Make further changes on the page if you wish.

Click the Save button at the bottom of the page.

Your password must have a minimum of six characters. Passwords are case sensitive and must be different from your username.

8.1.2. Change username

You need a username to log in to Mahara. If your account is not managed by single-sign on or another authentication method, you see this box with your current username in it. You can change your username at any time.

Change your username

Note

Usernames are 3-30 characters long and may contain letters, numbers and most common symbols excluding spaces.

8.1.3. Change profile URL

Note

You only see the “Change profile URL” part on your accounts settings page if the site administrator activated clean URLs and allowed you to change your profile URL.

Change profile URL

If you see this option, you can choose an identifier for your profile page. Per default, your username is chosen, but you may change that if the site administrator allowed it. Your identifier must be 3-30 characters long. You can only use lowercase letters from a-z, numbers and - (hyphen).

Your profile page is then accessible via the URL https://url-to-your-mahara-site/user/your-chosen-name. For example: https://mahara-university.org/user/paula.

Warning

Though you can change the URL to your profile page or any other portfolio page at any point, you shouldn’t do that because people who already know the URL to your page will not be able to access it anymore after you have changed it.

The original, internal Mahara URL, e.g. https://mahara-university.org/user/view.php?id=123 will still work.

8.1.4. General account options

The general account options are visible to all users no matter whether you can change your username and password or not. However, some options are only available if the site administrator turned them on.

View and change your general account options

Friends control: Choose whether other users may add you to their friends list. If you are added to a friends list, the owner of that list is added to yours as well. When you remove someone from your friends list, you are also removed from their list automatically. Your settings options are:

Nobody may add me as a friend: Other users do not see the option to add you as a friend.

New friends require my authorisation: Before someone can add you to their friends list, you must give your approval.

New friends are automatically authorised: You accept all friend requests automatically.

HTML editor: An HTML editor is available for use in some sections of the site. This is known as a ‘What you see is what you get’ (WYSIWYG) editor. It allows you to apply formatting to your text like in a word processor. If the editor is turned off, you can only enter plain text without any formatting like making text bold or colorising your text. If you do not have this option, the site administrator may have disabled it.

Default license: If the site administrator enabled License metadata in the general site settings, you can select your default license for your content that you create or upload. The default setting is “All rights reserved”, which means that you reserve all copyright.

If your institution administrator requires you to specify a license, you must set a license other than “None selected”.

You can choose any license from the drop-down menu that suits most of your content best. If you upload an artefact by another person that was published under a different license, you can choose that particular license on the artefact’s settings. If the site administrator allowed custom licenses, you can enter one using the drop-down menu option “Other license (enter URL)”.

Note

If you are not sure which default license to choose, please check with your organisation as it may require you to use a specific license. You can also consult a copyright lawyer (at cost).

If you are a member of multiple institutions and choose “Use institution default”, you will not be able to select the institution whose license you want to make the default one. One will be chosen by the system randomly.

Disable email: Use this setting to stop the site from sending you emails. It is advised that you generally regulate what is sent via email and what is not in the notifications.

Warning

If you disable your email address, you cannot reset your password as that requires the sending of an email. You will have to contact an administrator and have your password reset.

Messages from other users: Use this setting to choose who you wish to receive messages from. Use the notifications area to decide how you will receive these messages. Your options are:

Do not allow anyone to send me messages: Other users are not able to send you any messages.

Allow people on my friends list to send me messages: Only your friends can contact you in the system and send you a message.

Allow anyone to send me messages: Any user, no matter whether they are your friends or not, can contact you.

Note

These restrictions do not apply to users with ‘administrator’ or ‘staff’ access.

Language: If your Mahara instance is offered in multiple languages, you see this option and can choose in which language you want to navigate the site. The menu items and the contextual help appear in the language you have chosen. However, the content of portfolios or groups does not switch to that language automatically.

Theme:

If you belong to multiple institutions, you can choose the institution theme with which you wish to browse the site and see all your portfolios in (unless you chose a page theme or skin). Other users will see your pages in their own theme as this setting is not for choosing page themes.

If the site administrator allowed it, you can choose any theme that is available to you as your browse theme.

Show controls to add and remove columns when editing a page: You can add the Add and Remove buttons in the page editor to change the number of columns in a portfolio page quickly, see edit layout.

Multiple journals: By default, you have one journal. If you set this switch to “Yes”, you will be able to create more journals. Once you have created a second journal, you cannot switch this setting back to “No”.

Note

If you are using Moodle to export data to Mahara, you should enable multiple journals as content that is transferred using the Leap2A option is often placed into a new journal.

Maximum tags in cloud: Decide how many tags you wish to display in your personal tag cloud in the sidebar in Content and Portfolio.

Maximum number of groups to display: Decide how many groups you wish to display in your sidebar. If you do not enter any value, no group will be displayed.

Sort groups: Decide in which sort order your groups should be displayed in your sidebar:

Most recently joined: Groups are displayed in chronologically reverse order to show the groups that you joined recently first.

Earliest joined: This option displays your groups in the order in which you joined them.

A to Z: Alphabetically from A to Z. This is the default option.

Hide real name: You see this option if the site administrator allows users to hide their real name. If you switch this to “Yes”, others can only search for you using your display name.

Dashboard information: Choose this option if you want to display the quick links on your dashboard.

Profile completion progress bar: Switch this setting to “Yes” if you want to display the progress bar set up by your institution and tips on how to complete your profile.

Note

You only see this option if the administrator of your institution set up the profile completion.

If you are a member of multiple institutions, you can switch between the individual institutions in order to view the respective sidebar. sidebar_profile_completion

Resize large images on upload: If you enable this option, all large images will be resized to the maximum dimensions per default. You can disable this setting for the upload of individual images. You only see this option if the site administrator allowed it.

Device detection: If you enable this option and browse the site via a smartphone or tablet, you will only see functionality that can be handled comfortably on a mobile device. If you do not enable this option, you will see the site as it is on a mobile device. On small devices, the menu will change to a mobile-friendly one though. You only see this option if the site administrator allowed it.

Click the Save button when you have finished making your changes.

8.1.5. Delete account

You can delete your own account by clicking the Delete account button on the top of the Settings page.

Note

Every account can be deleted. It is up to the administrators to decide whether a review is required before the content of a user account can be deleted fully.

Delete your account and your entire content

Warning

Be absolutely sure that you want to delete your account. Your artefacts and portfolio pages cannot be restored once you deleted your account. Everything will be gone. You can make a backup of all your things (excluding group content) by exporting your portfolio.

If the site or the institution administrator decided that a review is required before you can delete your account, you will need to provide a reason for wanting to delete your account.

Reasons for deleting your account

Enter the reason for deleting your account.

Click the Send request button to request that your account be deleted.

The site administrator or institution administrator if you are a member in an institution receives a notification about your request and can approve or deny it.

On your account settings page, you can cancel or resend your account deletion request.

Cancel or resend your account deletion request

Click the “Cancel request” button if you want to keep your account.

Click the “Resend deletion notification” button if your administrator hasn’t deleted your account yet and hasn’t been in touch with any questions.

The date is displayed when you requested that your account be deleted.

8.2. Profile

User menu → Profile

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.

8.2.1. About me

User menu → Profile → About me

You must provide a first and last name. All other information is optional. You name is visible to other Mahara users. You may choose to have a Display name. You can change the information here at any time unless an administrator locked certain fields.

Profile: About me

The link Profile takes you directly to the edit screen of your profile page where you can arrange the information you wish to display on this page.

First name: Your real given name

Last name: You real last name

Student ID: Fill it in if it is required

Display name: The name by which you want to be known around Mahara. If you have a display name, your real name will not be visible to regular Mahara users. Only administrators can see your real name and your username at all times.

Introduction: You can write about yourself. This text is placed onto your profile page automatically unless you take the introduction out of your profile page.

Note

If you log in via Moodle and your user information is updated upon each login, your introduction will be overwritten by what you have in your Moodle profile description.

Click the Save profile button to save your changes.

8.2.2. Contact information

User menu → Profile → Contact information

8.2.2.1. General information

You may wish to provide some of your contact information for later use in a page. All details you fill in here are only visible to other users when you put them into a page. Until then only you can see them.

Warning

You are not required to provide any of the information asked for on this screen (except for one email address). Do not enter any private information in here that you do not want people to know. When choosing the Profile information block for any of your pages, you can decide which information to show on the particular page for which you choose the block.

However, 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.

Profile: Contact information

Email address: You must have at least one email address in the system. Your primary email address, i.e. the first one shown, is the one that is used for any notification from Mahara. You can choose to display your secondary email addresses on specific pages.

Official website address: If you have a business and want to put the URL to its website into your portfolio, you can enter it here.

Personal website address: If you have a website for yourself, you can enter its URL in here and include it easily into your pages.

Blog address: If you have a blog, copy its URL in here so you can use display it in your pages easily.

Postal address: Enter your postal address in here if you wish.

Town: Enter the town you live in / work at here. It should match your postal address.

City / Region: If you have a further distinguisher to where you live, enter it here.

Country: Choose the country you live in from the drop-down menu.

Home phone: Enter your home phone number here.

Business phone: Enter your business phone number here if you wish.

Mobile phone: You can also provide your mobile phone number.

Fax number: If you have a fax number where people can send you documents, enter it here.

Click the Save profile button to save your changes.

8.2.2.2. Add and delete email addresses

The email address with which you registered on Mahara is displayed. You can add other email addresses to your profile so that you can use them later on.

Profile: Add or delete an email address

On User menu → Profile → Contact information click the button Add email address. A text field is being displayed.

Enter your email address into the text field. Make sure you do not have any spelling mistakes in it.

Click the Add button.

Click the Save profile button at the bottom of the page. Only then is the authorization email sent to this email address to verify that it can be added. Follow the instructions in that email to continue.

Until you verify your email address, it is displayed, but cannot be used. You can delete it at any time by clicking the Delete button .

Once you verified your email address, it is added as secondary address.

Note

If you mark one of your secondary email addresses with the radio button and click the Save profile button, this address becomes your primary email address and the one to which all notifications are sent.

Click the Delete button to delete an email address that is not your primary one.

8.2.3. Social media

User menu → Profile → Social media

If you use social media, you can enter your usernames / profile URLs here so you can use them in your portfolio later easily.

8.2.3.1. View your list of social media accounts

Profile: Social media

The icon of the social media service is displayed if Mahara knows it.

Social network: The name of the social network is displayed for which you provide a link to your profile.

Your URL or username: Display your username for the social network or URL depending on what is asked for when you select the network. The username or URL is linked so you can click on it and verify it.

Click the Edit button if you want to make changes to a certain social network.

Click the Delete button if you want to remove a certain social network from the list.

Click the New social media account button if you want to add another account.

8.2.3.2. Add a social media account

Profile: Add a social media account

Click the New social media account button if you want to add another account.

Social network: Choose the social network from the drop-down menu for which you want to add a profile. If your social network is not displayed, choose the option “Other”.

If you chose “Other” as your social network, enter the name of the site in this field.

Your URL or username: Enter your username or the URL to your profile into this field. If you chose “Other”, you need to enter the URL so that it can be linked properly to your profile. Also enter the URL if you want to link to your Facebook or Tumblr account.

Click the Save button to add your social network profile to your list of profiles or click the Cancel button to abort your changes.

8.2.3.3. Delete a social media account

Profile: Delete a social media account

Click the Delete button next to the social media account that you want to remove from your profile.

On the next page, click the Delete a social media account button.

Note

You do not delete your social media account itself. You only delete the reference to it in your Mahara profile. As long as you have the actual social media account, you can always add it back.

8.2.4. General

User menu → Profile → General

This tab is primarily for adult users who wish to use their portfolio in an employment context.

Occupation: Enter your job title if you wish.

Industry: Enter the industry in which you work.

Click the Save profile button to save your changes.

8.3. Profile pictures

User menu → Profile pictures

Your profile picture may be a picture of yourself or an avatar image of your choice.

8.3.1. Pictures uploaded to Mahara

You can upload up to 5 profile pictures into User menu → Profile pictures. Alternatively, you can use a Gravatar [https://gravatar.com] if you have one and if the site administrator allows its use.

The pictures you wish to use must be between 16x16 and 1024x1024 pixels in size. Ideally, your profile pictures are square. Please use an image editing software before you upload your pictures to reduce a photo’s dimensions to the required ones.

Note

The recommended size of your profile picture is 100x100 pixels. Then the picture looks good on your profile when you want to include it there and also in the smaller sizes around Mahara.

The profile pictures that you wish to upload to Mahara must be available on your computer. Choose one picture at a time to upload. You can also give it a title.

List your profile pictures

Profile picture: Click the Browse button to navigate to your picture on your computer, select it and click Open. You must select an image file to upload.

Image title: Optionally, you can enter a title for your picture.

Click the Upload button to transfer your picture to Mahara. It is uploaded to the images folder in your Files area.

Image: Your picture appears in the list of profile pictures. You see a preview of it.

Image title: If you gave your profile picture a title, you see it here.

Default: Decide which profile picture you wish to make your default one which others can see in the “Online users” sidebar and on your profile page. Click on the radio button next to the picture to choose it as your default picture.

Click the Set default button to make your selected picture the default one.

Delete: Select the picture or pictures you wish to delete from your list of profile pictures.

Note

You cannot delete the standard profile picture or your Gravatar. If you did not upload a profile picture and set it as default, this will be your default profile picture.

Clik the Delete selected profile pictures button to delete your profile pictures. They will also be deleted from the images folder.

Warning

If you use a profile picture in a portfolio page, e.g. chosen via the “Image” block, you do not get a warning upon deletion of the picture from the Profile pictures page.

8.3.2. Remote avatars

If the site administrator allowed users to display remote avatars such as a Gravatar [https://gravatar.com] and you have signed up to that service, your default picture will be this remote avatar until you make one of your uploaded pictures the default picture.

8.4. Legal

User menu → Settings → Legal

Displayed are the current terms and conditions and privacy statement for the site. If you are a member of an institution, you also see the institution privacy statment and terms and conditions if your institution set them up.

If “Strict privacy” is turned on for the site that you use, you must decide whether you consent to the statements or not.

Legal statements for you to consent to

Title of the legal statement.

Note

There can be up to 4 statements that you may need to consent to. This depends on the setup of the site that you use.

Click the Retractable icon to close this section. This is helpful if the texts are very long.

The date the statement was last updated is displayed.

The text of the statement.

Your previous decision of consent is displayed. If you do not consent to the text anymore, e.g. because it was updated with unfavourable terms, flip the switch to “No”.

The date and time when you consented to each statement is displayed.

Click the Save changes button to accept your decisions.

If you do not consent to one of more of the statements, you are presented with the following screen.

Provide a reason for refusing consent

Enter a reason for refusing consent to one or more of the legal statements.

Click the Yes button to send your refusal message to your institution administrator. If you made a mistake and do want to consent to all statements, you can click the No button and go back to the previous page.

If you decide to send your reason for refusal, your account will be suspended, and your institution administrator (or the site administrator if you are not a member of an institution) will receive a notification about the refusal. They can then get in touch with you to discuss your decision.

8.5. Notification settings

User menu → Settings → Notifications

Mahara sends notifications for a number of different activities:

Feedback: Notification of any feedback or comments received on your pages, artefacts or journal posts.

Feedback on annotations: Notification of any feedback left on an annotation.

Group message: Automatically generated by the system, e.g. user request for joining a group.

Institution message: Automatically generated by the system, e.g. institution confirmation message, institution removal message, institution request sent to administrator.

Message from other users: Sent to you directly from other users of the site.

New forum post: Notification about new posts in forums to which you are subscribed.

New page access: Notification that you or one of your groups have been given access to a new or existing non-public page. You do not receive notifications about pages accessible to all registered users and the public.

Note

The page or collection title is mentioned in the notification so that you can see quickly what the page / collection is about.

Objectionable content in forum: Messages to site administrators, group administrators and forum moderators that contain complaints by users about objectionable content in forum topics and posts.

System message: Automatically generated by the system or sent to you by one of the site administrators, e.g. account confirmation message.

Wall post: Receive a notification when somebody leaves a public or private message on your wall.

Watchlist: Notification of activity on any artefact, page or journal you are monitoring.

Only site administrators see the notification types of “Contact us”, “Repeat virus upload” and “Virus flag release”. Only site administrators and institution administrators see the types “Objectionable content”.

Contact us: Messages to administrators that are sent via the Contact us form.

Objectionable content: Messages to administrators that contain complaints by users about objectionable content.

Repeat virus upload: Messages to administrators about users who repeatedly upload virus-infected files. Virus checking must be turned on.

Virus flag release: Messages to administrators about files that were released by the virus scanner.

You may select how you receive notifications for each activity type.

Notifications

Select the notification type for each type of activity. There are four notification types:

Email: Your primary email address will receive an email each time the activity occurs.

Email digest: Your primary email address will receive an email each day with a list of the activities of the last 24 hours. Typically, this email is sent at around 6 p.m., but this can be changed.

Note

If you select either email or email digest, all activities will also be recorded in your inbox as they happen. They will all be marked as already read. These notifications automatically expire and are removed from your inbox after 60 days.

Inbox: Your notifications area will display a list of activity notifications received.

None: You can opt to not receive any notifications for certain types.

Note

You cannot select “None” for system messages and messages from other users so that you do not miss them.

Click the Save button to save any changes you make to receiving notifications.

Note

Only an administrator with server access can change the time for sending the daily email digest. The variable $emaildigest in the file htdocs/notification/emaildigest/lib.php needs to be changed for that.

8.6. Apps

User menu → Settings → Apps

You can view the mobile apps that are connected to your account and can revoke the access if needed.

This is the page where you can view your mobile access tokens for “Mahara Mobile”, a mobile app, available for Android and iOS.

View connected apps

App: You can see the name of the app, e.g. Mahara Mobile, as well as information about the device from which you connected. If the site administrator allowed users to generate tokens manually, you also see the “Manually created” option.

Access token: You see the access token column only when the manual token generation is enabled as you need to be able to copy it.

Created: The date when the access was granted.

Click the Delete button if you want to revoke access to a particular device.

Click the Generate button when you want to create a token manually. This option is only available if the site administrator enabled it. You can then copy the token into Mahara Mobile to authenticate your account.

Note

The majority of authentication methods should allow for the automatic setting of an access token. However, if you log into your Mahara account via Moodle only, you would need to generate your access token manually.

9. Notifications

You can view the messages you receive in your account and that you have sent in your Notifications area on the right-hand side of the screen.

Access your Notifications area

If you see a message indicator icon, it tells you how many unread messages you have. Click the Inbox icon to view your messages.

Note

Notifications are not sent when an account is suspended.

9.1. Inbox

Your Inbox holds all the messages that you receive in Mahara and whose notification type you have not set to “None”.

Your inbox

The message box you are in - “Inbox” or “Sent” - is highlighted.

Compose: You can also write a message to one or more users by clicking the Compose button.

Search: Enter a search term into the search box and click the Go button to search your notifications. Once you have your search results, you can filter them by:

From: Sender of the notification

Subject: Subject line of the notification

Message: Text in the notification

To: Recipient of the notification

Tick the check box if you want to select all messages you see on the page.

Choose from the Bulk actions drop-down menu what you want to do with all selected messages.

Mark as read: Mark selected messages as having been read.

Delete: Delete selected messages.

Delete all notifications: Delete all messages in your inbox no matter whether they’ve been selected or not.

Warning

Once notifications are deleted, you cannot retrieve them again.

All types drop-down menu: You can filter your notifications according to an activity type to see only a subset of all your notifications.

You can select individual messages for bulk actions.

You see the subject of the message and who sent it when.

Click anywhere in the panel to see the entire message. You can collapse the message again by clicking into the panel or clicking the Collapse icon .

You can read the entire message, see who its from and to whom it was addressed besides you if it went to multiple people.

Click the Reply button Reply to send a message to the sender, or click the Reply all button Reply all to send a message to the sender and all recipients of the notification.

When you have unread notifications, these are displayed first so you can attend to them directly and do not have to find them further down in your inbox.

Navigate through the list of your messages with the help of the Paginator.

You can see how many notifications you have in total.

Results per page: You can select how many notifications you want to see per page by choosing a different number from the drop-down menu.

9.2. Sent

Your Sent message area holds all the messages that you sent in Mahara.

Your sent messages

The message box you are in - “Inbox” or “Sent” - is highlighted.

Compose: You can also write a message to one or more users by clicking the Compose button.

Search: Enter a search term into the search box and click the Go button to search your notifications. Once you have your search results, you can filter them by:

From: Sender of the notification

Subject: Subject line of the notification

Message: Text in the notification

To: Recipient of the notification

Tick the check box if you want to select all messages you see on the page. You can only select the messages that you are allowed to delete.

Choose from the Bulk actions drop-down menu what you want to do with all selected messages.

Mark as read: Mark selected messages as having been read.

Delete: Delete selected messages.

Delete all notifications: Delete all messages in your inbox no matter whether they’ve been selected or not.

Warning

Once notifications are deleted, you cannot retrieve them again.

All types drop-down menu: You can filter your notifications according to an activity type to see only a subset of all your notifications.

You can select individual messages for bulk actions.

You see the subject of the message and who sent it when.

Click anywhere in the panel to see the entire message. You can collapse the message again by clicking into the panel or clicking the Collapse icon .

You can read the entire message.

If it is a message you sent to another user, click the Reply button Reply to send another message to that recipient, or click the Reply all button Reply all to send a message to all recipients when your original message went to more than one person.

Navigate through the list of your messages with the help of the Paginator.

You can see how many notifications you have in total.

Results per page: You can select how many notifications you want to see per page by choosing a different number from the drop-down menu.

9.3. Send a message

You can send a message to multiple people in Mahara. When you clicked the Send message button on a person’s profile page or on the page “Find people” or “My friends”, you can add more people to whom to send the message.

Send a message

Recipients: The person whom you selected to send the message to is added automatically to the recipient list. You can add more by starting typing and then selecting their name when they come up. You must enter at least one user to send a message to.

Note

It depends on the search settings of the site when you start seeing results for the names that you type. If the option “Exact user searches” is selected for the internal search plugin, then you need to type at least the entire first name for name options to be displayed. If the “Exact user searches” option is not selected, results start showing up as soon as you type the first letter.

Subject: Decide on the subject of the notification like in an email. You must enter a subject.

Message: Write your message. This field is required.

Click the Send message button to send the message to the people in the recipients list, or click Cancel to abort your action.

You can view all the messages that you sent in your “Sent” area in the Notifications.

10. Fulltext search

The regular Mahara search is limited to finding users and in certain places titles, descriptions and tags of pages or collections. However, Mahara can be extended to allow for fulltext search capabilities. The Mahara core project team chose to use Elasticsearch [https://www.elastic.co/products/elasticsearch]. This is a powerful and extensible fulltext search engine.

If the site administrator installed Elasticsearch on the server, enabled the Elasticsearch plugin and configured the search settings to use the Elasticsearch plugin, your site is set for fulltext search and the “User search” box on the Dashboard is replaced by the fulltext search.

The fulltext search box

When you are on your Dashboard, you can start your fulltext search directly in the Search box by typing your search term and pressing the “Enter” key.

You are taken to the search result page. There you can search again for a term and have more options available.

Choose from the drop-down menu whether to search in all contexts or just tags.

Click the Search button to start your search.

You see the number of search results displayed.

Note

You see search results from the entire site: your own content, other users’ content, group content etc. The results may vary from user to user because you can only see results to which you have access.

The fulltext search allows you to drill down further into your search results helping you find the things that you are looking for more easily.

10.1. Search for text

The Text facet lists results from text that had been created on the site.

Find results in text

On the search results page click the Text tab to view text results. The tab includes the number of results found.

Use the Filter drop-down menu to drill further down. You can limit your search results by any type listed. Select the “All” option to see all results again.

Sort by: Choose how you wish to have your results ordered:

Date (oldest first)

Date (most recent first)

Relevance: The configured relevance of the items. These can be defined for each site separately.

A to Z

Z to A

Owner: You can decide whether you want to see only results from your own portfolio or from others.

License: If the site administrator turned on the display of licenses for artefacts, you can limit your search results by one that you select.

The title of the item is shown as well as its type.

The beginning of the text is displayed.

The author is displayed where there is one.

If the item was tagged, the tags are displayed.

Note

When you click on a tag, a new search is conducted using the tag as search term and limiting the search to tags.

Used on page: If the artefact is used on a page that you have access to, you can see the artefact in context. You can view other people’s artefacts only in the context of the page whereas you can view your own artefacts directly in the Content area.

10.2. Search for media

The Media facet lists results from media artefacts that you have uploaded or created.

Find media results

On the search results page click the Media tab to view text results. The tab includes the number of results found.

Use the Filter drop-down menu to drill further down. You can limit your search results by any type listed. Select the “All” option to see all results again.

Sort by: Choose how you wish to have your results ordered:

Date (oldest first)

Date (most recent first)

Relevance: The configured relevance of the items. These can be defined for each site separately.

A to Z

Z to A

Owner: You can decide whether you want to see only results from your own portfolio or from others.

License: If the site administrator turned on the display of licenses for artefacts, you can limit your search results by one that you select.

The title of the item is shown as well as its type.

The beginning of the text is displayed.

The author is displayed where there is one.

If the item was tagged, the tags are displayed.

Note

When you click on a tag, a new search is conducted using the tag as search term and limiting the search to tags.

Used on page: If the artefact is used on a page that you have access to, you can see the artefact in context. You can view other people’s artefacts only in the context of the page whereas you can view your own artefacts directly in the Content area.

10.3. Search for portfolios

The Portfolio facet lists results from pages and collections on the site.

Find portfolio results

On the search results page click the Portfolio tab to view the results. The tab includes the number of results found.

Use the Filter drop-down menu to drill further down. You can limit your search results by any type listed. Select the “All” option to see all results again.

Sort by: Choose how you wish to have your results ordered:

Date (oldest first)

Date (most recent first)

Relevance: The configured relevance of the items. These can be defined for each site separately.

A to Z

Z to A

Owner: You can decide whether you want to see only results from your own portfolio or from others.

The title of the page or collection is shown as well as its type.

The author is displayed.

The beginning of the page or collection description is shown.

If the page or collection was tagged, the tags are displayed.

Note

When you click on a tag, a new search is conducted using the tag as search term and limiting the search to tags.

10.4. Search for users

The Users facet lists people who have an account on the site that meet your search criteria.

Find user results

On the search results page click the Users tab to view the results. The tab includes the number of results found.

Sort by: Choose how you wish to have your results ordered:

Date (oldest first)

Date (most recent first)

Relevance: The configured relevance of the items. These can be defined for each site separately.

A to Z

Z to A

The name and profile picture of a person is displayed. The name is linked so you can go directly to the profile page of that user.

If the user has an introduction, it is displayed.

10.5. Search for groups

The Group facet lists groups that meet your search criteria.

Find group results

On the search results page click the Group tab to view the results. The tab includes the number of results found.

Sort by: Choose how you wish to have your results ordered:

Date (oldest first)

Date (most recent first)

Relevance: The configured relevance of the items. These can be defined for each site separately.

A to Z

Z to A

Administrator: You can decide whether you want to see only groups in which you are the administrator or others.

The title of the group is displayed.

The group administrators are listed.

The group description is displayed.

11. Administration

The administration in Mahara is reserved for site and institution administrators. Configuration settings and functionalities that are only available to site administrators with full privileges are marked as such.

11.1. Administration navigation

11.2. Admin home

11.2.1. Overview

11.2.2. Warnings

11.2.3. Registration

11.2.3.1. Register your site

11.2.3.2. Revoke registration

11.2.4. Site information

11.2.5. Clear caches

11.2.6. Close site

11.3. Configure site

11.3.1. Site options

11.3.1.1. Site settings

11.3.1.2. User settings

11.3.1.3. Search settings

11.3.1.4. Group settings

11.3.1.5. Institution settings

11.3.1.6. Account settings

11.3.1.7. Security settings

11.3.1.8. Proxy settings

11.3.1.9. Email settings

11.3.1.10. Notification settings

11.3.1.11. General settings

11.3.1.12. Logging settings

11.3.2. Static pages

11.3.3. Legal

11.3.3.1. Privacy statement

11.3.3.2. Terms and conditions

11.3.4. Menus

11.3.4.1. Links and resources

11.3.4.2. Footer menu

11.3.5. Networking

11.3.6. Licenses

11.3.6.1. List of licenses

11.3.6.2. Add a license

11.3.6.3. Edit a license

11.3.7. Site pages and collections

11.3.8. Site journals

11.3.9. Share

11.3.10. Site skins

11.3.11. Fonts

11.3.11.1. Install a local font

11.3.11.2. Edit a local font

11.3.11.3. Install Google font(s)

11.3.12. Files

11.3.13. Cookie Consent

11.4. Users

11.4.1. User search

11.4.1.1. Standard user search

11.4.1.2. Advanced search options

11.4.1.3. User bulk actions

11.4.1.3.1. Suspend users

11.4.1.3.2. Change authentication method

11.4.1.3.3. Set spam probation

11.4.1.3.4. Delete users

11.4.2. User account settings

11.4.2.1. Log in as

11.4.2.2. Suspend user

11.4.2.3. Delete user

11.4.2.4. Change site account settings

11.4.2.5. Change institution settings

11.4.3. Suspended and expired users

11.4.3.1. Suspended users

11.4.3.2. Expired users

11.4.4. Site staff

11.4.5. Site administrators

11.4.6. Export queue

11.4.7. Add user

11.4.8. Add and update users by CSV

11.4.9. Change the authentication method and remote username in bulk

11.5. Groups

11.5.1. Administer groups

11.5.1.1. Group file quota

11.5.1.2. Add or remove administrators

11.5.2. Group categories

11.5.3. Archived submissions

11.5.4. Add and update groups by CSV

11.5.5. Update group members by CSV

11.6. Institutions

11.6.1. Overview

11.6.2. Add an institution

11.6.2.1. Change the institution logo

11.6.2.2. Use the configurable theme

11.6.3. Edit the site institution

11.6.4. Edit an institution

11.6.4.1. IMAP authentication

11.6.4.2. LDAP authentication

11.6.4.2.1. LDAP user sync

11.6.4.2.2. LDAP group sync

11.6.4.3. SAML authentication

11.6.4.4. Web services

11.6.4.5. XML-RPC / MNet authentication

11.6.4.6. Order of authentication methods

11.6.4.7. Suspend institution

11.6.5. Institution static pages

11.6.6. Legal

11.6.6.1. Privacy statement

11.6.6.2. Terms and conditions

11.6.7. Members

11.6.7.1. People who have requested institution membership

11.6.7.2. People who have not requested membership yet

11.6.7.3. People who have left a given institution

11.6.7.4. People who are already institution members

11.6.7.5. People who have been invited

11.6.8. Institution staff

11.6.9. Institution administrators

11.6.10. Admin notifications

11.6.11. Profile completion

11.6.12. Institution pages and collections

11.6.13. Institution journals

11.6.14. Share institution pages and collections

11.6.15. Files

11.6.16. Tags

11.6.16.1. Manage institution tags

11.6.16.2. Create an institution tag

11.6.16.3. Use an institution tag

11.6.17. Pending registrations

11.6.17.1. Self-register for an internal account

11.6.17.2. Review pending registrations

11.6.17.3. Complete self-registration

11.6.18. Pending deletions

11.7. Reports

11.7.1. Structure of a report

11.7.2. Report configuration

11.7.3. Content

11.7.3.1. Content report

11.7.3.2. Objectionable content report

11.7.4. Groups report

11.7.5. Institution

11.7.5.1. Institution comparison report

11.7.5.2. Logins report

11.7.5.3. Overview report

11.7.6. People

11.7.6.1. Collaboration report

11.7.6.2. Legal consent report

11.7.6.3. Masquerading sessions report

11.7.6.4. Page activity report

11.7.6.5. People overview report

11.7.6.6. Portfolio access report

11.7.6.7. User activity report

11.7.6.8. User details report

11.8. Extensions

11.8.1. Plugin administration

11.8.1.1. Blocktype: File / folder

11.8.1.2. Blocktype: File / gallery

11.8.1.3. Blocktype: File / internalmedia

11.8.1.4. Blocktype: Text

11.8.1.5. Blocktype: Wall

11.8.1.6. Artefact type: Comments

11.8.1.7. Artefact type: File

11.8.1.7.1. Default user quota

11.8.1.7.2. Default group quota

11.8.1.7.3. Upload agreement

11.8.1.7.4. Resize images on upload

11.8.1.7.5. Profile picture size

11.8.1.7.6. Comments

11.8.1.7.7. Folder downloads

11.8.1.8. Artefact type: Profile

11.8.1.9. Authentication: SAML

11.8.1.10. Search: Elasticsearch

11.8.1.11. Search: Internal search

11.8.1.12. Interaction: Forum

11.8.1.13. Module: LTI

11.8.1.14. Module: Mobile API

11.8.2. HTML filters

11.8.3. Allowed iframe sources

11.8.4. Clean URLs

11.8.5. SmartEvidence

11.8.6. Web services

11.9. SmartEvidence

11.9.1. Overview

11.9.2. SmartEvidence framework settings

11.9.3. Download framework files

11.9.4. Create a framework file

11.9.4.1. Start of the file

11.9.4.2. Standards section

11.9.4.3. Standard elements section

11.9.4.4. The end of the file

11.9.4.5. The result

11.9.5. Add a framework

11.9.6. Work with a framework

11.10. Web services

11.10.1. Configuration

11.10.1.1. Enable web service functionality

11.10.1.2. Networking certificates

11.10.1.3. Manage service groups

11.10.1.4. Manage service access tokens

11.10.1.5. Manage service users

11.10.2. Application connections

11.10.3. Connection manager

11.10.4. Registration of external apps

11.10.5. Web services logs

11.10.6. Web services test client

11.11. Experimental features

11.11.1. Bulk export of Leap2A files

11.11.2. Bulk import of Leap2A files

11.11.2.1. Bulk import using a bulk export file

11.11.2.2. Bulk import from scratch

11.11.3. usersuniquebyusername variable

11.12. Config.php variables

11.12.1. Anatomy of a config variable

11.12.2. developermode: Enable or disable developer mode

11.12.3. directorypermissions: Permissions to use in dataroot

11.12.4. insecuredataroot: Share the same dataroot with another Mahara

11.12.5. noreplyaddress: System email address

11.12.6. log targets: Destination for log information

11.12.7. log_file: File containing error messages

11.12.8. log_backtrace_levels: Log backtraces

11.12.9. log_backtrace_print_args: Log backtraces

11.12.10. error_reporting: Error reporting

11.12.11. openbadgedisplayer_source: Open Badges displayer sources

11.12.12. passwordsaltmain: Set a site-wide password salt

11.12.13. pathtoclam: Path to virus scanner ClamAV

11.12.14. probationenabled: Give users probation status

11.12.15. productionmode: Enable or disable production mode

11.12.16. remoteavatarbaseurl: Remote avatar server URL

11.12.17. renamecopies: Rename copied pages and collections

11.12.18. sendemail: Send all emails to one address

11.12.19. sendallemailto: Send all emails to one address

11.12.20. sessionhandler: Select the session handler

11.12.21. showloginsideblock: Show or hide the login sideblock

11.12.22. sitethemeprefs: Choose your browse theme from any theme

11.12.23. skins: Skins

11.12.24. urlsecret: Run the cron or upgrade only when you are authorised

11.12.25. usersuniquebyusername: The internal Mahara username prevails when connecting external authentication methods

11.13. Command-line interfaces (CLI)

11.13.1. Delete certain groups in bulk

11.13.2. Delete certain users in bulk

11.13.3. Index sites running Elasticsearch faster

11.13.4. Install and update language packs

11.14. Style guide

11.1. Administration navigation

As site and institution administrator you have an additional navigation item, Administration. When you click on it, your navigation changes completely to give you quick access to the administration of Mahara. Depending on your role as site or institution administrator, you may see the full administration (site administrators) or only a subset of it (institution administrators).

Top level navigation for a site administrator once inside Administration

Top level navigation for an institution administrator once inside Administration

11.2. Admin home

Administration menu → Admin home

Note

Admin home is only accessible by site administrators.

11.2.1. Overview

You see all administrative items on the main page of the Administration on Admin home.

Administration overview page

Note

Important warnings including their resolution are displayed in red so they cannot be overlooked easily.

If a core Mahara plugin requires an upgrade, you will see a notice about it and only need to click the button Run upgrade.

Upgrade notice for a plugin

If a plugin needs to be installed, click the Install via extensions page button to be taken to the Plugin administration for the installation.

Installation notice for a plugin

11.2.2. Warnings

After you have installed Mahara, you may see a number of warnings when you go to the Administration as site administrator. They should all be resolved to ensure that your site is secure and has all the necessary settings.

Example of a warning on the Admin home page

Session entropy length: Your PHP session.entropy_length setting is too small. Set it to at least 16 in your php.ini to ensure that generated session IDs are random and unpredictable enough. You can learn more about this advisory on the OWASP session management cheatsheet [https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Session_Management_Cheat_Sheet#Session_ID_Properties].

Noreply email address: If the system email address is empty or a malformed email address, you are asked to check and correct it in the system mail address setting.

Site-wide password salt: If you do not have one set, please edit your config.php file and set it to a reasonable length.

SAML setup: If you do not have SAML authentication set up properly and do not have SAML activated, you do not see any warning messages as they would only go away if you activate the plugin and install all the required dependencies.

11.2.3. Registration

Administration menu → Admin home → Register

As site administrator you can choose to register your Mahara site with mahara.org [https://mahara.org] and help us compile a list of Mahara installations around the world to get a picture by how many people Mahara is used. Currently, this list is not published online. When you are on the administration overview page, you will see a link directly to the registration page.

Register your Mahara site

11.2.3.1. Register your site

You can register your Mahara site at any point in time.

You can preview the data that would be sent on a weekly basis. All information is sent anonymously. We will only know, for example, which version of Mahara you are running, how many times blocks or artefacts have been used, how many users you have etc.

Register your Mahara site with the Mahara project

Data included: Click this panel to preview the data that will be sent from your site.

Register with mahara.org: Set this switch to “Yes” if you wish so send regular updates about your site to the project. These updates are based on changes in your site and include only anonymous updates once a week.

Note

new in Mahara 18.10 This setting was renamed in Mahara 18.10 to make it clearer that the registration and sending of weekly data happens at the same time.

Click the Save button to finish your registration with the Mahara project or click Cancel to abort.

11.2.3.2. new in Mahara 18.10 Revoke registration

You can decide not to send weekly anonymous updates about your site to Mahara at any point. If you revoke your registration, no more data will be sent.

Revoke the registration of your Mahara site with the Mahara project

Data included: Click this panel to preview the data that is currently being sent from your site.

Remain registered: Set this switch to “No” if you no longer wish to send regular updates about your site to the project.

Click the Save button to finalize your change or click Cancel to abort.

11.2.4. Site information

The Site information gives you as site administrator a quick overview of:

How your site is used.

When your site was installed.

How big the database is.

How much site data has been accumulated.

Which version of Mahara you are running.

Whether your cron is running or not.

Site information

If you have problems with your Mahara instance and you request information from the community in the forums [https://mahara.org/forums], this information, esp. about your version and the cron, are useful to have. Furthermore, the version number allows you to check that you have the latest security release of your Mahara version installed.

See also

The cron job is very important in Mahara as a number of vital tasks are only performed when it is running. You can find more information of how to set it up on the wiki [https://wiki.mahara.org/index.php/System_Administrator%27s_Guide/Cron_Job]. If the cron is not running or only partially running, that information is displayed in red.

11.2.5. Clear caches

Administration menu → Admin home → Overview

A number of elements are cached in Mahara on the system level to speed up the site. In some cases, you may wish to force a new version though if the browser doesn’t recognize it on its own.

Clear all caches at once

Click the Clear caches button to clear all caches.

Note

The caches can also be cleared via a commandline script, which system administrators can find in /admin/cli/clear_caches.php.

11.2.6. Close site

Administration menu → Admin home → Overview

You may close the site to everyone except administrators. This is useful when you prepare for and complete a database upgrade. Only administrators will be able to log in during maintenance mode until you either reopen the site or an upgrade is successfully completed.

Close your Mahara site

Since the site is not accessible to anyone unless they are logged into the site as site administrator, certain processes would also fail, e.g. accessing the SAML metadata that is monitored by IdPs. It is possible to add a flag to a php file to ignore maintenance mode [https://reviews.mahara.org/#/c/8593/].

11.3. Configure site

Administration menu → Configure site

Note

Configure site is only accessible by site administrators.

In Configure site you can:

set general parameters for your Mahara site

edit site pages

determine the display of certain menu items

allow networking with Moodle or another Mahara

create and share site pages and collections

upload site files

11.3.1. Site options

Administration menu → Configure site → Site options

In Site options you can set global options that will apply by default throughout the entire site.

Note

One or more fields may be disabled if overridden by a setting in your config.php file.

When you are done editing one or more settings, click the Update site options button at the bottom of the page.

11.3.1.1. Site settings

Site settings

Site name: Choose a name for your Mahara instance. It appears in certain places around the site, e.g. in the title bar of the browser and in emails sent from the site. Therefore, it should not be too long.

Language: Set the default language for your site. If you have multiple language packs installed, you see a drop-down menu. Otherwise, the standard language, English, is displayed.

Note

You can install more language packs [https://langpacks.mahara.org/]. More information about the language packs [https://wiki.mahara.org/index.php/Language_Packs] is on the wiki.

Country: The country selected is the default for country selections throughout your Mahara installation, e.g. in contact information.

new in Mahara 18.10 Time zone: Select the time zone in which you want to have time stamps displayed around the site. If you do not select one, one will be chosen according to the country if you entered one. This may not be accurate if a country has more than one time zone.

Theme: Mahara comes with a number of themes that you can use. Choose one from the drop-down menu to make it the default theme for your site. If you have institutions set up, they can choose their own theme. You can search for community-contributed themes [https://wiki.mahara.org/index.php/Themes/Contributed_themes] on the Mahara wiki.

Show homepage / dashboard information: If set to “Yes”, information about Mahara and how it is used is displayed on the homepage for logged-out and on the Dashboard for registered users. Registered users can disable this for their own dashboard. See also Quick links.

new in Mahara 18.10 Custom landing page: Switch this setting to “Yes” if you want people to arrive at a different page than the dashboard after having logged in. The select menu where you can choose the appropriate page becomes visible.

Note

If a person clicks a link that is different from the homepage and requires a login, they will be redirected to the proper page rather than being taken to the custom landing page.

new in Mahara 18.10 Landing page: Start typing a letter that appears in the title of the page that you want to choose.

Note

Only group, institution, and site pages that are available to all registered users are displayed. That includes group homepages as well as group discussion forums when they are visible to all registered users.

If a page is deleted or access removed, the site administrator receives an email notification so they can fix the problem. In the meantime, everybody is redirected to the dashboard page again.

11.3.1.2. User settings

User settings

Users can choose page themes: If this setting is enabled, users can select a theme for their portfolio page. The page is displayed with this theme to other users. Thus, the institution or site theme can be overwritten.

Display remote avatars: If allowed, users’ default profile pictures will be their Gravatar [https://gravatar.com] pictures (remote avatar). Users will need an account with Gravatar for this to work.

Note

If you use your own avatar server to provide profile pictures for your users, you can use that instead of Gravatar for the default profile pictures. In order to do so, you need to add the remote avatar base URL to your config.php.

Users can hide real names: If allowed, users who have set a display name may choose to be searchable only by their display name and will not be found in searches by their real name. In the administration section of the site, users are always searchable by their real names. An administrator (site and institution) always sees the display name, first and last name and username.

Never display usernames: If set to “Yes”, ordinary users cannot search for others using their username in “Search users” on the Dashboard or via Find people. They will also not be able to see the username of any other user. These restrictions do not apply to staff and administrators. Additionally, Clean URLs (if activated) for profile pages will be generated using display names (if provided) or real names, rather than usernames.

Show users in public search: If allowed, usernames can appear in public search results. In addition, this feature needs to have the value $cfg->publicsearchallowed = true; set in your config.php file and requires a search plugin that allows public search, e.g. Elasticsearch.

Note

When you change this setting, you need to re-index the search index for the change to take effect.

Anonymous comments: If allowed, logged-out users / users without a login can leave comments on public pages or pages they can access via a secret URL.

Profile access for all registered users: If this option is set to “No”, profile pages are initially viewable by all registered users, but the owner is allowed to restrict access to their institution only if they wish. Enable this option if you want to make sure all users can see each others’ profile pages. Profiles of institution members will always be visible to other members of the same institution.

Access reports for staff: If set to “Yes”, site and institution staff will have access to user reports. The following reports are available to them:

Masquerading sessions (if logging of these is turned on)

Portfolio access

User details

All reports for institution staff: If set to “Yes”, institution staff will have access to all reports in their institutions. This is normally restricted to administrators and site staff.

Users can disable device detection: If allowed, users can disable mobile device detection in their account settings. This allows them to be more flexible in what they can view and do on a mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet.

Require reason for masquerading: If set to “Yes”, administrators will be required to enter a reason for masquerading as other users. This will be logged, and if the setting “Notify users of masquerading” is enabled, included in the notification to the user about the masquerading. This setting needs logging to be turned on.

Notify users of masquerading: If set to “Yes”, users will be notified when an administrator masqueraded as them. The notification will include who, when and - if enabled under “Require reason for masquerading” - why. This setting needs logging to be turned on.

Show profile completion: If set to “Yes”, a progress bar with tips about what to complete in the user profile will be displayed in the sidebar to users. They can disable it in their account settings.

See also

Administrators can configure the items that count towards profile completion in Administration menu → Institutions → Profile completion.

Export to queue: If allowed, the export queue will handle the exporting of user portfolios via Leap2A for better server load management.

Note

This feature is still experimental. Turning this feature on will export individual portfolios in Main menu → Manage → Export via the export queue. That means that the export is made when there are enough system resources available. The user exporting a portfolio will receive an email when the export is ready for download.

Multiple journals: If allowed, all users will have multiple journals per default. They can still change that setting in their personal account settings.

11.3.1.3. Search settings

Mahara comes with a search plugin that allows you to search for users and pages. If you install another search plugin, you will be able to select which one to use for your site.

Search settings

See also

You can configure the internal search plugin in the administration of the search plugin.

Elasicsearch is another search plugin that is supported by Mahara out of the box. The search server will need to be installed separately though. Elasticsearch is useful for fulltext search and is required for advanced reporting.

Note

You need to choose the Elasticsearch plugin if you turn on “Event log reporting”.

11.3.1.4. Group settings

Mahara cannot only be used for individual work but also to work collaboratively in groups. Some settings are available in that area.

Group settings

Create groups: You decide whether administrators, administrators and staff or everyone can create groups. The default setting is the most permissive “everyone” because Mahara is user-centered and gives the individual users a great deal of control over what they want to do. If you choose to limit the group creation to administrators (and staff), these need to be contacted to set up groups. There is no internal group request system.

Create public groups: Choose whether everyone or only administrators can create public groups. These are groups for which you do not need to be a member of the group or even have a login for Mahara to view the group homepage, discussion forums (and member listing if the group administrator allowed that).

Allow group categories: If allowed, site administrators can create categories for users to assign to their groups. These categories can be used to filter groups in My groups and Find groups.

See also

Group categories are managed by site administrators in the groups area of the administration.

11.3.1.5. Institution settings

You can use Mahara with multiple institutions and separate them for administrative purposes, e.g. user management and permissions, and to give them a different theme.

Institution settings

Strict privacy: You may want to require all your users to accept the terms and conditions and privacy statement on your site. Switch this setting to “Yes” if you want to have more control over the acceptance. You cannot allow multiple institutions if you want to use this setting for the time being.

Note

The strict privacy feature was created to help institution comply with the GDPR [https://www.eugdpr.org/] in the European Union. However, institutions that do not need to adhere to it may find it useful as well.

Turning this setting on will require everyone on the site to accept the terms and conditions and privacy statement(s) the first time they log in as well as whenever they change.

Users allowed multiple institutions: If allowed, users can be members of several institutions at the same time. Thus, a user who belongs to two or more institutions only needs one account. You cannot allow multiple institutions when “Strict privacy” is turned on.

Note

While this is a convenient setting for people who need to be institution administrators in multiple institutions and cannot receive site administrator permissions, it is recommended that users can only belong to one institution.

Confirm registration: If set to “Yes”, administrators cannot make the Confirm registration setting optional when configuring an institution. This prevents institution administrators from disabling this setting when it is required site-wide to not allow user accounts to be created without administrator approval.

Note

When registration needs to be confirmed, people trying to register with an institution need to provide a reason.

Warning time for institution expiry: If set, a notification will be sent to site and institution administrators this amount of time before an institution is due to expire and be suspended. This time may be specified in days, weeks, months, years or “No end date”. If the latter option is chosen, institutions will not expire by default.

Auto-suspend expired institutions: If set to “Yes”, this option will allow Mahara to automatically suspend an institution that has expired automatically. This means that users of that institution will not be able to log in until the institution has been unsuspended.

Review accounts before self-deletion: If set to “Yes”, every institution is forced to approve or deny the deletion of accounts if users attempt to delete their account. If set to “No”, it is up to each institution to activate this setting.

Note

This setting gives institutions in a formal learning setting the possibility to prevent accidental account deletion by people before portfolios are archived if required.

11.3.1.6. Account settings

Account settings

Session lifetime: For security reasons, after a specified period of inactivity, a user will be logged off the site automatically. This field specifies this time in minutes. The default value is 1440 minutes (24 hours).

Default registration expiry lifetime: As site administrator you can decide when pending registrations that require approval expire. This time may be specified in days, weeks, months, years or “No end date”. If the latter option is chosen, pending registrations will not expire by default. The default value is 2 weeks.

Default account lifetime: If set, user accounts will expire after this amount of time from when they were created. When a user account is expired, the user cannot log in. This time may be specified in days, weeks, months, years or “No end date”. If the latter option is chosen, accounts will not expire by default.

Override user account lifetime: Choose for which accounts a change in the default account lifetime shall take effect:

Only for newly created users

For new users and users without an account lifetime already set (excluding site administrators)

For all user accounts (excluding site administrators)

Note

Site administrators are always excluded from a change in the account lifetime as they should always have access to the system.

Default account inactivity time: If set, users who do not log in for this amount of time will be considered “inactive” and will not be able to log in anymore. This time may be specified in days, weeks, months, years or “No end date”. If the latter option is chosen, users are not set to “inactive” by default.

Warning time for inactivity / expiry: If set, a warning message will be sent to users this amount of time before their accounts are due to expire or become inactive. This time may be specified in days, weeks, months, years or “No end date”. If the latter is chosen, users do not receive a warning before their account expires or they are flagged as having an inactive account.

11.3.1.7. Security settings

Security settings

Password policy: Select the minimum requirements for passwords by people who use internal authentication. The password policy does not affect accounts using external authentication such as SSO or LDAP for example. You need to select a minimum password length and also the make-up of the password. The options are:

Upper and lowercase letters

Upper and lowercase letters, numbers

Upper and lowercase letters, numbers, symbols

Note

Along with the password policy, a password strength indicator is available on fields where a new password needs to be entered in order to show how good the new password is.

Virus checking: If you want all files that are uploaded by users to be run through the ClamAV virus scanner, you should turn the virus checking option on. You have to have ClamAV [https://www.clamav.net/] installed on your server.

Path to ClamAV: For security reasons, the path to ClamAV on your server needs to be provided in the config file. You see the path here if you provided that config value.

Anti-spam: There are three levels of anti-spam protection available for publicly visible forms such as the contact and registration forms. A form submission is never silently rejected. Rather, an error message is displayed asking the user to try again if the submission is classified as spam. The three choices are:

None: No anti-spam checks are performed on form submissions.

Simple: Some basic checks are performed. Form submissions with email addresses that are not well-formed or that have an excessive number of URLs are rejected.

Advanced: Performs additional checks to determine whether email addresses are real or contain URLs that are blacklisted. This requires an Internet connection.

Spamhaus URL blacklist: If set to “Yes”, URLs will be checked against the Spamhaus DNSBL. The Spamhaus Project [https://www.spamhaus.org] provides a URL blacklist that is free for non-commercial, low-traffic use. A professional use datafeed service is also available but not supported in Mahara. Please read the Spamhaus DNSBL usage terms [https://www.spamhaus.org/organization/dnsblusage.html] before enabling this option.

SURBL URL blacklist: If set to “Yes”, URLs will be checked against the SURBL DNSBL. SURBL [http://www.surbl.org] provides a URL blacklist that is free for organizations with fewer than 1000 users. A professional use datafeed service is also available, but not supported in Mahara. Please read the SURBL usage terms [http://www.surbl.org/usage-policy.html] before enabling this option.

Disable external resources in user HTML: Turning this option on will prevent users from embedding external resources such as images from remote sites into their forum posts and other HTML content. YouTube videos and other media can also not be embedded. It is however a good thing to do from a security standpoint since it does neutralise a few clever phishing attacks. See the HTML Purifier documentation [http://htmlpurifier.org/live/configdoc/plain.html#URI.DisableExternalResources] for more details.

reCAPTCHA on user registration / contact us forms: If set to “Yes”, people who register themselves on the site and who use the “Contact us” form when not logged in are required to fill in the reCAPTCHA [https://www.google.com/recaptcha] form. This is for spam protection.

reCAPTCHA site key: Enter the site key for your site’s reCAPTCHA account.

reCAPTCHA secret key: Enter the secret key for your site’s reCAPTCHA account.

11.3.1.8. Proxy settings

Proxy settings

Proxy address: If your site uses a proxy server to access the Internet, specify the proxy in hostname:portnumber notation.

Proxy authentication model: Select your proxy’s authentication model (none or basic [NCSA]), if appropriate.

Proxy credentials: Enter the credentials required for your proxy to authenticate your web server in username:password format.

11.3.1.9. Email settings

Email settings

SMTP host: If you want to force Mahara to use a specific SMTP server instead of the system one, enter its hostname here, e.g. smtp.example.com. It is possible to specify more than one host by separating them with semicolons, e.g. smtp1.example.com;smtp2.example.com, but keep in mind that all other settings, e.g. authentication credentials and port numbers, will apply to all listed servers. It is not possible to specify different credentials for each server in this list. This feature is useful when SMTP host authentication is not required or you list different frontends for the same mail server in which case other settings will work.

SMTP port: If your SMTP server uses a port number different from 25, you may specify it here. When encryption is enabled, the default ports are 465 for SSL and 587 for TLS. You only need to specify a port number if it is different from these. Check the correct settings with your mail service provider.

User: If your SMTP server requires authentication, enter the username here.

Password: If your SMTP server requires authentication, enter the password here.

SMTP encryption: If your SMTP server supports encryption, enable it here.

System mail address: This email address is the address that emails are sent from Mahara.

11.3.1.10. Notification settings

You can set the default options for new users to receive notifications. Users can override these settings on their own User menu → Settings → Notifications page.

The options you have are:

Email: Sends an email to your primary email address once the notification was created. In some cases, the cron needs to run first in order for the notification to be sent.

Email digest: Sends one email per day for all the notifications that you set to “Email digest”.

Note

If you select either of the email options, notifications will still arrive in the user’s inbox, but they will be marked as read automatically.

Inbox: All notifications are only sent to your system inbox that you can reach in the top right corner next to the “Logout” button.

None: If you use this option, you will not get a notification for the selected notification type. Use this setting wisely as you may miss important notifications.

Note

You cannot set “System messages” and “Messages from other users” to “None”.

Notification settings

Internal notification expiry: The number of days until certain notifications in the inbox are deleted. The default value is 182 days. The notifications in question are:

Page access notifications

Watchlist notifications

Institution messages

Contact us: Only site administrators see this notification type. These are messages sent via the “Contact us” form that can be accessed in the footer of the site if the site administrators decided to display this link.

Feedback: These are notifications about any comments received on pages, artefacts or journal posts.

Feedback on annotations: These notifications are triggered when feedback is left on an annotation.

Group message: The system generates these notifications automatically, e.g. when a user requests to join a group.

Institution message: These notifications are generated by the system automatically, e.g. institution confirmation message, institution removal message, institution request sent to administrator.

Message from other users: Messages that are sent by other users.

New forum post: These notifications are sent to a user when new forum posts happened in the forums or forum topics that the user is subscribed to.

New page access: This type of notification is sent to you when you, you as a friend or one of your groups has been given access to a page. You do not receive notifications about pages accessible to all registered users and the public.

Objectionable content: Only administrators see this notification type. These notifications contain complaints by users about content that an administrator should take a look at because it does not comply with the terms and conditions set out for the site. This setting is for pages and artefacts that contain objectionable content.

Objectionable content in forum: Only administrators see this notification type. These notifications contain complaints by users about content that an administrator should take a look at because it does not comply with the terms and conditions set out for the site. This setting is for forum topics and posts that contain objectionable content.

Repeat virus upload: Only site administrators see this notification type. This notification informs site administrators about users who repeatedly upload virus-infected files. Virus checking must be turned on.

System message: This type of notification is generated automatically by the system or sent automatically by one of the site administrators, e.g. account confirmation message.

Virus flag release: Only site administrators see this notification type. This notification lets site administrators know when files were released by the virus scanner. Virus checking must be turned on.

Wall post: This type of notification is sent to you when somebody else leaves a public or private message on your wall.

Watchlist: Notifications of updates to pages or artefacts that you put onto your watchlist are generated automatically and sent in intervals.

11.3.1.11. General settings

General settings

Allow public pages: If set to “Yes”, users can create portfolio pages that are accessible to the public rather than only to registered users.

Allow public profiles: If allowed, users can set their profile pages to be accessible to the public rather than only to registered users. However, only registered users can use interactive features such as the wall.

Note

If the option “Allow public pages” is chosen, “Allow public profiles” is automatically selected.

Allow anonymous pages: If set to “Yes”, users can hide their name as the author of a page from other users. Administrators and staff can still view authorship information by clicking on the “Author’s name hidden” link that will reveal the real name.

Note

The name is also anonymized in blocks that are on the page and would normally display the author’s name.

Sitemap: If set to “Yes”, sitemap files from publicly accessible pages, groups and forum topics are generated that can be sent to another service.

Portfolio search: If allowed, the “Search my portfolio” side block is displayed in the Content and Portfolio sections of the site. However, it has not been working for most users for a long time.

Tag cloud: If set to “Yes”, users see a side block in the Content and Portfolio sections of the site with a list of their most frequently used tags. The number of tags displayed is defined by the option “Maximum tags in cloud”.

Maximum tags in cloud: Enter the default number of tags to display in user tag clouds. Users can change this number in their account settings.

Show online users: If set to “Yes”, users see a side block with a list of the users who have been logged-in in the last 10 minutes (cf. the dashboard). Institution administrators can limit the users displayed in this block to institution members in the institution settings.

Online users limit: Enter the maximum number of users to display in the Online users side block.

Registration agreement: If set to “Yes”, you force users to agree to the “Terms and Conditions” before registration. You should edit your site’s “Terms and Conditions” page before enabling this option. You can do so under Static pages.

License metadata: If allowed, users can choose under which license they want to make their content available. They can set a default license in their account settings and then decide for each artefact individually as well. An institution administrator can set the default license in the institution settings.

Custom licenses: If allowed, users can enter any URL as license for their content. If not checked, users will be limited to the licenses configured by the site administrator.

HTML editor: Choose whether the HTML editor is used by default or not. If set to User-defined, users will be allowed to choose whether to use the HTML editor in their personal settings or not. Otherwise the specified setting will be used site-wide.

Enable MathJax: If set to “Yes”, mathematics and science equations can be displayed nicely in Mahara pages. For more information on how to configure MathJax, see the Help icon next to the option.

Access to site files: If allowed, registered users will have access to site files in subfolders of the folder “public”. By default, only files directly in the folder “public” are accessible to them.

Watchlist notification delay: Decide how many minutes after editing a page, a watchlist notification is sent. The default value is “20” for 20 minutes.

Note

In the past, a watchlist notification about a change was sent whenever a block was edited on a page. Since that caused a lot of notifications to be sent, a delay has been put in place to accumulate a number of changes so that it can be assumed more that a page and not only an item on the page has changed.

11.3.1.12. Logging settings

Mahara logs a number of events. These can now be collected in the database as well. The primary reason for logging events in the database is the logging of administrators masquerading as users for enhanced audits of these actions.

Logging settings

Log events: Decide which events you wish to log in the database. Events are generated every time the user does something significant on the site, such as editing a page. This log is kept in the event_log table in the database.

None: Nothing is logged in the database.

Masquerading: Only masquerading sessions are logged. This setting needs to be turned on if you wish to report on administrator masquerading of users.

All: All events that can be logged in the database are logged.

Event log expiry: Decide for how long you wish to keep your database log. If you selected to log all events, the table can grow quite quickly especially on an active site. This time may be specified in days, weeks, months, years or “No end date”. If the latter option is chosen, the event log is not deleted by default.

Event log reporting: If set to “Yes”, you can report over a number of activities on the site in the “Reports” section that require events to be logged.

The table event_log contains the data that can be logged:

usr: user ID of the person whose account is shown on screen

realusr: user ID of the administrator who masquerades

event: action being carried out, e.g. beginning of a masqueradin session, saving of an artefact, deleting of a page or artefact, update user information, placing a block onto a page

data: additional information about the action, e.g. the ID of a block that is updated

time: time when the action was carried out

11.3.2. Static pages

Administration menu → Configure site → Static pages

Here you can edit the content of some pages around the site and the pages linked to in the footer:

About

Home (Dashboard)

Logged-out home

See also

Institutions can change the content of these pages on their static institution pages to their liking and do not have to go with the content from the entire site.

The terms and conditions and privacy statement pages can be found in the Legal section.

All pages come with default text that you can change entirely. Every page must contain some text. You can use the visual editor to style your page.

Edit static pages

Page name: Choose the page you want to edit from the drop-down menu.

Page text: Change the text in the editor window. You cannot leave this field empty.

Click the Save changes button.

Note

If your site has added custom pages to the menu where you have a number of additional informational pages, you can edit their content from the Static pages screen. In order to do so, a server administrator needs to make changes on the backend [https://bugs.launchpad.net/mahara/+bug/999464].

11.3.3. Legal

Administration menu → Configure site → Legal

Note

The terms and conditions and privacy statement pages moved from the Static pages to the Legal section. That way, old versions can be tracked more easily.

Every site can have a statement about terms and conditions and privacy. If you turned on “Strict privacy” in the institution settings, everyone needs to accept them before being able to use their account.

Warning

The Mahara project cannot give legal advice. If you need legal advice, please consult your own lawyer to ensure that you comply with applicable laws.

Legal statements overview page

Click the “Privacy statement” tab to edit the current privacy statement for the site and view old versions.

Click the “Terms and conditions” tab to edit the current terms and conditions for the site and view old versions.

Version: Version number of the statement.

Note

Versions are listed in reverse chronological order.

Author: Person who edited the version.

Content: Beginning of the text of the statement.

Creation date: Date and time when the version was saved.

Click the Edit button when you want to make changes to the current version. It will be saved as a new version.

Click the View button to see the full text of an old version.

Note

Institutions can set up their own privacy statement and terms and conditions that are displayed to their members in addition to the site’s legal terms.

11.3.3.1. Privacy statement

Warning

You cannot save a draft version of your changed privacy statement. As soon as you save the form, anybody logging in will be asked to accept the new privacy statement.

Edit the site level privacy statement

Version: Give your statement a new version number. It can be up to 15 characters long and must be different from any previous one.

The previous version number is stated for convenience.

Page text: Enter the text that should be displayed in the privacy statement.

Click the Save changes button to accept your changes or click Cancel to abort your changes.

11.3.3.2. Terms and conditions

Warning

You cannot save a draft version of your changed terms and conditions. As soon as you save the form, anybody logging in will be asked to accept the new terms and conditions.

Edit the site level terms and conditions

Version: Give your statement a new version number. It can be up to 15 characters long and must be different from any previous one.

The previous version number is stated for convenience.

Page text: Enter the text that should be displayed in the terms and conditions.

Click the Save changes button to accept your changes or click Cancel to abort your changes.

11.3.4. Menus

Administration menu → Configure site → Menus

There are two menus in Mahara:

Links and resources

Footer

11.3.4.1. Links and resources

The Links and resources menu appears to all users on most pages in the side bar. You can decide which links or files are available to everybody - also those without a login - and which ones only logged-in users shall see.

Add external links to the Links and resources menu

Choose which Links and resources menu you want to edit: the public or the logged-in users one.

Choose the type External link.

Give your link a name that will appear in the menu.

Provide the full URL to the link including http:// or https://.

Click the Add button .

Click the Edit button to make changes to the existing link.

Click the Delete button to delete the link.

You can also link to files that you have uploaded to the site files area.

Add a site file to the Links and resources menu

Choose which Links and resources menu you want to edit: the public or the logged-in users one.

Choose the type Site file.

Give your site file a name that will appear in the menu.

Choose the file you want to display from the drop-down menu.

Click the Add button .

You can make changes to the name or choose a different file when you click the Edit button .

You can remove the file from the menu by clicking the Delete button . This will only delete the reference to the file in the menu but not the file itself.

Note

If you wish to display your links and resources in a specific order, map that order out before you add the links and files because you cannot change the order afterwards.

Links and resources menu result

11.3.4.2. Footer menu

You have control over which links are displayed in the footer on each page.

Footer menu

Legal: Set the switch to “Yes” if you wish to display a link to the terms and conditions and privacy statement for the site in the footer of every page.

Note

You cannot link to external pages to accommodate stricter privacy regulations more easily. If you want to link to an external page, you can place the link in the text area of the terms and conditions or privacy statement.

About: Choose “Yes” to display the link to the “About” page in the footer.

Note

You can change the text in Static pages if you don’t already have an existing text to link to.

If you have an existing page, you can provide the link here.

Contact us: Set the switch to “Yes” if you want to display a link to a contact form in the footer.

If you have a contact page, you can provide the link to overwrite the Mahara one.

External manual: If you want to display a help link to the user manual in the footer of a page, switch this option to “Yes”. It will take you to the relevant page in the Mahara user manual of the version of Mahara that you are using.

If you have your own copy of the Mahara user manual, you can provide the link here.

Click the Save changes button to save your choices.

11.3.5. Networking

Administration menu → Configure site → Networking

Mahara’s networking feature allows it to communicate with other Mahara or Moodle [https://moodle.org] sites. If networking is enabled, you can use it to configure single sign-on (SSO) for users who log in at either Moodle or Mahara or allow users from another Mahara instance to access yours.

You can connect Mahara and Moodle to save certain content you created in Moodle through the portfolio feature [https://docs.moodle.org/22/en/Portfolios].

Networking overview

In order to use networking site-wide with any institution, you need to:

Enable networking: Choose “Yes” if you wish to connect one or more Mahara or Moodle sites to your Mahara instance.

Auto-register all hosts: If you choose “Yes”, an institution is created for any host that connects allowing these users to log in to your Mahara site. We recommend you leave the default “No” because that gives you more control over which Moodle or Mahara instances can connect.

Click the Save changes button.

Click the Delete this key button if you want to generate a new key for your Mahara site, e.g. when you copied the database from another site or the other instance doesn’t recognize it properly.

Depending on which site you wish to connect, you may need to provide some of the other information on the page, in particular the WWW root and the public key.

See also

You can consult the comprehensive guide for setting up a Mahoodle [https://wiki.mahara.org/index.php?title=System_Administrator%27s_Guide/Moodle%2F%2FMahara_Integration] when connecting Mahara and Moodle.

You set up MNet for an institution when you edit the authentication method XML-RPC.

11.3.6. Licenses

Administration menu → Configure site → Licenses

The site administrator can allow users to add license metadata to their artefacts in the general site settings. Additionally, an institution administrator can require institution members to choose a license for any of their artefacts in the institution settings.

11.3.6.1. List of licenses

Licenses that are available to all users of the site are defined on the Licenses page. Mahara comes with a number of pre-defined licenses, but the site administrator can add many more or delete any of the existing ones.

Available licenses on the site

Click the Add a license button to add an additional license that users can choose from.

Icon: Every license can have an icon / license logo that is displayed on the details page of an artefact.

Display name: The name that is displayed for each license around the site, e.g. in the drop-down menu where a user can select a license and on the details page of an artefact.

Acronym: The short name by which the license is also known. This acronym is also displayed to the user on the details page of an artefact.

URL: The Internet address where the license text can be found. When a license is displayed on the details page of an artefact, it is linked to this URL.

Note

It is important for users to be able to click on a link to the license because that allows them to learn about the license conditions and what they can do with the artefact or not.

Click the Edit button to change properties of a license. You can change the display name, acronym and the license icon, but not its URL. If you want to change the latter, you will need to create a new license.

Click the Delete button to remove a license from the system.

11.3.6.2. Add a license

As site administrator you can add as many licenses as you wish. Go to Administration menu → Configure site → Licenses and click the Add a license button.

Add a new license to the site

Display name: Choose a name for your license that will be displayed around the site, e.g. on the details page of an artefact and in the drop-down menu in which users and institution administrators choose their defaul license. This field is required.

URL: The Internet address where the license text can be found. When a license is displayed on the details page of an artefact, it is linked to this URL. This field is required.

Acronym: If the license you want to add also has a commonly known acronym, you can enter it.

Icon: If the license you add has a logo that you want to display next to the icense, e.g. on the details page of an artefact, you can link it here.

This can be a http://… or https://… URL to an image elsewhere on your site or anywhere on the Internet.

Note

The protocol you use should match the protocol of your Mahara site to prevent browser warnings.

It can also be a license:… URL to specify license icons from the Mahara theme. For example, the URL license:gfdl.png would refer to the file static/images/license/gfdl.png in the theme.

Click the Save button to add the license to the site.

11.3.6.3. Edit a license

As site administrator you can change the properties of any license. Go to Administration menu → Configure site → Licenses and click the Edit button next to a license that you want to change. You can change all license properties but the URL.

Edit a license on the site

Display name: Change the name of the license that is displayed around the site.

Acronym: Change the acronoym of the license.

Icon: Change the icon that is associated with the license and displayed along with the license’s name around the site.

This can be a http://… or https://… URL to an image elsewhere on your site or anywhere on the Internet.

Note

The protocol you use should match the protocol of your Mahara site to prevent browser warnings.

It can also be a license:… URL to specify license icons from the Mahara theme. For example, the URL license:gfdl.png would refer to the file static/images/license/gfdl.png in the theme.

Click the Save button to keep your changes to the license.

Note

You cannot change the URL of the license. If you have a mistake in the URL, you will need to delete the license entirely and add it correctly.

11.3.7. Site pages and collections

Administration menu → Configure site → Pages and collections

You can create site pages with informational content to share with other users or you can create templates which users can copy into their own accounts. You can also change the default content and layout of the pages for the dashboard, profile, group homepage, and regular page.

Site pages and collections

Adding and editing site pages and collections is very similar to creating and editing a portfolio page or collection. However, not all blocks are available when editing a site page in the page editor due to the different context. Please refer to the overview of blocks for a list of all the blocks that you can use in a site page.

Click the Add button to start a new page or collection from scratch.

Note

A modal opens in which you can choose whether to create a page or collection.

Click the Copy button to choose an existing page or collection as basis.

Search: Type your search term into the search field.

Use the drop-down arrow to limit your search. The available options are:

Title, description, tags: Search for your search term in the title, descirption, and tags of your site portfolios.

Title, description: This is the default option. It searches in the title and description of your site portfolios.

Tags: Search only within the tags of your site portfolios.

Sort by: Decide on the sort order in which you wish to display your portfolios.

Alphabetical: Portfolios are displayed in alphabetical order.

Date created: List the portfolios in chronologically reverse order with the newest portfolios first.

Last modified: Display the portfolios in the order of their last modification with the most recent portfolios that have been changed first. This is the default display option.

Last viewed: Show the portfolios in the order in which they were viewed by you and others starting with the most recently viewed portfolios.

Most visited: Display the portfolios that have been visited most first in the list.

Most feedback: List the portfolios in descending order based on the amount of feedback they have received.

Note

The sort order that you choose does not change when you navigate away from the overview page or log out. When you change the sort order, that new setting will be used until you change it again.

Click the Search button to search your site portfolios based on your search term and / or sorting criteria.

Dashboard template: You can edit the dashboard template. The dashboard doesn’t change for existing users. However, new users will get the changed dashboard.

Group homepage template: Change the layout and the blocks that are displayed on all group homepages. This only affects groups created after the changes.

Profile template: Make changes to the layout and the blocks that users see on their profile page per default. Your changes only affect new users.

Note

You cannot delete the dashboard, group homepage, profile and page templates.

Page template: Change the default portfolio page. The changes only affect any pages that are created after you made the change.

Note

Changing this page template is useful if you want to have all new pages use a specific layout instead of the built-in three-column layout. You could also place a block onto the template that any new page should have.

Users still have the possibility to change any settings once they create their page. You are not locking them into a specific way.

Once you are done creating your site portfolios, you can share them with others.

Note

When somebody leaves feedback on a site page or artefact, the site administrators receive a notification.

11.3.8. Site journals

Administration menu → Configure site → Journals

You create site journals like regular user journals.

Site journals

You can create multiple journals. Click the Create journal button to set up a new journal.

All your journals are listed on Administration menu → Configure site → Journals with their titles. The titles link through to the individual journals.

You can see the description of the journal.

You see how many entries you have in each journal.

Click the Arrow icon to be taken to the journal and see all journal entries.

Click the New entry button to create a new journal entry directly from this screen.

Click the Edit button to make changes to your journal title, description or tags.

Click the Delete button to delete the journal and all its entries.

Warning

When you click the Delete button, you receive a confirmation message whether you really want to delete the journal or not. If you used the journal or an entry of it in a page, Mahara lets you know so you can decide whether to delete the journal or not. Once you agree to delete the journal, your journal and all its content are removed permanently.

11.3.9. Share

Administration menu → Configure site → Share

You share site pages and site collections like any other pages and collections.

See also

Refer to the share options for regular portfolio pages and collections for further information.

Share site pages and collections

When you want to allow copying, you have a few more options available than on regular pages or collections.

Copying site pages and collections

Allow copying: Switch this option to “Yes” if you want to allow the people who have access to the page or collection to copy it.

Copy for new users: Enable this option if all new users on the site - and not just in one institution - shall receive a copy of the selected page(s) or collection(s) into their portfolios when an account is created for them.

Note

If you enable this option without also enabling the option “Allow copying”, your users will not be able to make a copy of the page(s) or collection(s) themselves if they need another one.

Course: Switch this option to “Yes” if all course groups shall receive a copy of the selected page(s) or collection(s).

Standard: Switch this option to “Yes” if all standard groups shall receive a copy of the selected page(s) or collection(s).

11.3.10. Site skins

Administration menu → Configure site → Site skins

Warning

Skins is a feature that can be applied on top of themes for pages. While you can change a lot of style elements, changing all of them is not advised depending on the theme that is underlying your page.

This feature is only available when the server administrator enabled skins for the site.

You can create skins that will be available to all users of your site.

Site skins

Click the Create skin button to design a new skin.

Click the Import skin(s) button to import skins that others have shared online.

Click the Export skin(s) button to export all site skins.

The title of the skin.

Click the Info button to see more details for the skin, e.g. who created it when.

Click the Edit button to make changes to this skin.

Click the Export button to export only this one skin.

Click the Delete button to remove this skin.

See also

The process of creating and editing a site skin is very similar to creating and editing skins in your portfolio.

11.3.11. Fonts

Administration menu → Configure site → Fonts

You can install additional fonts to be used with page skins. Currently, you cannot use these fonts anywhere else.

Fonts overview page

Click the Install font button to install a font from your computer.

Click the Install Google font(s) button to install fonts you discovered through Google fonts [https://www.google.com/fonts/].

Text: Decide in which preview text the installed fonts should be displayed on this overview page. The default text is “Grumpy wizards…”:

Latin alphabet (ASCII only)

Latin alphabet (ISO/IEC 8859-1)

Latin alphabet (ISO/IEC 8859-2)

Cyrillic alphabet (ISO/IEC 8859-5)

Greek alphabet (ISO/IEC 8859-7)

Numbers and fractions

Punctuation

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.

Grumpy wizards make toxic brew for the evil Queen and Jack.

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

Note

Not all fonts have the full character set implemented. In particular, the Cyrillic and Greek alphabets may be missing and also some numbers, fractions and pucntuation symbols.

The three last sentences show most / all of the letters in the English alphabet.

Size: Decide on the size of the letters in which the installed fonts should be displayed on this overview page. The default size is 28.

Show: Decide which fonts you want to see on this overview page:

All fonts

Local fonts

Google web fonts

Click the Preview button to change which fonts are displayed depending on the criteria you selected.

The title of the font is shown.

See what your font looks like according to your preview settings.

You see whether it is a Google font or a local font that you uploaded.

Click View font specimen to see details about this font.

Click Edit font properties on a local font to change some font settings.

Click Add font style to add more styles for a local font.

Click Delete font to delete this font.

11.3.11.1. Install a local font

You can install a font that you find online as long as you have the permission to do so. Please always read the license of a font before uploading it to ensure that you are allowed to do so.

See also

There are a lot of websites for finding fonts. One of them where you can use, share and remix them is the Open Font Library [https://openfontlibrary.org/].

Click the Install font button on the Fonts overview page.

See also

If you want to upload a font you found on Google fonts, please follow the Google fonts installation instructions.

Install a font

Font name: Provide the name of the font. this field is required.

Font notice: Provide information about the font, e.g. license, and the font creator.

Font style: State what styles the font has available that you upload. If the styles come in separate font files, you need to upload all of them separately:

Regular

Bold

Italics

Bold italics

Font type: Decide where in a page skin the font can be used:

Headings and text

Headings only

Generic font family: To what generic font family does this font belong? Choose from:

serif: Letters and symbols have a small line attached to the end of a stroke to guide the eye from one letter to the next. An example is the font “Times New Roman”.

sans-serif: Letters and symbols do not have the guiding line. An example is the font “Arial”.

monospace: All letters have the same space.

cursive: Handwriting fonts.

fantasy: Fonts that are very ornamented.

ZIP archive: You can upload all font files in one go using a zip archive instead of having to upload them separately. You need to include all required font files.

Font files: You need to upload your font in all these font files in order to ensure that it can be displayed in different browsers and on different devices. Click the Browse button next to each font file type to upload that specific font file.

EOT font file: Embedded OpenType font (for Internet Explorer 4+)

SVG font file: Scalable Vector Graphic font (for iPad and iPhone)

TTF font file: TrueType font (for Firefox 3.5+, Opera 10+, Safari 3.1+, Chrome 4.0.249.4+)

WOFF font file: Web Open Font Format font (for Firefox 3.6+, Internet Explorer 9+, Chrome 5+)

License file: Upload the font license file

See also

You can use the FontSquirrel Webfont Generator [https://www.fontsquirrel.com/tools/webfont-generator] to convert your fonts into the required formats.

Click the Install font button to finish installing this font or click Cancel to abort your action.

11.3.11.2. Edit a local font

You can make certain changes to a local font and also install additional font styles.

Click Edit font properties on the Fonts overview page to make changes to a number of settings of a local font.

Edit font properties of a local font

Font name: Edit the font name.

Font notice: Make changes to the license information and the creator of the font.

Font type: Choose whether the font can be used for headings only or also for regular text.

Generic font family: Change the font family to which this font belongs.

Click the Save button to accept your changes or click Cancel to abort your action.

Click the Add font style button to upload additional font styles for your font. If your font comes with a number of different styles in separate files, you need to upload them separately.

Add an additional font style to a specific font

Font name: The name of your font for which you are uploading an additional font style is displayed.

Font style: Choose the font style that you are uploading.

Font files: Upload all required font files.

Click the Save button to accept your changes or click Cancel to abort your action.

11.3.11.3. Install Google font(s)

Click the Install Google font(s) button to see the instructions and the font upload area for Google fonts.

Install Google font(s)

Follow the instructions for finding and downloading Google fonts.

Visit the Google fonts [https://www.google.com/fonts] website.

Select the fonts that you wish to make available for all users to choose for skins and add them to your collection on Google.

Download all fonts as a ZIP file.

Valid ZIP file: Click the Browse button to upload the ZIP file that you downloaded from Google.

Click the Install Google font(s) button to add these fonts to your fonts on Mahara or click Cancel to abort your action.

11.3.12. Files

Administration menu → Configure site → Files

Here you can upload files that you can include in the links and resources menu or in site pages. You can add files that are in the home directory to the menu with resources for logged-in users. Files that you save in the public folder can be used in the menu for users who are not logged-in. Additionally, users can put them into their own portfolio pages as files to download.

See also

The process of uploading and managing files is very similar to files in your personal files area.

Site files

11.3.13. Cookie Consent

Administration menu → Configure site → Cookie Consent

The “Cookie Law”, Directive 2009/136/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council, defines the requirements for consenting to the keeping of cookies across the European Union. Before your site can store or retrieve information from an electronic device, the user of your site must give informed consent for you to do so.

See also

Read the full text of the directive [https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32002L0058:en:HTML].

Enable Cookie Consent

Enable Cookie Consent: Switch this setting to “Yes” if you want to enable the Cookie Consent feature.

Click the Save changes button.

Note

Cookie Consent does not have its own configuration. Site administrators need to provide relevant information on the Privacy page.

When Cookie Consent is enabled, your users see the following banner at the bottom of their screen.

Cookie Consent banner

Click the “Learn more” link to be taken to the Privacy page of your site. There, more information about the collection of data via cookies is available.

Click the Got it button to acknowledge the use of cookies. You only need to do this once in a browser.

11.4. Users

Administration menu → Users

In the Users menu of the administration site administrators can:

search for users

change settings for individual users

suspend and delete users

make users site staff or administrators

check the administrator notification settings

add and update users manually or by CSV

view reports

In the Users menu of the administration institution administrators can:

search for users

change settings for individual users

suspend and delete users

check the administrator notification settings for their institution’s administrators

add and update users manually or by CSV

view reports

11.4.1. User search

Administration menu → Users → User search

Note

Site administrators can search for any user on the entire site while institution administrators can only search among the users of their institution(s).

11.4.1.1. Standard user search

User search

Search: Enter your search term. The default text in the field shows you in which institution context you perform your search. Type the name, display name, username or email address or any partial thereof you wish to search for in the search field. If you turned on the exact search, you need to provide the correct name or email address and not a partial one.

Note

Both primary and secondary email addresses are searchable.

Use the drop-down arrow to choose a single institution in which to search for your user.

Click the Search button to start your search.

Click the “Advanced options” link to make filtering options visible.

First name: The first name links through to the user’s profile page.

Click the arrow to change the sort order of the column. All columns but the institution one are sortable.

Last name: The last name links through to the user’s profile page.

Display name: The display name is shown.

Username: This is the internal Mahara username. Click the username to go to this user’s account settings page.

Emails: The primary email address as well as all secondary email addresses are displayed.

Note

Secondary email addresses are displayed in parentheses.

Institution: The institution or institutions that a user belongs to are displayed.

Authentication: The authentication method for this user is shown.

Last login: The date and time of the last login is visible.

Click the All button to select all users and click the None button to deselect all users.

You can also tick the checkbox for an individual user to select them.

Users that are suspended or expired have the Inactive user icon next to their username.

The number of search results are available. If there are more than ten users in the search results, you have a pager available to go to more results.

Click the Edit selected users button to perform the bulk actions to

suspend users

delete users

change the authentication method of users

Click the Get reports for selected users button to

view user reports

download user account information for further actions

11.4.1.2. Advanced search options

You can combine any search and filter options. However, if you use too many, you may not yield any results.

Advanced user search options

Search: You see the institution context in which your search is performed.

Use the drop-down arrow to choose a single institution in which to search for your user.

Click the Search button to filter results for this institution only.

Click the “Advanced options” link to make additional filtering options visible.

First name: Filter the users you wish to display by the initial of their first name. Click the letter of the alphabet to narrow your search.

Last name: Filter the users you wish to display by the initial of their last name. Click the letter of the alphabet to narrow your search.

Last login: You have several options:

Any user: Display any user who fits any other search / filter criteria.

Users have logged in: Display any user who has logged in at least once.

Users have never logged in: Display any user who has never logged in.

Users have logged in since: Display any user who has logged in since a specified date and time.

Users have not logged in since: Display any user who has not logged in since a specified date and time.

Choose a date and time for the login filter by either typing it in or selecting it via the calendar that pops up when you click into the field.

Duplicate email addresses: Tick this checkbox if you only want to display users whose email address is in the system twice so you can deal with them more easily.

Note

Normally, duplicate email addresses are not possible, but if a user imports a Leap2A file or if an external authentication method is used, duplicates can happen.

11.4.1.3. User bulk actions

You can perform a number of bulk actions for users on the Bulk actions page:

Suspend them.

Change their authentication method.

Set spam probation points.

Delete them.

11.4.1.3.1. Suspend users

You can suspend users in bulk disallowing them to log into their accounts. Their portfolios will not be available anymore to others.

User bulk actions: Suspend users

On the User search page, select the users that you wish to suspend and click the Edit button.

Make sure that you are on the Suspend tab.

Selected users: Review the users you have selected.

Reason for suspension: Provide a reason for suspending the users listed on this page.

Click the Suspend button to prevent these users from accessing their accounts.

Note

If you made a mistake or want to remove a temporary suspension, you can do so under Suspended and expired users.

11.4.1.3.2. Change authentication method

You can change the authentication method for many accounts at once.

User bulk actions: Change authentication method

On the User search page, select the users for whom you wish to change the authentication method and click the Edit button.

Make sure that you are on the Change authentication method tab.

Selected users: Review the users you have selected.

Select the new authentication method from the drop-down menu. That includes choosing the correct institution and associated authentication method.

Click the Change authentication method button to make the change.

Note

You need to change or add a remote username for some authentication methods. You will need to do that in a separate step. For information on that, please see the instructions for changing the authentication method and remote username.

11.4.1.3.3. Set spam probation

You can change the spam probation points for many users at once.

Note

This feature is only available on sites that have spam probation turned on.

Newly self-registered users - no matter whether the institution requires explicit administrator confirmation or not - start out with a certain number of “probation points” on their account. While they have any probation points, they are considered a probationary user and cannot create public pages in their portfolio or post links or images to potentially public content such as comments, wall posts or forum posts.

Each time a probationary user makes a post in a forum, and the post is replied to by a non-probationary user, the probationary user loses one probation point. When the number of points reaches zero, they are no longer on probation.

Probation points have no effect on users who have staff or administrator status.

User bulk actions: Set spam probation

On the User search page, select the users for whom you wish to set probation points and click the Edit button.

Make sure that you are on the Set spam probation tab.

Selected users: Review the users you have selected.

Select the number of probation points from the drop-down menu that you wish to give the selected users.

Click the Set button to make the change.

11.4.1.3.4. Delete users

You can delete many accounts at once.

Warning

When you delete a user account, all personal data is wiped from the system. This applies to everything that is in a user’s Content and Portfolio area. This action cannot be undone. The user’s contributions in groups, e.g. forum messages, uploaded files and pages created in a group, are still available, but are made anonymous by changing the name to “Deleted user” as author where an author is shown.

User bulk actions: Delete users

On the User search page, select the users that you wish to delete and click the Edit button.

Make sure that you are on the Delete users tab.

Selected users: Review the users you have selected.

Click the Delete button. The accounts will be deleted along with their data.

Note

Forum posts and comments that users have written or portfolio pages in which they were involved in groups are not deleted. However, their name is being removed.

11.4.2. User account settings

Administration menu → Users → User search → Click on a username

On the Account settings page of a user in the administration area, you can perform a number of actions to manage the user’s account. However, you cannot change personal information about this user, e.g. name or email, from this page. This can only be done in the Content area of the user’s account or via the Add users by CSV page.

Overview of the user account settings page

Log in as this user.

Suspend or delete this user.

Change site account settings.

Change institution settings.

11.4.2.1. Log in as

As administrator you have the power to log in as any user that you manage and masquerade as them.

Note

Site administrator can log in as any user while institution administrators can only perform this action for users who are members of their institution(s).

It is a great function for troubleshooting a user account because you see everything as the user would without having to know the password.

Warning

This function can be misused by administrators because you can make changes to the user’s portfolio and artefacts as well as participate in groups while logged in as that user. Users should be aware of this function and that an administrator can enter their account.

Sites should have clear policies around the use of this function so that the privacy of users and their portfolios and collaborative work is protected. Therefore, there should also not be many users within an institution who have administrator rights.

Log in as another user

Click on the user’s name to go to this user’s profile page. You can then click the Log in as … link to become that user from that screen.

Click the Log in as link to become that user. You see a warning bar at the top of the browser window telling you that you are masquerading as that user.

Stop masquerading as another user

When you want to return to your own account again, click the Become [your name] again link at the top of the browser window.

When the site administrator enabled the logging of all or just masquerading events, administrators may be required to provide a reason for the masquerading and a notification about this may be sent to the users.

Provide a reason for masquerading as another user

Write why you are masquerading as this user. This reason may be sent to the user if the site administrator demands that.

Click the Continue button to log in as that user.

If the site administrator decided to have users notified of the masquerading, you would see the screen notice “The user has been notified of this masquerading session.”

When the site administrator decided to send notifications to users when an administrator logs into their account, the users receive this notification in their inbox. Depending on their notification settings, it can also be delivered via email.

Notification a user receives when an administrator masquerades

Activity type: The masquerading notification is a system message. If you receive a lot of notifications, you can filter for just them.

Click the bar to see the full text of the message.

The system message “An administrator logged in as you” contains the name of the administrator and the time when the administrator started masquerading. If the site administrator requires a reason to be sent for the masquerading, it is displayed as well.

The name of the administrator who logged in as you is linked to the profile page for you to find out more about them or send them a message.

11.4.2.2. Suspend user

Suspend a user if they do not follow the terms and conditions of the site and behave inappropriately. Suspended users cannot log in, but all their content is still available.

Suspend a user

Click the link Suspend or delete this user. A pop-up windows becomes visible.

Reason: Provide a reason for your suspension. This is particularly useful when you are not the only administrator and / or need to remember after some time why you suspended this user.

Click the Suspend user button to disallow the user from logging in.

Suspension notice on the user account settings page

When a user has been suspended, the suspension message appears on the user’s account settings page stating the reason and the date for the suspension and giving the administrators the possibility to unsuspend the user by clicking the Unsuspend user button.

You can unsuspend a user from this page or together with other users on the Bulk actions page.

Suspended user tries to log in and gets suspension message

When the user tries to log in, they will see the suspension message and the reason. They can then contact an administrator via the “Contact us” form for further action.

11.4.2.3. Delete user

Users can delete their own accounts in their account settings if self-registration is allowed by their institution. Administrators can also delete user accounts at any time.

Delete a user account

Click the link Suspend or delete this user. A pop-up windows becomes visible.

Click the Delete user button to delete this user account permanently. This action cannot be undone. As this is a permanent action, you see a confirmation pop-up window that you will have to acknowledge.

Warning

When you delete a user account, all personal data is wiped from the system. This applies to everything that is in a user’s Content and Portfolio area. This action cannot be undone. The user’s contributions in groups, e.g. forum messages, uploaded files and pages created in a group, are still available, but are made anonymous by changing the name to “Deleted user” as author where an author is shown.

Note

If an account was deleted by accident - either by a user or by an administrator - swift action may result in recovery of (most of) the data from a backup file. This requires access to the server’s backups and the backend of Mahara. More information is available on the wiki under Restoring a deleted user [https://wiki.mahara.org/index.php/System_Administrator%27s_Guide/Restoring_a_deleted_user].

11.4.2.4. Change site account settings

You can view and change a number of settings for a user’s account.

Note

Depending on the authentication method that is associated with this user, you may not be able to edit all settings.

Site account settings of a user

Change username: Give the user a different username. This field is not available when the account is managed by an external authentication method.

Reset password: Change the password for this user account. This field is not available when the account is managed by an external authentication method.

The password strength indicator gives you an idea of how strong your password is in relation to the password policy.

Force password change on next login: Change the switch to “Yes” if the user shall change the password upon the next login. This option is not available when the account is managed by an external authentication method.

Site staff: Change the switch to “Yes” if the user shall become a staff member for the entire site.

Site administrator: Change the switch to “Yes” if the user shall have full administrative rights for the entire site.

Primary email: Displayed is the primary email address for this user. This email address is used for any notifications. You can change that email address here.

Note

The previously used email address stays in the user account as secondary email address until the user deletes it.

Disable email: Change the switch to “Yes” to disable the sending of emails for this user. If email is disabled, notifications and messages can only be viewed in the internal inbox. You can set up your Mahara site so that emails are disabled automatically if they are bounced back [https://bugs.launchpad.net/mahara/+bug/993018].

Warning

When the email address is disabled, users cannot reset their passwords themselves as no email can be sent.

Last login: The date and time when the user logged into Mahara for the last time is displayed.

Account expires: Enter a date via the calendar if you want to set an expiry date.

Note

The default setting is that the date is not specified. You can set an automatic account expiry date for all users in the account settings of the site configuration.

File quota: Change the storage allowance for a user’s personal files area. Institution administrators may not be able to update the quota if the site administrator disallowed that. The default value as set in the files configuration in the plugin administration.

Quota used: You can see how much this user has already used of their allocated quota.

Spammer probation status: This setting controls whether the user is considered to be on probation as a possible spammer. See the spam probation levels for more information.

Note

This feature is only available on sites that have spam probation turned on.

Authentication method: Choose the authentication method for this user. A site administrator can set up the authentication methods in the institution administration. Depending on the authentication method that you have chosen, you may have to provide a remote username to allow the user to log in.

Note

You only see the authentication methods that you are allowed to assign to the person based on their institution membership.

The field Username for external authentication is only displayed if an authentication method is chosen that requires a remote username. This allows administrators to see if a remote username has been supplied or not.

Tags: A user can be tagged by an administrator. The tag of the institution to which the user belonged prior to joining a new institution is not displayed to avoid its deletion.

Click the Save changes button when you are done editing the settings.

11.4.2.5. Change institution settings

You can view and change settings regarding a user’s membership in institutions. Depending on the site settings for institutions, a user may be added to more than one institution.

Institution settings for a user

Institution: Choose the institution to which you want to add this user from the drop-down menu.

Note

Only site administrators or institution administrators who have administrator permissions in more than one institution see this option.

Click the Add user to institution button to make this user a member of this institution.

Click the Institution settings bar to see more details about the user in this institution. The bar shows the name of the institution.

Membership expires: Click into the field to view the date picker and choose when you want to remove this user from this institution. The user is removed from your institution on that date, but retains their account and can still log in.

Note

The default setting is that the date is not specified. You can set an automatic institution membership expiry date for all users in your institution in the settings for your institution.

ID number: Provide an optional identifier for this user in this institution. This field is not editable by the user.

Institution staff: Change the switch to “Yes” if you want to give this user staff rights in this institution. This will allow the user to create controlled groups for example.

Institution admin: Change the switch to “Yes” if you want to make this user an administrator of this institution. This will allow the user to manage all users in this institution for example.

Click the Update button to save your changes.

Click the Remove user from this institution button to disassociate this user from this institution. The user’s account will not be deleted. The user will only not be associated with this institution anymore.

11.4.3. Suspended and expired users

Administration menu → Users → Suspended and expired users

A list of all suspended and expired users is available in the sub-menu Suspended and expired users. Here you can unsuspend / reactivate or delete them.

Note

Site administrators see all users whereas institution administrators only see users who are members of their institution(s).

11.4.3.1. Suspended users

List of all suspended users

Show: Select to view suspended users.

Basic details about each account are displayed to ensure that you are looking at the correct ones. That includes displaying the suspension reason.

The total number of suspended users is shown.

Select the user(s) for which you want to perform the same action.

Click the All button if you want to select all suspended users or click the None button to reset your selection.

Click the Unsuspend users button to reinstate the accounts for all selected users.

Click the Delete users button to delete all selected users in bulk. This action cannot be undone and all personal information of these users will be deleted (see delete user).

Warning

When you delete a user account, all personal data is wiped from the system. This applies to everything that is in a user’s Content and Portfolio area. This action cannot be undone. The user’s contributions in groups, e.g. forum messages, uploaded files and pages created in a group, are still available, but are made anonymous by changing the name to “Deleted user” as author where an author is shown.

11.4.3.2. Expired users

List of all expired users

Show: Select to view expired users.

Basic details about each account are displayed to ensure that you are looking at the correct ones. That includes the dates on which the accounts were expired.

The total number of expired users is shown.

Select the user(s) for which you want to perform the same action.

Click the All button if you want to select all expired users or click the None button to reset your selection.

Click the Reactivate expired users button if you want to allow these users access to their accounts again.

Click the Delete users button to delete all selected users in bulk. This action cannot be undone and all personal information of these users will be deleted (see delete user).

Warning

When you delete a user account, all personal data is wiped from the system. This applies to everything that is in a user’s Content and Portfolio area. This action cannot be undone. The user’s contributions in groups, e.g. forum messages, uploaded files and pages created in a group, are still available, but are made anonymous by changing the name to “Deleted user” as author where an author is shown.

11.4.4. Site staff

Administration menu → Users → Site staff

Note

Site staff is only accessible by site administrators.

On this page you can choose which users receive site staff rights. Potential staff members - any user on the site - are listed on the left while existing site staff members are listed on the right.

Give site staff rights

Search: If you have too many users on your site and you cannot see the users you want, you can search for them here.

Potential staff: Select the users you wish to make site staff. You can select multiple users at once using Ctrl and Shift click.

Add the potential staff members to the right-hand side - Current staff - by clicking the right-arrow button .

Current staff: If you want to remove an existing or accidentally added site staff member, you can remove the user from the list on the right-hand side by clicking on the user.

Then click the left-arrow button , and the user is removed from the list.

When you have chosen all members you wish to make site staff, click the Submit button.

Note

You can also double-click a name and it will be moved to the other side.

11.4.5. Site administrators

Administration menu → Users → Site administrators

Note

Site administrators is only accessible by site administrators.

Site administrators have powerful permissions. They can make far-reaching changes and also log in as other users. Be careful whom you give these rights. One site administrator is needed for each site. The total number of site administrators should be kept small.

Give site administrator rights

Search: If you have too many users on your site and you cannot see the users you want, you can search for them here.

Potential administrators: Select the users you wish to make site administrators. You can select multiple users at once using Ctrl and Shift click.

Add the potential site administrator to the right-hand side - Current administrators - by clicking the right-arrow button .

Current administrators: If you want to remove an existing or accidentally added site administrator, you can remove the user from the list on the right-hand side by clicking on the user.

Then click the left-arrow button , and the user is removed from the list.

When you have chosen all members you wish to make site administrators, click the Submit button.

Note

You can also double-click a name and it will be moved to the other side.

11.4.6. Export queue

Administration menu → Users → Export queue

This feature is experimental.

The export queue is available for the following exports:

When group administrators or tutors release portfolios in groups that allow the archiving of submitted pages, these submissions will be placed into the export queue and only released once the export completed successfully.

If the site administrator enabled the feature to queue Leap2A exports, Leap2A exports that users initiate via Main menu → Manage → Export are also queued, and once completed, the users receive a notification.

See also

The export queue requires that cron [https://wiki.mahara.org/index.php/System_Administrator%27s_Guide/Cron_Job] runs.

Export queue for Leap2A exports

Search: Enter your search term. The default text in the field shows you in which institution context you perform your search. Type the name, display name or username or email address or any partial thereof you wish to search for in the search field. If you turned on the exact search, you need to provide the correct name or email address and not a partial one.

Use the drop-down arrow to choose a single institution in which to search for your user.

Click the Go button to start your search.

In the results table you see the profile picture of the user.

First name: Displays the first name of the user. This is the default column for sorting results.

Note

Click on the other headings of the table that are links to sort the table differently.

Last name: Displays the last name of the user.

Display name: Shows the display name of the user.

Username: Clicking on the username, you are taken to the user’s administration settings page instead of their profile page as you would with the other names.

Export content: Brief description of what is being exported.

Status: Displays the status of the export. Only pending and failed exports are shown.

Export: Tick the checkboxes in this column if you wish to re-run an export that has failed. You can select all checkboxes by clicking the All button or remove all checkboxes by clicking the None button.

Click the Re-queue button to re-run all selected failed exports.

Delete: Tick the checkboxes in this column if you wish to delete any pending or failed exports. You can select all checkboxes by clicking the All button or remove all checkboxes by clicking the None button.

Click the Delete button to delete all selected pending or failed exports.

11.4.7. Add user

Administration menu → Users → Add user

You can add users to your site (site administrator) or your institution (institution administrator) by creating accounts for them manually one by one.

Add a user manually

Click the Create new user from scratch radio button if you want to create an empty account. Provide the first name, last name and email address for this user.

Click the Upload Leap2A file radio button if you want to import a user from another Mahara instance or a system that supports the Leap2A standard. Such a user could have exported their portfolio from another Mahara instance.

Username: Give the new user a username. It may contain letters, numbers and most common symbols. It must be from 3 to 236 characters in length. Spaces are not allowed.

Password: Choose a password for the account. The password must be at least six characters long.

The password strength indicator gives you an idea of how strong your password is in relation to the password policy.

Site staff: Switch to “Yes” if the new user should have site staff rights. Only site administrators see this option.

Site administrator: Switch to “Yes” if the new user should have site administrator rights. Only site administrators see this option.

Institution: Choose the institution of which the user should be a member. You also select the authentication method directly here.

Note

If an authentication method requires the use of a remote username, you can enter that on the next screen in the account settings.

File quota: Review the allocated file quota. You may change it here for this user if you are allowed to.

Institution administrator: Switch to “Yes” if the new user should have institution administrator rights in the chosen institution.

General account options: Click this link to see default account options that you may choose to change while creating this user. These are the general account options a user can change on the Settings page.

Note

You can only define the default account settings for a user account, but not force the user to keep them forever. You could only do that by customising the system on the code level.

Click the Create user button.

The user will receive an email with the account details.

11.4.8. Add and update users by CSV

Administration menu → Users → Add users by CSV

You can use this function to upload new users in bulk via a CSV file (comma-separated file) and to update existing users. The first row of your CSV file should specify the format of your data. For example, it should look like this:

username,password,email,firstname,lastname,studentid

For new users, this row must include:

username

password

email

firstname

lastname

Note

Mahara also accepts CSV files that have a semicolon as separator instead of a comma.

If you want to update existing users, you do not need to set a password and can leave that field off entirely.

Note

You can mix new and existing accounts in your CSV file. When you add a new user, the password field must be present. If you do not wish the password to be changed for existing accounts, leave that field empty for these accounts.

If your site or institution has locked fields or fields that are mandatory, then you do not have to include them as fields in your CSV upload.

Here is the full list of additional fields that you can add in your CSV file upload.

address - Street address

blogaddress - URL to the blog

businessnumber - Work phone number

city - City

country - Country

faxnumber - Fax number

homenumber - Home phone number

industry - Industry is displayed in the profile

introduction - Introduction is displayed in the profile

mobilenumber - Mobile phone number

occupation - Occupation is displayed in the profile

officialwebsite - Official website

personalwebsite - Personal website

preferredname - Display name

remoteuser - Remote username for external authentication

studentid - Student ID is displayed in the profile

town - Town

Your CSV file could look for example like the following:

username,email,firstname,lastname,studentid,preferredname,remoteuser, password

"percy","percy@pearle.net","Percy","Pearle","","","percy.pearle","mahara1"

"petra","petra@petterson.net","Petra","Petterson","","","petra.petterson","mahara1"

"polly","polly@potter.net","Polly","Potter","","","polly.potter","mahara1"

"admin","admin@mahara.school","Admin","User","","","","mahara1"

"jamesj","james@jetts.com","James","Jetts","","","","mahara1"

When you have created your CSV file, you are ready to upload it.

Add users by CSV file

Institution: Choose the institution and the authentication method for the user accounts that you upload and / or change.

File quota: If you wish, you can set a different file quota for all accounts in the CSV file. Institution administrators can only do so if the site administrator allowed it.

CVS file: You must upload a CSV file by clicking the Browse button and then selecting it from the files area on your computer.

Force password change: If you select this option, users need to change their password before they can log in for the first time.

Email users about their account: Change the switch to “Yes” and users will receive an email with their account information. This is in particular good for internal accounts.

Note

For user accounts that are managed by an external authentication method such as Moodle or LDAP, do not select this option because the users already know their login information.

Update users: Change the switch to “Yes” if your CSV file contains changes for existing users.

Note

When you add a new email address for a user to update the account settings, this new email address becomes the primary email address.

The previously used email address stays in the user account as secondary email address until the user deletes it.

General account options: Expand this menu to see default account options that you may choose to change while creating or updating users. These are the general account options a user can change on the Settings page.

Click the Add users by CSV button to upload and / or change users.

Note

Depending on your server settings and / or the size of your installation, you may not be able to upload all user accounts at once. You may wish to upload them in bunches of 100 instead.

A progress bar shows the percentage of the completed upload of your users.

11.4.9. Change the authentication method and remote username in bulk

After you have successfully invited or added new members into your institution, you can change their authentication method. That can be useful if the authentication method differs from the one in the previous institution and you want to link the new accounts to a remote username using:

LDAP directory

Moodle accounts via MNet

Single sign-on through an IdP provider

Note

The change in the authentication method for existing accounts should be done before users try to log in with their new credentials to avoid the creation of a second account for these users.

You can change the authentication method for multiple users at once to save you time manually updating each user. Changing the authentication method usually also entails changing the remote username (a.k.a. username for external authentication). Therefore, these two are dealt with together to describe the work flow better.

Find users in an institution to change their remote username

Go to Administration menu → Users → User search.

Click the Advanced options link to show filter options.

Filter for users by specific characteristics, e.g. if you only wish to display users who have not logged in yet.

Search: Enter your search term. The default text in the field shows you in which institution context you perform your search. Type the name, display name, username or email address or any partial thereof you wish to search for in the search field. If you turned on the exact search, you need to provide the correct name or email address and not a partial one.

Use the drop-down arrow to choose a single institution in which to search for your user.

Click the Search button to start your search.

Change the Results per page if you wish to see more than 10 users per page.

Select the users whose authentication method and remote username you want to change by either putting a check mark in the checkboxes or clicking on All to select all users on that page.

Click the Get reports button to proceed to the next step. You are taken to the User details report page.

User details reports page

Update the CSV file with remote username and password

Update user accounts in bulk

Click the Download button so that you get a CSV file which contains all necessary information for you to change the users’ remote username in bulk. This is necessary if their internal Mahara username is not the same as the one they use to authenticate on your system that is linked to Mahara or if they already have a remote username that would be incorrect for your institution.

Note

You do not need to see the column “Remote username” for the data to be in the CSV download. If you wish to see it on screen, click the Configure report button and select the “Remote username” column.

Open the CSV file in your preferred spreadsheet software. In the column remoteuser, add or change the username that your users have when authenticating in your regular system that you have connected to Mahara. You may also change other fields, e.g. their name, email address etc. If you want to add a new user directly in this CSV file, you can do so as well.

Note

You must provide a password for a new user. All other users do not need to have a value in the password field. If you only want to update existing users, you can leave the password field entirely off.

You must remove the column “lastlogin”. Mahara will produce an error if you leave it in the file.

Go to Administration menu → Users → Add users by CSV.

Institution: Choose the correct institution and authentication method for which you want to update your users. This allows you to switch all users in the CSV file from one authentication method to another.

File quota: Choose a different file quota here if you want to update it for the users you upload.

CSV file: Choose the CSV file from your computer that you had updated.

Update users: Switch this option to “Yes” because you want to update existing user accounts.

Note

Switch the options Force password change and Email users about their account to “No”. When you add a remote username, your users do not need to know their internal Mahara password as they cannot use it anyway.

General account options: You can make changes to the default account options for all the users, e.g. give them multiple journals by default, change their interface language etc.

Click the Add users by CSV button to start the user update. This process may take a little while depending on how many users you are changing.

You receive a report on the page upon the successful completion of the upgrade. If the upgrade fails, error messages help you to resolve the problem. No users are updated until all errors are resolved.

Note

If you intend to update more than 100 users at the same time, you may run into problems, and the server may reject your CSV file as the update process is a very memory intense one. If that is the case, you would have to split your CSV file into smaller ones with fewer users in them.

You can check that the accounts had their remote usernames added:

Go to Administration menu → Users → User search.

Select the institution in which the members are whom you want to check.

Click the Search button to limit your user results to this institution.

Select the users for whom you want to check the remote usernames.

Click the Get reports button to proceed to the next step. You are taken to the User reports page.

You see the remote username in the last column.

See also

If you only want to change the authentication method of certain users but do not have to worry about a remote username or updating any other information, you can change the authentication method directly on the bulk actions screen.

11.5. Groups

Administration menu → Groups

In the Groups menu of the administration site administrators can:

Add administrators to groups

Delete groups

Manage group categories

Add and update groups in bulk

Add and update group membership in bulk

In the Groups menu of the administration institution administrators can:

Add and update groups in bulk

Add and update group membership in bulk

11.5.1. Administer groups

Administration menu → Groups → Administer groups

Note

Administer groups is only accessible by site administrators.

You see an overview of all the groups on the site.

Administer groups

Search: Enter your search term, i.e. a part of the group name. The default text in the field shows you in which institution context you perform your search.

Use the drop-down arrow to choose a single institution in which to search for your group.

Click the Search button to start your search.

Group name: The table is sorted alphabetically according to the group name. The group names are linked for easy access to their group homepages.

Short name: The group’s short name is displayed. Every group has a short name and can be managed via a CSV file in bulk.

Members: Number of group members in each group.

Administrators: Number of group administrators per group.

Group type: Overview of whether and how users can join this group.

Standard: Group consists of members and administrators.

Course: Group consists of members, tutors and administrators.

Open: Anybody can join the group without administrator approval.

Request: Users can request to join the group. The administrator receives a notification.

Controlled: Users cannot leave the group. Only the administrator can remove them. This is best suited for course groups.

Group category: Display of the group category that is associated with this group.

Visibility: Overview of who has access to this group - members or the public.

Click the Manage button to change the group file quota or to add or remove group administrators.

Click the Export group membership in CSV format button to receive a CSV file with information about all members. You can use that file to make changes to the group membership and upload it again.

Click the Copy button to duplicate a group. The group’s files, journals, pages, collections and group settings are copied. Group membership and forums are not copied.

Click the Delete button to delete a group.

Warning

When you delete a group, all its content - forum posts, files and pages - will be deleted permanently and cannot be restored.

Export groups in CSV format: Click this link to generate a CSV file with which you can change group settings in bulk.

Note

All groups shown on the page are exported rather than all groups so you can target which groups to export.

11.5.1.1. Group file quota

You can specify a default group file quota in Plugins. This allows you to limit the file space that each group can take up. Here you can update the file quota for just one group.

Change the group file quota

Click the Manage button next to a group on the Administer groups page.

File quota: Change the file quota that this particular group can have.

Click the Save button to save your change.

11.5.1.2. Add or remove administrators

Add to or remove administrators from a group by clicking the Manage button next to a group on the Administer groups page.

Add or remove group administrators

Search: If you have too many users on your site and you cannot see the users you want, you can search for them here.

Potential administrators: Select the users you wish to make group administrators. You can select multiple users at once using Ctrl and Shift click.

Add the potential group administrators to the right-hand side - Current administrators - by clicking the right-arrow button .

Current administrators: If you want to remove an existing or accidentally added group administrator, you can remove the user from the list on the right-hand side by clicking on the user.

Then click the left-arrow button , and the user is removed from the list.

When you have chosen all members you wish to make group administrators, click the Save button.

Note

You can also double-click a name and it will be moved to the other side.

11.5.2. Group categories

Administration menu → Groups → Group categories

Note

Group categories is only accessible by site administrators.

Group categories help you filter your groups more easily on the My groups and Find groups pages. A group administrator can always assign one group category to a group if categories are enabled.

Manage group categories

Enable group categories: Switch to “Yes” to enable group categories for the entire site.

Click the Submit button to save your choice.

Create a new group category by typing its name and then clicking the Add button.

Name: Existing group categories are listed.

Edit a group category name by clicking the Edit button , change the name and then click the Update button. If you want to abort the action, click the Cancel button.

Click the Delete button to permanently delete this group category.

Note

Group categories are not hierarchical and are available to everybody on the site. Any user who can create groups can assign a group category when the feature has been enabled.

11.5.3. Archived submissions

Administration menu → Groups → Archived submissions

When group administrators or tutors release portfolios in groups that allow the archiving of submitted pages, these submissions will be displayed here so you can download them easily. They are also placed on the server in a central location for bulk download directly from the server.

See also

This feature requires that cron [https://wiki.mahara.org/index.php/System_Administrator%27s_Guide/Cron_Job] runs.

Review archived submissions

Search: Enter your search term. The default text in the field shows you in which institution context you perform your search. Type the name, display name, username or email address or any partial thereof you wish to search for in the search field. If you turned on the exact search, you need to provide the correct name or email address and not a partial one.

Use the drop-down arrow to choose a single institution in which to search for your user.

Click the Search button to start your search.

Submitted to: This column shows the group to which a particular page or collection was submitted to. You can click the group name in order to go to it directly. If the group was deleted, the submission is still available, but the group name is not linked anymore. It has its deletion date displayed.

ID: The ID of the archive file on the server for easy access when you download the data as CSV file.

The profile picture of the user is displayed.

First name: Displays the first name of the user. This is the default column for sorting results.

Note

Click on the other headings of the table that are links to sort the table differently.

Last name: Displays the last name of the user.

Display name: Shows the display name of the user.

Username: Clicking on the username, you are taken to the user’s administration settings page instead of their profile page as you would with the other names.

Leap2A file: Brief description of what has been archived.

Archived on: Date and time when the archive was made.

Click the Export all data in CSV format link to download data about the archived submissions. The CSV file contains the following information:

Username

First name

Last name

Display name

Email address

Group name to which the portfolio was submitted

ID

Title of the submitted portfolio

Path on disk where the archive is stored

Note

All submissions are stored in the “submission” folder in your Mahara data directory on the server. Then, each user has a subdirectory and therein are all submissions of this user.

File name

Time when the archive was made

11.5.4. Add and update groups by CSV

Administration menu → Groups → Add groups by CSV

Note

Both site and institution administrators can add and update groups by CSV file.

You can create multiple groups at once by uploading basic information about them via a CSV file.

Add and update groups by CSV

Create a CSV file that contains at a minimum the fields shortname,displayname,roles.

Note

Mahara also accepts CSV files that have a semicolon as separator instead of a comma.

Institution: Choose the institution for which you want to create the groups. This is just for internal administrative purposes so that institution administrators do not overwrite each other’s groups.

CSV file: Choose the CSV file from your computer that contains the groups.

Update groups: Switch to “Yes” if you are updating already existing groups.

Note

If you do not have your CSV file anymore, you can download it from the Administer groups screen, make the necessary changes and upload it.

Click the Add groups by CSV button to make the changes.

Here is a full list of all the possible fields that you can specify:

allowarchives: Decide whether you want to allow portfolios that have been submitted to the group to be archived automatically.

Note

This option only works when you also allow submitpages.

controlled: Group administrators can add users to the group without their consent, and members cannot leave the group.

description: Brief description about the purpose of this group.

displayname: The group name that appears around the site.

editroles: You can choose which roles will be allowed to create and edit content owned by the group. If your group contains only members and administrators, then “Group administrators” and “Everyone except members” are identical. These edit permissions will also be used by default for new group files. Permissions can be changed on individual files in the group files area.

all: everyone in the group

notmembers: everyone except members in a course group that has tutors and administrators

admin: only group administrators

hidden: Choose to not list this group on the Find groups page.

hidemembers: Choose to hide group members from non-members.

hidemembersfrommembers: Choose to hide group members from everybody but the group administrator.

invitefriends: Choose to allow group members to invite their friends to the group.

open: Allow users to join the group without approval from the group administrator.

public: Allow people who are not logged in to view this group including the forums.

quota: Define the group file quota.

request: Allow users to send membership requests to group administrators.

roles: Choose to have a course or standard group. The roles in these group types are:

course: member, tutor, administrator

standard: member, administrator

shortname: This is the name used to identify this group in the database. It is also used to identify the group when you add or update its members by CSV.

Note

The group shortname needs to be lowercase.

submitpages: Choose to allow the submission of pages and collections to this group. If you create a course group, this setting is automatically chosen.

suggestfriends: Allow group members to send their friends a recommendation to join this group.

usersautoadded: Choose to have all new users on the site added to the group automatically.

Note

For fields that require a Yes / No value, you need to put a numeric value into the CSV file:

No = 0

Yes = 1

Sample CSV file for a group upload

When you look at your CSV file in a text editor and not a spreadsheet software, the above sample file looks like this:

"shortname","displayname","roles","usersautoadded","public","hidemembersfrommembers"

"public","Public group","standard",0,1,1

"course","Course group","course",1,0,0

11.5.5. Update group members by CSV

Administration menu → Groups → Update group members by CSV

Note

Both site and institution administrators can add and update group members by CSV file.

Update group members by CSV

Create a CSV file that contains the following fields: shortname,username,role in the first row. The short name is the group short name that you used to set up the group. Add the users that should become members of these groups. You can check their usernames on the User search page.

Note

If you have many groups and could easily lose the overview, create one CSV file per group.

You can export the current group membership from the Administer groups screen and remove the fields that you do not need for the upload. The extra fields were added to give more context around the users.

Institution: Choose the institution in which the groups were created.

Note

You can only update group membership by CSV of users who belong to the institution in which you created the groups by CSV. All other users must be added manually.

CSV file: Choose the CSV file from your computer that contains the group members mapped to groups.

Click the Update group members by CSV button to add to or remove members from the groups that you have specified.

Warning

If you manually added users to a group whose members you want to update via CSV file, these users will be removed from that group when you update the group membership and do not have them listed in the CSV file. Thus, be careful once you have added users manually.

Always leave at least one administrator in a group.

Sample CSV file for updating group membership

When you look at your CSV file in a text editor and not a spreadsheet software, the above sample file looks like this:

"shortname","username","role"

"public","petra","admin"

"public","paula","member"

"course","petra","admin"

"course","percy","tutor"

"course","paula","member"

Note

Mahara also accepts CSV files that have a semicolon as separator instead of a comma.

11.6. Institutions

Administration menu → Institutions

You can use Mahara as multi-tenanted instance. That means that several different institutions can share one Mahara installation. All users from these different institutions can:

share portfolio pages with each other

give feedback on each other’s pages

work collaboratively in groups across institution boundaries

In Administration you can set up as many institutions as you wish. Institution administrators can only administer their users and their institutions but not make any changes to site settings.

You can also set up institutions for different parts of your organisation to use different themes, have different default settings and / or authentication methods.

Note

Even if you use Mahara with one organisation only and do not want to distinguish different departments within your organisation, we recommend you set up at least one institution and not use “No institution”. By setting up at least one institution you will have two more roles available: institution staff and institution administrator.

You can create institution administrator accounts which are less powerful than the site administrator accounts. By having institution administrators, you can allow them to take care of user account creation and group creation etc. without giving them full powers over the site preventing that too many people can make site changes.

11.6.1. Overview

Administration menu → Institutions → Settings

You see an overview of all institutions that exist on this Mahara installation (site administrator) or that you have access to as institution administrator.

Note

Institution administrators who manage only one institution do not see this page and are taken immediately to the settings for their only institution.

Overview page for institutions

Search: Search for a particular institution by its name and then click the Search button.

Click the Add institution button when you want to create a new institution. This button is only visible to site administrators.

Click the Edit with three dots button to edit institution members, staff and administrators.

Institution: Institutions are listed alphabetically. If you click the institution’s name, you are taken to the contacts page.

Members: Number of registered members in this institution.

Maximum: Maximum allowed members in this institution. If an institution has a maximum set and it is reached, any new members will be rejected. The site administrator and institution administrator receive a notification to take further steps.

Staff: Number of institution members with staff rights.

Administrators: Number of institution members with institution administrator rights.

Click the Manage icon to change institution settings.

Click the Delete icon to delete an institution. You can only delete an institution when there are no members in it.

Note

The institution “No institution” is the default “institution”. It cannot be deleted as it is the standard Mahara site.

11.6.2. Add an institution

Note

Only site administrators can add institutions. However, once an institution exists, institution administrators can change many of the settings.

When you want to add an institution by clicking the Add institution button on Administration menu → Institutions → Settings, you need to provide some basic information for the new institution. You can change all settings later on.

Add a new institution

Institution name: This field is required. It is the name that all users see throughout the site to identify this institution.

Note

An internal ID for the institution is generated automatically. It is displayed on the institution’s settings page once the institution has been saved for the first time.

Institution expiry date: Click into the field to select a date. If you leave the field empty, the institution does not have an expiry date.

If you specify an expiry date for this institution, once the warning time for institution expiry has been reached, site and institution administrators will receive a otification about this institution’s impending expiry.

If the auto-suspend expired institutions option is set, then once the expiry date has been reached, this institution will be suspended automatically, and users of this institution will no longer be able to log in.

The warning time for institution expiry and the auto-suspend expired institutions options can be found in the institution settings under Administration menu → Configure site → Site options.

Registration allowed: Switch to “Yes” when you want to allow self-registration of new users. As institution administrators, you will be asked to confirm that users can join your institution. If you decline, their new account will be associated with “No institution” unless you have the Confirm registration option enabled. When you do not allow registration, nobody can register a new account, ask to join your institution or leave it without your permission.

Confirm registration: Switch to “Yes” if you want to control that no new accounts are created unless the administrator approves the registration. You receive a notification about pending registrations when a new user wants to register. If the site administrator requires all institutions to confirm registration, you cannot change this setting to “No”.

Note

Switching this setting on is recommended for most sites that allow user self-registration to prevent spammers from creating accounts and misusing the site.

When registration needs to be confirmed, people trying to register with an institution need to provide a reason.

Default membership period: You can set how long users will remain associated with this institution per default. Choose an option from the drop-down menu and then specify the number of days, weeks, months or years. After this length of time, the users will be removed from the institution. Users will receive a notification before this time reminding them that they will be removed soon. However, that does not mean that they will lose their account. They will still have that and be associated with “No institution”.

Language: Choose the language from the drop-down menu that you want the users in your institution to use by default.

Note

This is a default setting. Users in your institution can choose their own language in their account setting.

Logo: You can upload an image that will be displayed to your institution’s members in place of the standard header logo.

Small logo: Upload a square version of your logo that is displayed on small devices.

Theme: Use the drop-down menu to choose the theme that you wish to use for this institution. All pages in that institution will receive that theme. When users from other institutions view portfolio pages that were created in this institution, they will see this institution’s theme on these pages. If Site default is selected, when a site administrator changes the site default theme, the theme for the users of this institution will change, too. You can install more themes in the theme folder on the server. Check out the community-contributed themes [https://wiki.mahara.org/index.php/Themes/Contributed_themes]. If users are allowed to have page themes, these pages are not affected by theme changes. Mahara also has a configurable theme which allows you to create a theme on the fly.

Page skins: Switch to “Yes” if you want your institution members to use page skins.

Note

This feature is only available when the server administrator enabled skins for the site.

Comment sort order: Decide on the sort order of comments on artefacts when they are displayed on a page. You can choose between the following:

Earliest: Sort your comments in chronological order showing the oldest comments first and the newest last.

Latest: Sort your comments in reverse chronological order showing the newest comments first and the oldest last.

Threaded comments: Display comments on a page in a threaded manner so you can see easily which comment is a reply to which previous comment.

Show online users: If the site administrator allowed the “Online users” side block, you can decide which group of users you want to have displayed for this institution:

None: The side block is not displayed to institution members.

Institution only: Only institution members are displayed in the side block.

All: All users on the site are displayed in the side block.

Require license information: Switch to “Yes” if your institution members need to choose a license for each artefact they upload or create. They can set a default license in their account settings. You only see this option if the site administrator turned on License metadata in the general site settings.

Default license: You can choose a default license for your institution members’ content. They can overwrite this default license in their account settings. You only see this option if the site administrator turned on License metadata in the general site settings. If the site administrator allowed custom licenses, you can enter one using the drop-down menu option “Other license (enter URL)”. This license can then also be used by your institution members.

Note

If you are not sure which default license to choose, please consult your organisation’s lawyer or a copyright lawyer.

Default quota: You can set the amount of file quota new users registering with this institution shall have.

Update user quota: Swith to “Yes” if you want to apply the default quota you choose above to all existing institution members.

Allow institution public pages: Switch to “Yes” if you want to allow users belonging to this institution to create portfolio pages and collections that are accessible to the public rather than only to registered users. If you allow public pages, users can also create secret URLs for their pages. Otherwise they cannot.

Maximum user accounts allowed: Specify the maximum number of accounts that can be created in this institution. If you leave this field blank, there is no limit to the number of accounts.

Note

When the maximum number of accounts has been reached and another user tries to register for the institution, the site administrator as well as the institution administrator for that institution receive a notification. That allows them to take further steps.

Allow SmartEvidence: Activate SmartEvidence if you want your institution users to work with it.

new in Mahara 18.10 Allow institution tags: If set to “Yes”, you can set up tags for the members of your institution to use in their portfolios.

Note

When turned on, the new menu item Tags will appear in the institution sub menu.

Review accounts before self-deletion: If set to “Yes”, an institution administrator needs to approve or deny the deletion of a user account when the deletion is initiated by the user.

Note

This setting gives institutions in a formal learning setting the possibility to prevent accidental account deletion by people before portfolios are archived if required.

If the field is set to “Yes” and greyed out, the site administrator requires the confirmation for all institutions on the site.

Locked fields: Switch any value to “Yes” if you don’t want to allow changes to it by users. Disabled switches are for profile fields which are locked in the institution settings for “No institution”. These profile fields are locked at the site level and cannot be unlocked for individual institutions.

Note

Locking profile fields such as first name, last name and display name can be beneficial for institutions that wish to always identify their users by their real names and not allow users to choose nicknames.

Click the Submit button to save your changes and create this institution, or click Cancel to abort the creation of this institution.

11.6.2.1. Change the institution logo

You can upload a logo to any theme replacing the standard logo that comes with the theme. If you upload a file with large dimensions, the logo will be shrunk or upscaled to fit the available space. To achieve optimal results, upload a logo with a height of 90px to display well on Retina displays.

Upload a logo

Logo: Upload the logo that you want to use on your institution theme from your computer and click the Submit button at the bottom of the page.

Once you have submitted your changes, the logo will be replaced in the header and it also appears in the settings to show what you have uploaded.

Note

If you are a site administrator and not a member of the institution for which you change the logo, you cannot see the logo change unless you log in as an institution member.

Delete logo: If you want to revert back to the standard logo, switch to “Yes” and click the Submit button at the bottom of the page.

Small logo: Upload a square logo and click the Submit button at the bottom of the page. This logo is used for small devices when the regular logo would take up too much space on the screen.

Note

The logo must have square dimensions.

Once you have submitted your changes, the logo will be replaced in the header and it also appears in the settings to show what you have uploaded.

Delete small logo: If you want to delete this logo, switch to “Yes” and click the Submit button at the bottom of the page.

Note

There is a special logo that can be picked up by Facebook in order not to display a random image from the site. This logo must be placed into the theme folder. Mahara’s Raw theme has the Mahara logo, but it could be changed to a different one in another theme. For more information see the tracker item [https://bugs.launchpad.net/mahara/+bug/900529].

11.6.2.2. Use the configurable theme

If you do not want to use one of the built-in themes of Mahara or one of the community-contributed themes [https://wiki.mahara.org/index.php/Themes/Contributed_themes], you can either build your theme from scratch [https://wiki.mahara.org/index.php/Customising/Themes] or use the configurable theme in conjunction with the logo upload.

If you do not upload a custom logo and use the Mahara logo with the configurable theme instead, it changes colour according to the theme background so it is always readable.

Note

The configurable theme is only a display theme. That means that users of the institution in which it is in use see the theme applied to the site and their pages. However, when users from another institution browse the portfolio pages of users from this institution, they do not see the configurable theme, but their own theme.

You can change the configurable theme directly on the institution settings page.

Colour options for the configurable theme

In order to change any of the colours, either provide the hexadecimal color code [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_colors] or choose the colour from the colour picker that becomes available as soon as you click in one of the colour fields.

Theme: Choose the “Configurable Theme” from the drop-down menu and the “Custom theme configuration” options become visible.

Header background: The colour of the header. It is also used as primary button background colour.

Text on header background: The colour of text in the header. It is also used as text colour on primary buttons and the navigation menu icon colour in the header.

Links: The link colour on pages and in the sidebar.

Headings: The heading colour for all headings except in the sidebar.

Navigation background: The colour of the drop-down menu navigation.

Navigation text: The colour of the text / links in the navigation menu.

Reset colours: Switch to “Yes” if you want to go back to the original colours of the configurable theme.

Click the Submit button at the bottom of the page to make your changes.

Note

If you do not see the theme changes immediately when you are logged in as institution member, you may have to clear your browser cache.

Example of a configurable theme

The numbers on the example page refer to the configurable theme options above.

11.6.3. Edit the site institution

Your Mahara site itself is listed as institution under Administration menu → Institutions → Settings. Per default, it has the name “No institution” and you can change certain settings that are applied to the site.

Note

Most settings for the site are made in Administration menu → Configure site → Site options.

Edit the “No institution” site institution

Institution name: This field is required. It is the name that people see when registration is allowed for the site without having to register for a particular institution.

Institution short name: This name is generated automatically and set to “mahara”.

Authentication plugin: You can decide which authentication methods you want to allow. See Edit an institution for more information.

Registration allowed: Switch this option to “Yes” if you want to allow people to register on your site without registering for a particular institution. If you switch this setting on but not the setting Confirm registration, new user accounts do not need approval.

Note

Be careful disabling Confirm registration. Spammers can misuse your site and simply create accounts without your knowledge.

Confirm registration: Switch this option to “Yes” if you want to control that no new accounts are created unless the site administrator approves the registration. You receive a notification about pending registrations when a new user wants to register.

Logo: Here you can replace the standard site logo without having to place it in the theme folder on the server. You can upload an image that will be displayed to everyone who is not in an institution.

Small logo: Upload a square version of your logo that is displayed on small devices.

Page skins: Switch this option on if you want your users who are not in a particular institution to use page skins.

Note

This feature is only available when the server administrator enabled skins for the site.

Comment sort order: Decide on the sort order of comments on artefacts when they are displayed on a page. You can choose between the following:

Earliest: Sort your comments in chronological order showing the oldest comments first and the newest last.

Latest: Sort your comments in reverse chronological order showing the newest comments first and the oldest last.

Threaded comments: Display comments on a page in a threaded manner so you can see easily which comment is a reply to which previous comment.

Allow SmartEvidence: Activate SmartEvidence if you want your institution users to work with it.

new in Mahara 18.10 Allow institution tags: If set to “Yes”, you can set up tags for the members of your institution to use in their portfolios.

Note

When turned on, the new menu item Tags will appear in the institution sub menu.

Review accounts before self-deletion: If set to “Yes”, the site administrator needs to approve or deny the deletion of a user account that is not in associated with an institution when the deletion is initiated by the user.

Locked fields: Switch any value to “Yes” if you don’t want to allow changes to it by users. Any field that you enable here is locked from editing in institutions.

Note

Locking profile fields such as first name, last name and display name can be beneficial for institutions that wish to always identify their users by their real names and not allow users to choose nicknames.

Click the Submit button to save your changes, or click Cancel to discard your changes.

11.6.4. Edit an institution

Administration menu → Institutions → Settings → Click the Manage icon next to an institution

Once you have created your institution, you can edit its settings, suspend or delete the institution. You will have to choose at least one authentication method for this institution so that user accounts can be created.

Note

Only site administrators can add, edit and delete authentication methods for an institution and suspend it. An institution can only be deleted if there are no members in it.

You should set up at least one authentication method. Otherwise, nobody can log in to this institution. You can add multiple authentication methods to your institution to account for different users and how they are allowed to authenticate. That means for example for a university:

Faculty and students could log in with their standard login and password if that is governed by LDAP / Active Directory (LDAP authentication) or single sign-on such as SAML (SAML authentication).

They could also log in via Moodle as that can be added as secondary authentication method for other methods like LDAP or single sign-on (XML-RPC / MNet authentication).

Alumni could have their MNet / LDAP authentication changed to the internal authentication once they finish their studies.

External assessors who do not have a university login, can be given the internal authentication so that they can receive a login, but the university administration does not have to issue a login which would give them access to other infrastructure as well.

All these then still log in to the same Mahara institution. Alternatively, you could also separate the users into their own institutions on your Mahara installation if that is more appropriate for your use case. This could mean for the above example:

Faculty and students log in and are automatically placed into the institution “University”. They see the standard university theme.

Alumni are placed into the institution “Alumni” for easier user management as you could have the alumni coordinator manage the users. Having them in a separate institution on Mahara would make it easy to see who an alumni is. Additionally, they could receive a slightly different university theme that is geared towards alumni, and they can also receive different messages on their dashboard.

External assessors who are placed into the separate institution “Assessors” could be administered easily by an administrator who is the liaison for them without giving that administrator access to the user management of all other university users. They can receive the standard university theme, but receive different messages on their dashboard.

Before you can use the IMAP, LDAP, SAML or XML-RPC authentication methods, you must install their extensions on your server.

Plugins available for authentication in an institution

Once your institution is created, the settings include an additional option, Authentication plugin. You see all authentication methods that are already in use for this institution.

From the drop-down menu choose one of the authentication methods that are available:

IMAP: User accounts are authenticated against an IMAP server. This is rarely used.

Internal: User accounts are created in Mahara. This is the default authentication method for a new institution.

LDAP: User accounts are authenticated against an LDAP server or Active Directory server.

None: Anyone can log in by picking a username and password. This should only be used for testing but not on a live site.

SAML: A SAML 2.0 Identity Provider Service is needed that has the user accounts.

XML-RPC: This is the authentication method used for MNet to connect Mahara with Moodle or another Mahara.

Click the Add button to see the configuration screen for an external authentication method before it is added.

Warning

Be careful when choosing the “None” authentication method. This allows anyone to log in. It should only be used for testing purposes.

11.6.4.1. IMAP authentication

You can use this authentication method to receive the login information for your users from your IMAP server.

Set up IMAP authentication

Authority name: Enter a descriptive name to help you identify this authority. Preferably, choose a short name. This field is required.

Hostname or address: Specify the hostname in URL form. This field is required.

Port number: Specify the port under which your IMAP server can be reached. The default is 143. This field is required.

Protocol: Select the IMAP protocol you are using by selecting it from the drop-down menu. This setting is required:

IMAP

IMAP / SSL

IMAP / SSL (self-signed certificate)

IMAP / TLS

Password-change URL: If your users can only change their password in one central space, provide the URL here.

Click the Submit button to enable this authentication method or click Cancel to abort your changes.

11.6.4.2. LDAP authentication

Use this authentication method to authenticate against an LDAP / Active Directory server.

Set up LDAP authentication

Authority name: Enter a descriptive name to help you identify this authentication method. Preferably, choose a short name. This field is required.

Host URL: Specify hosts in URL form, e.g. ldap://ldap.example.com. Separate multiple servers with ; for failover support. This field is required.

Contexts: List the contexts where users are located. Separate different contexts with ;, e.g. ou=users,o=org;ou=other,o=org. This field is required.

User type: Select from the drop-down menu how users are stored in the LDAP directory. This field is required. You can choose between:

Novell Edirectory

posixAccount (rfc2307)

posixAccount (rfc2307bis)

sambaSamAccount (v. 3.0.7)

MS Active Directory

default

User attribute: Enter the attribute used to search for users. It is often cn. This field is required.

Search subcontexts: Select “Yes” if you want to search for the users also in subcontexts. This setting is required.

Distinguished name: If you want to use bind-user to search users, specify it here. It should look something like cn=ldapuser,ou=public,o=org. Leave this blank for anonymous bind.

Password: Enter the password for the “distinguished name”.

LDAP version: Choose the LDAP version you are using from the drop-down menu. This setting is required.

TLS encryption: Switch to “Yes” if you use this encryption mechanism.

Update user info on login: Switch to “Yes” if you want to have the first name, last name and email address updated with the corresponding LDAP values at each login. Enabling this option may prevent some MS ActiveDirectory sites / users from subsequent Mahara logins.

We auto-create users: Switch to “Yes” if you want Mahara to create user accounts automatically when a user authenticates successfully but does not yet have an account.

LDAP field for first name: Enter the name of the field in the LDAP record that contains the user’s first name.

LDAP field for surname: Enter the name of the field in the LDAP record that contains the user’s last name.

LDAP field for email: Enter the name of the field in the LDAP record that contains the user’s email address.

LDAP field for student ID: Enter the name of the field in the LDAP record that contains the user’s student ID.

LDAP field for display name: Enter the name of the field in the LDAP record that contains the user’s display name.

User sync: Decide whether you wish to synchronize your users via a cron job and make additional settings.

Group sync: Decide whether you want to create groups automatically in Mahara based on your LDAP groups.

Click the Submit button to enable this authentication method or click Cancel to abort your changes.

11.6.4.2.1. LDAP user sync

You can set up your LDAP authentication so that user account creation can be automated. User account deletion should be considered carefully.

Configure the LDAP user sync

Sync users automatically via cron job: Enable this setting to activate a task in the cron which will automatically create and/or update user accounts based on records in the LDAP server.

Note

By default, this cron task will execute once daily at midnight (server time). Edit the record in the “auth_cron” table or use the optional command-line script supplied at htdocs/auth/ldap/cli/sync_users.php if you wish to schedule it to run at other times or with other settings.

This setting will have no effect if the cron is not running. See the installation guide [https://wiki.mahara.org/wiki/System_Administrator's_Guide/Installing_Mahara] for instructions on how to set it up.

Update user info in cron: Switch to “Yes” if you wish for user information to be updated via the cron if they changed in the LDAP record.

Auto-create users in cron: Switch to “Yes” if you want new users in your LDAP directory to get an account automatically.

Additional LDAP filter for sync: Provide an LDAP filter here, and the sync will only see users in LDAP who match that filter. Example: Example: uid=user*.

Warning

Use this setting with caution if you have auto-suspend or auto-delete enabled, as doing so will cause all user accounts in your institution which do not match the filter to be suspended or deleted.

If a user is no longer present in LDAP: Choose from the drop-down menu what you want to do if users are no longer in your LDAP directory:

Do nothing: Users keep their account. This is the recommended setting.

Suspend user’s account: The user’s account will be suspended. The user will no longer be able to log in, and their content and pages will not be viewable. However, none of their data will be deleted, and the user can be un-suspended by the cron when their LDAP record reappears, or manually by an administrator. Alternatively, their authentication method could be changed to the Mahara internal.

Delete user’s account and all content: The user’s account will be deleted, along with all their content and pages.

Warning

The automatic deletion of user accounts is not recommended. The data is fully deleted from the server when a user’s account is deleted. The account can only be restored from a backup. Some information such as friend relationships and group membership cannot be restored.

Click the Submit button to enable this authentication method or click Cancel to abort your changes.

11.6.4.2.2. LDAP group sync

You can set up your LDAP authentication so that group creation can be automated. Group deletion should be considered carefully.

Configure the LDAP group sync

Sync groups automatically via cron job: Enable this setting to activate a task in the cron which will automatically create and/or update groups and their membership based on records in the LDAP server.

Note

By default, this cron task will execute once daily at midnight (server time). Edit the record in the “auth_cron” table or use the optional command-line scripts supplied in htdocs/auth/ldap/cli/ if you wish to schedule it to run at other times or with other settings.

Note: You will also need to activate the “Sync groups stored as LDAP objects” and / or “Sync groups stored as user attributes” settings in order for groups to be synced.

Group members can be removed as well as added by this setting. If a group is no longer found in the LDAP records, all of its members will be removed from the group.

This setting will have no effect if the cron is not running. See the installation guide [https://wiki.mahara.org/wiki/System_Administrator's_Guide/Installing_Mahara] for instructions on how to set it up.

Auto-create missing groups: Switch to “Yes” if you want to have new groups in your LDAP directory created automatically in Mahara.

Role types in auto-created groups: Decide which roles users can have in auto-created groups.

Course: Members, tutors and administrators

Standard: Members and administrators

Exclude LDAP groups with these names: If you want to auto-create groups, but do not want to include all groups, you can exclude some. Type their names here.

Include only LDAP groups with these names: If you want to restrict the creation / synchronisation of your groups to a specified few, list them here.

Sync groups stored as LDAP objects: Switch to “Yes” if your groups are stored as standalone records in LDAP. Example:

dn: cn=languagestudents,ou=groups,dc=mahara,dc=org

objectClass: groupOfUniqueNames

cn: languagestudents

uniqueMember: uid=user1,dc=mahara,dc=org

uniqueMember: uid=user2,dc=mahara,dc=org

uniqueMember: cn=frenchclass,ou=groups,dc=mahara,dc=org

Group class: Put the LDAP objectclass that groups are expected to have here.

Group attribute: Enter the LDAP attribute that maps to a group’s name. It is often cn.

Group member attribute: Enter the LDAP attribute in which the group’s members are stored in. It is often uniqueMember.

Member attribute is a dn? Switch to “Yes” if each entry in the “Group member attribute” field is a “distinguished name”. Disable this setting if each entry in “Group member attribute” field is a username only.

Process nested group: Switch to “Yes” if your groups can contain other groups as members. If enabled, the sync process will recursively include the members of these nested groups into the parent group.

Note

The process will safely cease recursing if it detects a circular reference.

Sync groups in these contexts only: List the contexts where groups are located. Separate different contexts with a semicolon ;. Example: ou=groups,o=org;ou=other,o=org.

Note

If this field is left empty, the group sync cron will fall back to using the same list of contexts as the “Contexts” setting for where users are located.

Search subcontexts: Change to “Yes” if subcontexts should be included in the synchronisation.

Sync groups stored as user attributes: Switch to “Yes” if each LDAP user record has an attribute which indicates a group the user should be in. This setting will cause the LDAP sync cron to create a group for each unique value in the specified user attribute (or in those listed in the “Acceptable group names” field), and place each user in the appropriate group (or groups, if they have multiple values for the attribute).

User attribute group name is stored in: Provide the LDAP attribute in which the name is stored.

Only these group names: When creating groups based on user attributes, only create groups with these names. This will not affect groups created via the “Sync groups stored as LDAP objects” setting, if it is active.

Click the Submit button to enable this authentication method or click Cancel to abort your changes.

11.6.4.3. SAML authentication

Choose this authentication method for your institution when you have a SAML 2.0 Identity Provider Service set up for your organisation that allows you to use the same login for multiple applications.

The SAML plugin can be used to connect to ADFS as well. In order to do so, the signature algorithm needs to be set appropriately in the SAML plugin configuration.

SAML 2.0 authentication

Active: Set the switch to “Yes” if you want to use the IdP.

Add a new Identity Provider: If you add your first SAML IdP, you can only enter the details. Once you have an IdP set up, this changes to Available Identity Providers, and you can choose from them if the metadata for the institution you are setting up uses the same IdP or set up a new IdP.

Note

When you have more than one SAML IdP set up on your site, people wanting to log in via SSO are taken to an overview page that lists all SSO providers.

The available information to display is the logo of the service, its name, and the service provider. If you want to display your logo on the page, add the following just below the <md:IDPSSODescriptor> line and replace “linktothelogo” with the actual location of the logo:

<md:Extensions> <mdui:UIInfo xmlns:mdui="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:metadata:ui"> <mdui:Logo width="120" height="30" xml:lang="en">linktothelogo</mdui:Logo> </mdui:UIInfo> </md:Extensions>

Metadata URL for auto-refresh: Instead of adding the metadata directly, you can provide the URL to the metadata, which needs to be in XML format, so that changes to it are pulled automatically via cron. You would not have to update the metadata yourself when it changes.

Institution Identity Provider SAML metadata: Enter the metadata from your IdP. Make sure that all information in the SAML plugin configuration is correct and that there are no server dependencies missing.

Note

This element requires the XML formatted metadata for the IdP that you want to connect to. If the same IdP has already been configured for another institution, then leave this blank.

If you entered metadata in this field and also provided a link to the metadata URL, the latter takes precedence.

Institution attribute (contains “…”): Enter the attribute that will be passed from the Identity Provider (IdP) that shows which institution the user belongs to. This usually directly correlates to the LDAP attribute (the signin service of the IdP), e.g. eduPersonOrgDN. This field is required.

Institution value to check against attribute: Enter the value that will be checked against the institution attribute value as passed from the IdP. If the institution regex switch “Do partial string match with institution shortname” is set to “Yes”, this value can be a regular expression [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expression] that will be used to check against the institution attribute value. This field is required.

Do partial string match with institution shortname: Switch to “Yes” to treat the value in “Institution value to check against attribute” like a regular expression.

User attribute: Enter the name of the attribute passed by the IdP that contains the username. This field is required.

Match username attribute to remote username: This switch is set to “Yes” by default and needs to stay on this setting. It matches the user attribute value to the remote username field assigned to a given user (not the internal Mahara username). Only if you have the experimental feature of “usersuniquebyusername” turned on can you set this switch to “No”. We do not recommend this unless you are very experienced and have control over all applications in question.

Warning

By default, SAML authentication instances have the “Match username attribute to remote username” setting enabled. If that setting were disabled, someone with control over any SAML identity provider could gain control over any user account on that Mahara site by setting the username attribute accordingly. In other words, administrators of one institution could control users in other institutions. You would only be able to disable this setting if you set the “usersuniquebyusername” variable to “true” in config.php file. However, you should not do that on a Mahara instance to which multiple SAML providers connect and you are not in control of all usernames that are created.

See also

If you disable “Match username attribute to remote username”, you get an error message which talks about the config setting for “usersuniquebyusername”. Please refer to the experimental feature of the “usersuniquebyusername” variable for more information.

Allow users to link own account: Switch to “Yes” if you want to allow users to link their own internal Mahara account to the authenticated SAML account. This depends on the “Match username attribute to remote username” option being enabled. If this setting is turned on when users try to log in via SSO and their username as well as the email for example match an internal username, they can link their accounts. That would allow them to log in either via the SSO login or via the regular login box into the same account and avoid account duplication.

Update user details on login: Switch to “Yes” to update the first name, last name and email address with the corresponding IdP values passed through at each login.

We auto-create users: Switch to Yes to create user accounts on Mahara automatically when a user authenticates successfully but does not yet have an account.

Note

You can turn this setting now also on for multi-tenanted sites that use SAML SSO in more than one institution.

SSO field for first name: Enter the name of the attribute passed by the IdP that contains the user’s first name.

SSO field for surname: Enter the name of the attribute passed by the IdP that contains the user’s last name.

SSO field for email: Enter the name of the attribute passed by the IdP that contains the user’s email address.

SSO field for student ID: Enter the name of the attribute passed by the IdP that contains the student ID.

Wrong login message: Display this message to people who try to log in via the standard login form instead of the SSO button when they are supposed to use it. This message should contain instructions on how they can gain access to Mahara through SSO.

Note

The message is displayed right above the login form in the sidebar. Therefore, do not make it too long.

Click the Submit button to enable this authentication method or click Cancel to abort your changes.

11.6.4.4. Web services

If you want to use web services with users in an institution, add the web services authentication.

You need the web services authentication method if you want to allow users to connect via LTI.

You cannot configure anything for the authentication plugin, but need to do that in the Web services area.

11.6.4.5. XML-RPC / MNet authentication

Use the XML-RPC authentication for connecting a Mahara instance to a Moodle or an other Mahara installation for sharing login information. With Moodle 2 that does not only mean that you can log in to Mahara via Moodle, but also that you can transfer certain activities into your Mahara portfolio from Moodle [https://docs.moodle.org/20/en/Portfolios].

A Moodle site can only be connected to Mahara once no matter how many institutions you have set up. Every XML-RPC authentication instance in Mahara must have its own unique remote wwwroot and must be associated with a single institution.

Note

You must have networking enabled in order to use this authentication method.

Set up MNet authentication

Authority name: Enter a descriptive name to help you identify this authority. Preferably, choose a short name. This field is required.

Active: Set the switch to “Yes” if you want to use this authentication method for the institution.

WWW root: Enter the web address of the root of the remote application, e.g. https://example.com. This field is required. If your WWW root requires a specific port, enter the port number that the remote application is listening at. You probably will not need to add a port unless you are connecting to a https service or your remote application is running on a non-standard port.

Site name: Enter the name to present to your users to identify the remote site. If you enable SSO, they may click on this name to start a session at the remote site. This field is required.

Application: Choose the application on the remote side. You can choose between “Mahara” and “Moodle”.

Parent authority: If you set a parent authority from the already existing authentication methods, users will be able to log in using that authority as well as MNet. For example, you could set up SAML authentication and have that be the parent of this MNet authority. That means that users will be able to log in by clicking the SSO login button using their SSO credentials as well as via MNet from their Moodle. You do not have to set a parent authority. If you do not, users using MNet will only be able to access Mahara via MNet, i.e. log in to Moodle or the other Mahara first.

Note

If you choose a Parent authority, ensure that all the users are associated with this authentication method instead of the MNet one. Otherwise, they will not be able to log in via the parent authentication method. If the remote username for MNet and the other authentication method is already the same, you just need to change the authentication method. If they are not yet the same, you need to update the user details together with changing their authentication method.

Wrong login message: Enter a message to display when a user tries to log in via Mahara’s login form but is not allowed to if you have not set up a parent authority.

SSO direction: Choose your SSO direction from the drop-down menu:

They SSO in: Enable this option to allow users from the remote site to roam to your Mahara site without having to enter their username and password. This is the most commonly used setting. The remote application is the source of the login information and where accounts are created initially. This is the default option.

We SSO out: Enable this option to allow your users to roam from Mahara to the remote site without having to enter their username and password there. Mahara is the source of the login information and where accounts are created initially. The following fields are replaced by They auto-create users if this option is selected.

Update user info on login: Set this switch to “Yes” to bring over user data from the remote site upon each login and update your Mahara user record with any changes. The following fields, when filled in on Moodle, are filled in Mahara:

First name (always carried over)

Last name (always carried over)

Email address (always carried over)

Profile picture

Description (Introduction on Mahara)

City

Country

Language

HTML editor setting

We auto-create users: Switch to “Yes” to create user accounts on Mahara automatically when a user authenticates successfully but does not yet have an account.

We import content: Not all network-enabled applications support this, but if they do, e.g. Moodle, this will allow users of the remote site to import content to Mahara. It depends on the option “They SSO in” from “SSO direction” and it is sensible to also have “We auto-create users” set.

Click the Submit button to enable this authentication method or click Cancel to abort your changes.

If the connection to the remote site is successful, the public key of the remote site will be stored with the authentication method and rotated when needed. If there is a problem and the public key does not update, you can exchange it yourself with the correct one while you are troubleshooting the underlying problem.

See also

Refer to the comprehensive guide about setting up Mahoodle [https://wiki.mahara.org/index.php/System_Administrator%27s_Guide/Moodle//Mahara_Integration], the combination of Mahara and Moodle, for step-by-step instructions on how to set everything up on the Moodle side and on Mahara. The guide explains the steps for both Moodle 1.9 and Moodle 2.x.

11.6.4.6. Order of authentication methods

If you have set up multiple authentication methods in one institution, you can decide on the order in which they are checked.

Order of authentication methods

Use the Up arrow and the Down arrow button to move a specific authentication method up or down in the list. Mahara looks for accounts of users in the order of the list.

Delete a particular authentication method by clicking the Delete button .

Note

You cannot delete an authentication method when there are still users who require it to log in. Before deleting an authentication method, you have to move the users to another authentication method.

11.6.4.7. Suspend institution

A site administrator can suspend an institution at any time.

Suspend and institution

Click the Suspend institution button to make an institution (temporarily) unavailable to its users.

11.6.5. Institution static pages

Administration menu → Institutions → Static pages

Institution administrators can overwrite the content of the static pages that the site administrator created. These pages are:

About

Home (Dashboard)

Logged-out home

All pages come with default text that you can change entirely. Every page must contain some text. You can use the visual editor to style your page.

The terms and conditions and privacy statement pages can be found in the Legal section.

Edit static pages for an institution

Institution: If you are a site administrator or an institution administrator of more than one institution, choose the institution for which you want to change page content. If you administer only one institution, its name is displayed directly.

Page name: Choose the page you want to edit from the drop-down menu.

Use site default: Switch to “Yes” if you want to use the content that is displayed on the page for the entire site. Switch to “No” if you want to provide your own content.

Page text: Change the text in the editor window if you selected “No”. You cannot leave this field empty.

Click the Save changes button.

11.6.6. Legal

Administration menu → Institutions → Legal

Note

The terms and conditions and privacy statement pages moved from the Static pages to the Legal section. That way, old versions can be tracked more easily.

Every institution can have its own statement about terms and conditions and privacy in addition to the site’s statements. If the site administrator turned on “Strict privacy” in the institution settings, everyone needs to accept them before being able to use their account.

Warning

The Mahara project cannot give legal advice. If you need legal advice, please consult your own lawyer to ensure that you comply with applicable laws.

Legal statements overview page on the institution level without any statements

When an institution doesn’t have its own privay statement or terms and conditions set up, it can do so by clicking the “Add one” link. If not statement is set up, the site statement is the default one that is used.

Institutions do not have to set up their own legal statements if the site statement is sufficient.

Legal statements overview page on the institution level

Institution: The institution for which you are viewing the statements is displayed.

Note

If you are an institution administrator, you only see your own institution. If you are a site administrator, you can select the institution for which you want to view the statement.

Click the “Privacy statement” tab to edit the current privacy statement for the site and view old versions.

Click the “Terms and conditions” tab to edit the current terms and conditions for the site and view old versions.

The site privacy statement or terms and conditions are provided as reference so you can decide whether your institution needs its own statements.

Version: Version number of the statement.

Note

Versions are listed in reverse chronological order.

Author: Person who edited the version.

Content: Beginning of the text of the statement.

Creation date: Date and time when the version was saved.

Click the Edit button when you want to make changes to the current version. It will be saved as a new version.

Click the View button to see the full text of an old version.

11.6.6.1. Privacy statement

Warning

You cannot save a draft version of your changed privacy statement. As soon as you save the form, anybody logging in will be asked to accept the new privacy statement.

Edit the institution level privacy statement

Institution: The institution for which you are viewing the statements is displayed.

Note

If you are an institution administrator, you only see your own institution. If you are a site administrator, you can select the institution for which you want to view the statement.

Site privacy statement: You can view the site’s privacy statement so you don’t contradict it in your institution’s statement.

Version: Give your statement a new version number. It can be up to 15 characters long and must be different from any previous one.

The previous version number is stated for convenience.

Page text: Enter the text that should be displayed in the privacy statement.

Click the Save changes button to accept your changes or click Cancel to abort your changes.

11.6.6.2. Terms and conditions

Warning

You cannot save a draft version of your changed terms and conditions. As soon as you save the form, anybody logging in will be asked to accept the new terms and conditions.

Edit the institution level terms and conditions

Institution: The institution for which you are viewing the statements is displayed.

Note

If you are an institution administrator, you only see your own institution. If you are a site administrator, you can select the institution for which you want to view the statement.

Site terms and conditions: You can view the site’s terms and conditions so you don’t contradict it in your institution’s statement.

Version: Give your statement a new version number. It can be up to 15 characters long and must be different from any previous one.

The previous version number is stated for convenience.

Page text: Enter the text that should be displayed in the terms and conditions.

Click the Save changes button to accept your changes or click Cancel to abort your changes.

11.6.7. Members

Administration menu → Institutions → Members

You can add and remove members from one institution in bulk. As site administrator, you can always add members to an institution. As institution administrator, you can only invite users to become members.

You can filter users to display fewer and add to or remove them more easily from your institution:

People who have requested institution membership

People who have not requested institution membership

People who have left a given institution

People who are already institution members

People who have been invited

Note

You can double-click a name and it will be moved to the other side. This goes for all functionalities that are similar to this one here.

11.6.7.1. People who have requested institution membership

If your institution allows self-registration, users who are not already members of your institution can request to join it.

Institution administrators receive notifications about membership requests. Site administrators only receive notifications about users wanting to join “No Institution”.

Accept or decline institution membership requests

Institution: Choose from the drop-down menu to which institution you wish to add users. If there is only one institution, its name will be displayed without the drop-down menu.

Users to display: Choose People who have requested institution membership.

Add new members: You can search for users in the search box if there are too many names listed.

Users who have requested membership: Select the users you wish to add to the institution.

Add the users by clicking the right-arrow button .

Users to be added / rejected: If you put users into the box for users to be added / rejected by accident, you can remove them from that list by clicking on them.

Then click the left-arrow button , and they are removed from the list.

When you have all the members you wish to add to the institution, click the Add members button.

Alternatively, if you wish to decline users’ membership, you can select them and then send a general denial by clicking the Decline requests button.

11.6.7.2. People who have not requested membership yet

An admin can also take the initiative and invite or add users to an institution.

Invite or add users to become institution members

Institution: Choose from the drop-down menu to which institution you wish to invite / add users. If there is only one institution, its name will be displayed without the drop-down menu.

Users to display: Choose People who have not requested membership yet.

Invite users to join the institution: You can search for users in the search box if there are too many names listed.

Non-members: Select the users you wish to invite to the institution.

Add the users to the list Users to be invited by clicking the right-arrow button .

If you put a person into the box for users to be invited by accident, you can remove them from that list by clicking on them.

Then click the left-arrow button , and they are removed from the list.

When you have all the members you wish to invite to the institution, click the Invite users button. The users receive a notification and can accept or decline the institution membership invitation.

Alternatively, if you are a site administrator, you can click the Add members button add users directly to the institution without asking them first.

11.6.7.3. People who have left a given institution

An administrator can filter users by the previous institution to which they were attached in order to find them more quickly.

Note

This is only of importance for a multi-tenanted Mahara instance with at least 2 institutions.

Invite or add users to become institution members when they had left an institution

Institution: Choose from the drop-down menu to which institution you wish to invite / add users. If there is only one institution, its name will be displayed without the drop-down menu.

Users to display: Choose People who have left a given institution. “Left” is interpreted loosely, it also means when an administrator removed them from an institution.

Previous institution: Choose the institution from which you want to add users. The users must have left it first to be listed here.

Invite users to join the institution: You can search for users in the search box if there are too many names listed.

Users who have left institution [name of the institution]: Select the users you wish to invite or add to the institution listed.

Add the users to the list Users to be invited by clicking the right-arrow button .

If you put a person into the box for users to be invited by accident, you can remove them from that list by clicking on them.

Then click the left-arrow button , and they are removed from the list.

When you have all the members you wish to invite to this institution, click the Invite users button. The users receive a notification and can accept or decline the institution membership invitation.

Alternatively, if you are a site administrator, you can click the Add members button add users directly to the institution without asking them first.

Note

Mahara keeps track of the last institution of a user via an invisible tag.

11.6.7.4. People who are already institution members

You can remove users from an institution, e.g. if they are no longer students at a school or university, but should still have an account on Mahara or when they are just switching institutions on the same Mahara instance.

Remove users from an institution

Institution: Choose from the drop-down menu which institution’s members you wish to display. If there is only one institution, its name will be displayed without the drop-down menu.

Users to display: Choose People who are already institution members.

Remove users from the institution: You can search for users in the search box if there are too many names listed.

Current members: Select the users you wish to remove from the institution.

Add the users to the list Users to be removed by clicking the right-arrow button .

If you put a person into the box for users to be removed by accident, you can remove them from that list by clicking on them.

Then click the left-arrow button , and they are removed from the list.

When you have all the members you wish to remove from your institution, click the Remove users button.

11.6.7.5. People who have been invited

An administrator can uninvite users from an institution.

Uninvite users from joining your institution

Institution: Choose from the drop-down menu which institution’s invited users you wish to display. If there is only one institution, its name will be displayed without the drop-down menu.

Users to display: Choose People who have been invited.

Revoke invitations: You can search for users in the search box if there are too many names listed.

Invited users: Select the users you wish to univite from joining your institution.

Add the users to the list Users to be uninvited by clicking the right-arrow button .

If you put a person into the box for users to be uninvited by accident, you can remove them from that list by clicking on them.

Then click the left-arrow button , and they are removed from the list.

When you have all the users you wish to uninvite from the institution, click the Revoke invitations button.

11.6.8. Institution staff

You can give users staff rights in an institution in which they are members. The staff role will allow them to create course groups for example. This page allows you to do that in bulk for many users at once.

See also

You can also give staff rights on the user account settings page.

Give users institution staff rights.

Institution: Choose the institution from the drop-down menu for which want to give staff rights to members. If there is only one institution, its name will be displayed without the drop-down menu.

Staff users: You can search for users in the search box if there are too many names listed.

Institution members: Select the institution members who shall get staff rights.

Add the users to the list Institution staff by clicking the right-arrow button .

If you put a user into the institution staff list by accident or want to remove existing staff members and return them to normal membership status, select them.

Then click the left-arrow button , and they are removed from the list.

When you have all the members you wish to have as staff in the institution, click the Submit button.

11.6.9. Institution administrators

You can give users administrator rights in an institution in which they are members. The administrator role will allow them to manage users in their own institution. This page allows you to do that in bulk for many users at once.

See also

You can also give admin rights on the user account settings page.

Give users institution admin rights.

Institution: Choose the institution from the drop-down menu for which want to give admin rights to members. If there is only one institution, its name will be displayed without the drop-down menu.

Admin users: You can search for users in the search box if there are too many names listed.

Institution members: Select the institution members who shall get administrator rights.

Add the users to the list Current administrators by clicking on the right-arrow button .

If you put a user into the institution administrator list by accident or want to remove existing administration members and return them to normal membership status, select them.

Then click on the left-arrow button , and they are removed from the list.

When you have all the members you wish to have as administrators in the institution, click the Submit button.

11.6.10. Admin notifications

Administration menu → Institutions → Admin notifications

The Admin notifications page lists all users with institution and site administrator access on your site. It shows their selected notification preferences for all admin notifications. There should be at least one administrator receiving each type of message generated.

Note

Institution administrators only see admin notifications for their own institutions.

Admin notifications are:

Contact us

Objectionable content

Repeat virus upload

Virus flag release

Objectionable content in forum

Overview of the admin notification types

11.6.11. Profile completion

Administration menu → Institutions → Profile completion

Profile completion lets you select content that users of an institution need in order to have a “completed” profile. The parameters for a completed profile can differ from one institution to another. In some cases you can also decide how many content items a user needs of a specific artefact type to complete their profile.

See also

The site administrator needs to enable the profile completion feature in the user settings for institutions to be able to use it.

Set up profile completion for an institution

Institution: If you administer more than one institution, select the one for which you want to set up the profile completion from the drop-down menu. If there is only one institution, its name will be displayed without the drop-down menu.

Profile completion preview: Once you clicked the Submit button, you will see a preview of the progress bar that is displayed to your institution users in the sidebar.

Profile: Set the switches to “Yes” for the items that you want your users to fill in from their profile. Select the number of groups a user should join or number of friends a member of your institution should make.

Résumé: Set the switches to “Yes” for the résumé items that your users should fill in to have a completed profile.

Plans: Select the number of plans and tasks a user should have from the drop-down menus.

Journals: Select whether a user needs to have a certain number of journal entries for a complete profile.

Files: In this section you can decide whether users need to upload a certain number of files. You can also specify the file type and decide how many items of each file type users should upload for a complete profile.

Annotation: Select from the drop-down menu the number of comments a user should make on annotations to gain a completed profile.

Comment: Select from the drop-down menu the number of comments a user should make to gain a completed profile.

Click the Submit button to save your changes.

11.6.12. Institution pages and collections

Administration menu → Institutions → Pages and collections

You can create pages and collections for your entire institution. Although you could always create portfolios under a regular user account that other users could copy into their own portfolio, the advantage of institution pages and collections is that new members in the institution can receive a copy upon joining the institution.

Creating and editing an institution portfolio is very similar to creating and editing a personal portfolio. However, not all blocks are available when editing an institution page in the page editor due to the different context. Please refer to the overview of blocks for a list of all the blocks that you can use in an institution page.

Manage institution pages and collections

Institution: If you administer more than one institution, select the one for which you want to create or edit pages. If there is only one institution, its name will be displayed without the drop-down menu.

Click the Add button to start a new page or collection from scratch.

Note

A modal opens in which you can choose whether to create a page or collection.

Click the Copy button to choose an existing page or collection as basis.

Search: Type your search term into the search field.

Use the drop-down arrow to limit your search. The available options are:

Title, description, tags: Search for your search term in the title, descirption, and tags of your site portfolios.

Title, description: This is the default option. It searches in the title and description of your site portfolios.

Tags: Search only within the tags of your site portfolios.

Sort by: Decide on the sort order in which you wish to display your portfolios.

Alphabetical: Portfolios are displayed in alphabetical order.

Date created: List the portfolios in chronologically reverse order with the newest portfolios first.

Last modified: Display the portfolios in the order of their last modification with the most recent portfolios that have been changed first. This is the default display option.

Last viewed: Show the portfolios in the order in which they were viewed by you and others starting with the most recently viewed portfolios.

Most visited: Display the portfolios that have been visited most first in the list.

Most feedback: List the portfolios in descending order based on the amount of feedback they have received.

Note

The sort order that you choose does not change when you navigate away from the overview page or log out. When you change the sort order, that new setting will be used until you change it again.

Click the Search button to search your site portfolios based on your search term and / or sorting criteria.

Edit your institution pages and collections as usual.

Note

When somebody leaves comments on an institution page or artefact, the institution and site administrators receive a notification.

11.6.13. Institution journals

Administration menu → Institutions → Journals

You create institution journals like regular user journals. Institution journals allow you to create a journal template and then copy that into user accounts for example. They also allow you to create a news blog for your institution.

Institution journals

Institution: If you administer more than one institution, select the one for which you want to create or update a journal. If there is only one institution, its name will be displayed without the drop-down menu.

You can create multiple journals. Click the Create journal button to set up a new journal.

All your journals are listed on Administration menu → Institutions → Journals with their titles. The titles link through to the individual journals.

You can see the description of the journal.

You see how many entries you have in each journal.

Click the Arrow icon to be taken to the journal and see all journal entries.

Click the New entry button to create a new journal entry directly from this screen.

Click the Edit button to make changes to your journal title, description or tags.

Click the Delete button to delete the journal and all its entries.

Warning

When you click the Delete button, you receive a confirmation message whether you really want to delete the journal or not. If you used the journal or an entry of it in a page, Mahara lets you know so you can decide whether to delete the journal or not. Once you agree to delete the journal, your journal and all its content are removed permanently.

11.6.14. Share institution pages and collections

Administration menu → Institutions → Share

You can see a list of all institution pages and collections for a specific institution.

Share institution pages and collections

Institution: If you administer more than one institution, select the one for which you want to change sharing permissions for pages or collections. If there is only one institution, its name will be displayed without the drop-down menu.

Select whether you want to change permissions for a collection or a page.

Note

You can select more collections or pages on the following screen.

Collection / page name: All collections or pages for that institution are listed here.

Access list: View the access permissions for the pages and collections.

Click the Edit access icon to change the permissions of who can view and copy a page or collection.

Click the Edit Secret URL icon to define a secret URL for a page or collection.

Sharing an institution page or collection is very similar to sharing a portfolio page or collection. The only difference is that you can allow new institution members to receive a copy of an institution page or collection immediately upon joining the institution.

Setting for copying an institution page for new institution members

When you clicked the Edit access icon on the Share page for institution pages and collections, click the Advanced options link and change the switch for Allow copying to “Yes”. This now allows everyone who has access to the selected page(s) or collection(s) to copy them.

Copy for new users: Enable this option if all new users in your institution shall receive a copy of the selected page(s) or collection(s) into their portfolios when an account is created for them.

Note

If you enable this option without also enabling the option “Allow copying”, your users will not be able to make a copy of the page(s) or collection(s) themselves if they need another one.

Click the Save button at the bottom of the page to save your changes.

When site administrators create and share an institution page or collection, they can share it with the members of the institution in which they created the page or collection.

11.6.15. Files

Administration menu → Institutions → Files

The files area in an institution holds all files that are uploaded by administrators as institution files. The uploading process works like the one in the personal files area.

Institution files area

11.6.16. new in Mahara 18.10 Tags

Administration menu → Institutions → Tags

11.6.16.1. Manage institution tags

Manage institution tags

Institution: If you administer more than one institution, select the one for which you want to manage tags. If there is only one institution, its name will be displayed without the drop-down menu.

Click the Create tag button to set up a new tag.

Tag: Lists all the tags created in this institution.

Times used: Displays the number of times the tag has been used by institution members.

Click the Delete button to remove a tag.

If a tag is currently in use, you cannnot delete it.

11.6.16.2. Create an institution tag

Create an institution tag

Click the Create tag button on the Tags page to set up a new tag.

Institution tag: Enter a new institution tag. It can consist of multiple words.

Click the Save button to save this new tag or click Cancel to abort the action.

11.6.16.3. Use an institution tag

Use institution tags

You can use tags from the institution to which you belong anywhere you can enter tags.

Click into the tag search box and start typing a couple of letters of the tag you are looking for. The search narrows down to the potential tags

Institution tags are prefixed with the institution’s name.

You see the actual tag after the institution name including how many times you have used it.

11.6.17. Pending registrations

Administration menu → Institutions → Pending registrations

When you turn on Confirm registration for an institution in the institution settings, no user account in this institution is created without the administrator knowing it. If a user is rejected, no account is created. If the option Confirm registration is not turned on, a user account is created in the “No institution” institution but not in the actual institution.

Below follows the process for self-registration with Confirm registration turned on.

11.6.17.1. Self-register for an internal account

When users try to self-register for your institution, they must provide certain details.

Note

The fields for email, first and last name can appear in a different order if you have chosen the advanced spam protection settings.

User self-registration for an institution

Email address: Provide your email address.

First name: Type your first name.

Last name: Provide your last name.

Institution: Select the institution for which you want to register. There is an indicator whether the institution you wish to register for requires administrator approval.

Registration reason: If administrator approval is required, you can provide a reason why you want to join the institution.

If the site administrator requires users who self-register to agree to the terms and conditions, the “Registration agreement” of the site, you must read through them below and then make your choice.

Click the Register button.

The administrators of that institution and the site administrator receive a notification about the pending registration. They then review pending registrations.

You will receive an email which includes a link to confirm your email address. You must click that link within 24 hours. If you do not, you will have to start the registration process again from the beginning.

11.6.17.2. Review pending registrations

As administrator, you can view pending registrations for your institutions on the Pending registrations page in Administration menu → Institutions → Pending registrations.

Pending registrations page

Institution: If you administer more than one institution, select the one for which you want to review pending registrations. If there is only one institution, its name will be displayed without the drop-down menu.

Pending registration: You see a list of all registration requests that include the names of the requesters and their email addresses.

Registration reason: The reason for registration is displayed.

Click the Approve button when you want to approve this registration request. You will have to confirm your approval on the next page. The person self-registering receives an email with a link to complete the registration process.

Click the Deny button when you do not want this person to register for your institution and receive an account.

When you approve users, you can decide whether they should receive staff rights immediately. For example, this helps to give all teachers at a school staff access rights upon their self-registration.

Approve pending registrations

Institution staff: Switch to “Yes” if the user shall have staff access rights.

Click the Approve button when you want to approve this registration request or click Cancel to abort the approval process.

When you deny a person access to your institution, you can also provide a reason.

Reason for denying institution membership for a self-registering user

Denial reason: Write your reason for denying institution membership that might help the person to know why you do not want to give them access.

Click the Deny button to send a notification to the person’s email address with the reason for the denial or click Cancel to abort the denial process.

11.6.17.3. Complete self-registration

When users are accepted as members in an institution via this process, they must still complete the registration process. This is necessary to provide information in all required fields besides a password and a username.

Complete the self-registration for an institution

New username: Choose your new username. A default username is suggested, but you can provide a different one. If your suggested username is already taken, the system will let you know after you submit your information.

New password: Choose a password for your account. This field is required.

Confirm password: Re-type the new password. This field is required.

Click the Submit button to complete your registration. You will be taken to your Dashboard.

11.6.18. Pending deletions

Administration menu → Institutions → Pending deletions

When the site administrator required all institutions to review account deletions in the site configuration or an institution administrator required it for their institution in the institution settings, users cannot delete their accounts immediately. Instead, an administrator needs to approve or deny the request.

When a user requested that their account be deleted, the institution or site administrator receives a notification.

Pending account deletion page

Institution: If you administer more than one institution, select the one for which you want to review pending deletions. If there is only one institution, its name will be displayed without the drop-down menu.

Pending deletion: The name of the person who wants to delete their account is displayed.

Deletion reason: The reason for the deletion is shown.

Click the Approve button when you want to approve the account deletion. You will have to confirm this decision on the next page. The user will receive an email to their primary email address stored in Mahara when the deletion has been completed.

Warning

Account deletion is permanent and content cannot be retrieved easily once an account has been deleted. Once you approve the account deletion, it will happen immediately.

Click the Deny button when you do not want the account to be deleted right away. You will need to provide a reason for your decision so that the user can get in touch with you to discuss it.

11.7. Reports

Administration menu → Reports

If you want to use advanced analytics, i.e. the groups, collaboration, page activity, and user activity reports, you need to have the following:

Elasticsearch set up as search plugin

Logging and reporting of events

Reports can be run by site and institution administrators. Staff may also have access to certain reports.

11.7.1. Structure of a report

The structure of all reports is similar, and they can all be configured to show less or more information.

Structure of the reports

Title of the report.

Institution that was selected for the report. If it says “All institutions”, then the report is over the entire site.

Timeframe over which is being reported.

Click the Configure button to change the report settings.

Table header shows the individual report items.

Data in the report.

Paginator to jump to additional results.

Total number of results.

Results per page: Change how many results you want to display per page.

Click the Download icon to download the report as CSV file.

Note

Click any column heading and you can sort the table according to that column in ascending or descending order.

11.7.2. Report configuration

All reports can be configured via the Configure button on the Reports page.

Configuration screen for the reports

Institution: Select the institution for which you want to run the report.

Note

Site administrators see all institutions and the option “All institutions”, which is the site level. Institution administrators only see reports for the institutions in which they are an administrator.

Report type: Select the report that you want to display. The categories are:

Content

Groups

Institutions

People

This report includes: This section details what information the report includes.

The date of the first event logged in the database that can be used for the report. If the report is run for prior dates, the data will be incomplete.

Note

Mahara only detects the first date, but not if event logging had been turned off for a period of time afterwards.

From: Select the start date for your report by clicking into the field and selecting it via the calendar.

To: Select the end date for your report by clicking into the field and selecting it via the calendar.

Note

You can only view reports for data that is still in the database on the site. If data was deleted or not yet collected for certain reports to show data, no data can be displayed.

If you want to report over today in “To”, you need to choose tomorrow’s date as the date assumes the report is up to midnight of the previous day right before the start of today.

Columns: Click the icon to show the columns that you can select or deselect to tailor the report for this session. The icon is displayed when the panel is open.

Tick the checkbox next to an item that you want to display as additional column in your report.

You can’t deselect certain columns as they display the minimum information for the selected report.

Click the Submit button to display results for your report, or click Cancel to abort any changes to your report.

You can also click the Close icon in the top left-hand corner of the modal window to cancel your action without saving any changes.

11.7.3. Content

11.7.3.1. Content report

The content report displays information about modifications to artefacts and blocks. The available columns are:

Title

Number of modifications

Total

Number of unique users who made the modifications

Number of unique users over the total

Content overview report

Title of the report.

Institution that was selected for the report. If it says “All institutions”, then the report is over the entire site.

Time frame over which is being reported.

Click the Configure button to change the report settings.

Name: Name of the artefact or blocktype.

Note

When you report over “All institutions”, you do not see blocktypes displayed. Currently, these are only available when you report over an institution.

Modified: Number of creations or modifications of this content item during the selected time frame.

Total: Number of total items of this content item during the selected time frame.

Paginator to jump to additional results.

Total number of results.

Results per page: Change how many results you want to display per page.

Click the Download icon to download the report as CSV file.

11.7.3.2. new in Mahara 18.10 Objectionable content report

The objectionable content report shows all portfolios that currently have objectionable material reported. The available columns are:

Page title

Artefact title

Objectionable content reporter

Reporter’s name

Report description

Report date

Reviewer’s name

Review description

Review date

Report status

Objectionable content report

Title of the report.

Institution that was selected for the report. If it says “All institutions”, then the report is over the entire site.

Time frame over which is being reported.

Click the Configure button to change the report settings.

Page: The page that contains the objectionable material.

Artefact: Name of the artefact if it is the objectionable material.

Reporter: Person who reported the material.

Report: Original complaint.

Date: Date that the material was reported.

Reviewer: The administrator who reviewed the material.

Review: The message that the administrator sent to the portfolio author if any if the portfolio is still objectionable.

Date: The date that the reviewer looked at the portfolio.

Status: Next action item.

Total number of results.

Click the Download icon to download the report as CSV file.

11.7.4. Groups report

Note

This report is only available on the site level and can’t be selected by institution administrators.

The group report provides information about the groups that are on the site. For each group you can see:

ID

Name

Number of members

Number of pages

Number of shared pages

Number of comments on group pages and artefacts

Number of comments on pages and artefacts shared with the group

Number of forums

Number of forum posts

Note

This report requires event logging to be turned on for the entire site. Since events cannot be put into the database in retrospect, correct data is only collected from the time the full event logging has been turned on.

Groups overview report

Title of the report.

Institution that was selected for the report. If it says “All institutions”, then the report is over the entire site.

Time frame over which is being reported.

Click the Configure button to change the report settings.

Group: Title of the group.

Members: Number of members in the group.

Pages: Number of pages in the group.

Group page comments: Number of comments on group pages and artefacts.

Shared pages: Number of pages that have been shared with the group.

Shared page comments: Number of comments on pages and artefacts shared with the group.

Note

This only takes into account comments that were made after the page was shared with the group as that event could not have been logged prior to that.

Forums: Number of forums in the group.

Posts: Number of forum posts in the group.

Paginator to jump to additional results.

Total number of results.

Results per page: Change how many results you want to display per page.

Click the Download icon to download the report as CSV file.

Note

“N/A” (not available) in any of the columns indicates that there is no data available yet. This is an indicator that the information was not yet recorded via the event logging.

11.7.5. Institution

There are three institution reports available:

Institution comparison

Logins

Overview

11.7.5.1. Institution comparison report

The institution comparison report provides an overview of all institutions on the site:

Institution

Number of members

Number of pages created by members and the institution

Number of blocks

Number of artefacts

Number of forum posts by institution members

Note

This report is only available on the site level when “All institutions” is chosen in the institution selector during the report configuration.

Institution comparison report

Title of the report.

Institution that was selected for the report. If it says “All institutions”, then the report is over the entire site.

Time frame over which is being reported.

Click the Configure button to change the report settings.

Institution: Title of the institution.

Members: Number of members in the institution.

Pages: Number of pages in the institution that were created by institution members and on the institution level itself.

Blocks: Number of blocks used in pages in the institution.

Artefacts: Number of artefacts in the institution.

Posts: Number of forum posts by institution members.

Paginator to jump to additional results.

Total number of results.

Results per page: Change how many results you want to display per page.

Click the Download icon to download the report as CSV file.

Note

This report is currently only updated once a week at the end of the week.

11.7.5.2. Logins report

The logins report provides details for:

Institution

Number of logins no matter the user

Number of active users

Note

This report is only available on the site level when “All institutions” is chosen in the institution selector during the report configuration.

Logins report

Title of the report.

Institution that was selected for the report. If it says “All institutions”, then the report is over the entire site.

Time frame over which is being reported.

Click the Configure button to change the report settings.

Institution: Title of the institution.

Logins: Total number of logins to the site, no matter which institution member it was.

Active users: Total number of distinct institution members who logged into the site during the given time frame.

Paginator to jump to additional results.

Total number of results.

Results per page: Change how many results you want to display per page.

Click the Download icon to download the report as CSV file.

11.7.5.3. Overview report

The institution report contains statistical information about each institution:

Creation date

Number of users

Number of pages

Disk space used

For “All institutions” only:

Number of groups

Database size

Mahara version

Information on the running of cron

Institution overview report

Title of the report.

Institution that was selected for the report. If it says “All institutions”, then the report is over the entire site.

Click the Configure button to change the report settings.

Overview: Some information about the site or institution:

Site installed / Institution created: Installation date of your site. If you view this report for an institution, the institution creation date is shown, i.e. the first time a member was added to the institution.

Users: Number of

registered users, i.e. everybody who has an account

active users, i.e. users that have at least logged in once and have done something

Groups: Number of groups and average group membership of a user. This is only available for “All institutions”.

Pages: Number of pages and average pages per user with pages.

Database size: Size of your database on the server. This is only available for “All institutions”.

Disk usage: The amount of disk space your Mahara installation or institution uses.

Mahara version: Version number of Mahara and the latest stable release. This is only available for “All institutions”.

Cron: Information on whether cron is running or not. If it says “Cron is not running”, please check it. It may be running partially. This is only available for “All institutions”.

Additional information and graphs are available for:

Average user in terms of friends, pages, group membership, and use of space.

Users by institution. This is only available for “All institutions”.

Pages overview: Most frequently used blocks and types of pages.

Groups overview: Number of groups by group type and access type. This is only available for “All institutions”.

Growth trend: Graphical representation of all users and pages over time.

11.7.6. People

There are numerous reports in this section:

Collaboration

Masquerading sessions

Page activity

People overview

Portfolio access

User activity

User details

11.7.6.1. Collaboration report

The collaboration report shows the level of engagement and collaboration that is happening on Mahara in regard to personal portfolio pages and collections:

Number of comments on pages and artefacts

Number of annotation feedback

Number of portfolios (pages or collections) shared with individual users

Number of portfolios shared with groups

Number of portfolios shared with an institution

Number of portfolios shared with all registered users

Number of portfolios shared publicly

Number of portfolios shared via secret URLs

Number of portfolios shared with friends

Note

This report requires event logging to be turned on for the entire site. Since events cannot be put into the database in retrospect, correct data is only collected from the time the full event logging has been turned on.

If you do not turn on event logging and have Elasticsearch running, you can’t see this report.

Collaboration report

Title of the report.

Institution that was selected for the report. If it says “All institutions”, then the report is over the entire site.

Time frame over which is being reported.

Click the Configure button to change the report settings.

Date: Each row represents a week (w.c. - week commencing).

Comments: Number of comments made on pages and artefacts.

Users: Number of portfolios (pages and collections) shared with individual users.

Groups: Number of portfolios (pages and collections) shared with groups.

Institutions: Number of portfolios (pages and collections) shared with an institution.

Registered: Number of portfolios (pages and collections) shared with registered users.

Public: Number of portfolios (pages and collections) shared with the public.

Secret URLs: Number of portfolios (pages and collections) shared via secret URLs.

Friends: Number of portfolios (pages and collections) shared with friends.

Paginator to jump to additional results.

Total number of results.

Results per page: Change how many results you want to display per page.

Click the Download icon to download the report as CSV file.

11.7.6.2. Legal consent report

When the site requires people to accept the terms and conditions and privacy statement, this report tracks when people consented to these legal statements.

The report shows:

First name

Last name

Display name

Email address

Username

Site privacy statement

Site privacy consent reviewed

Site terms and conditions

Site terms and conditions consent reviewed

Institution privacy statement

Institution privacy consent reviewed

Institution terms and conditions

Institution terms and conditions consent reviewed

Institution

Legal consent report

Title of the report.

Institution that was selected for the report. If it says “All institutions”, then the report is over the entire site.

Time frame over which is being reported.

Number of selected users for the report if it is not over an entire institution. Click the Remove filter button to report over all people in the chosen institution.

Click the Configure button to change the report settings.

First name: First name of the user.

Last name: Last name of the user.

Display name: If the user chose to set a display name, it is displayed here.

Email: Email address of the user.

Username: Username of the user.

Site privacy statement: Version number and link to the privacy statement that the user has a greed to.

Site privacy consent reviewed: Date when the user agreed to the site privacy statement.

Site terms and conditions: Version number and link to the terms and conditions that the user has a greed to.

Institution privacy statement: Version number and link to the institution privacy statement that the user has a greed to.

Institution terms and conditions: Version number and link to the institution terms and conditions that the user has agreed to.

Institution: Name of the institution in which the user is a member.

Total number of results.

Click the Download icon to download the report as CSV file.

Note

You can also display the dates when the site terms and conditions and the institution legal statements were consented to.

When you click on the version number of any of the legal statements, you are taken to a report for an individual’s consent history.

Legal consent report for an individual

Run the legal consent report and click a version number of any of the agreements that a the person consented to.

Title of the report.

Name of the person whose consent history you are viewing.

Click “Privacy statement” to see all the privacy statements to which the user has agreed to at some point.

Click “Terms and conditions” to see all the terms and conditions to which the user has agreed to at some point.

Institution: List of the institutions that have an agreement impacting the user. “Site” always means the site agreements that everyone needs to review.

Date of consent / rejection: The date when consent was given or rejected.

Consented: “Yes” or “No” depending on the decision of the user.

Version: Version number of the agreement to which the user needed to respond.

Latest: “Yes” or “No” indicating which is the current applicable agreement.

Click the View button to see the text of the agreement that you want to review.

The agreement text is displayed.

11.7.6.3. Masquerading sessions report

When the site administrator turned on the logging of masquerading sessions, they are reported in this report. If full event logging is turned on, masquerading sessions are recorded as well.

The report shows:

Name and username

Reason for the masquerading session

Administrator who masqueraded

Start time of the masquerading session

You can display masquerading sessions for all people on the site or your chosen institution. Alternatively, you can select people on Administration menu → Users → User search and report only over them:

On the User search page, select the people for whom you wish to see the masquerading sesions report and click the Get reports for selected users button. You are taken into the Reports section.

Click the Configure report button.

Report type: Select “Masquerading sessions”.

From: Choose your start date.

To: Choose your end date or leave it at today’s date.

Columns: Select the columns that you wish to display in the report.

Click the Submit button.

The report shows the information for the selected users.

Masquerading sessions report

Title of the report.

Institution that was selected for the report. If it says “All institutions”, then the report is over the entire site.

Time frame over which is being reported.

Number of selected users for the report if it is not over an entire institution. Click the Remove filter button to report over all people in the chosen institution.

Click the Configure button to change the report settings.

User: Person who has been masqueraded as.

Reason: Reason for the masquerading. This is only displayed if the administrator was required to provide one.

Masquerading administrator: The administrator who initiated the masquerading session.

Start of masquerading: Date and time when the administrator started to masquerade as the user.

Paginator to jump to additional results.

Total number of results.

Results per page: Change how many results you want to display per page.

Click the Download icon to download the report as CSV file.

11.7.6.4. Page activity report

The page activity report gathers data about a page itself and its content:

Page title

Title of the collection to which the page belongs (if any)

Page owner

Creation date

Last modification date

Date, when the page was last viewed

Number of blocks included in the page

Number of visits to the page

Number of comments on the page

Note

This report requires event logging to be turned on for the entire site. Since events cannot be put into the database in retrospect, correct data is only collected from the time the full event logging has been turned on.

If you do not turn on event logging and have Elasticsearch running, you can’t see this report.

new in Mahara 18.10 When you selected a few people for whom you wish to see the report, the people are remembered when you select this report.

Page activity report

Title of the report.

Institution that was selected for the report. If it says “All institutions”, then the report is over the entire site.

Time frame over which is being reported.

Click the Configure button to change the report settings.

Page: Title of the page.

Collection: Title of the collection if the page is part of one.

Owner: Name of the person who authored the page.

Created: Date and time of the creation of the page.

Last modified: Date and time when the page was last edited.

Last visited: Date and time when the page was last viewed.

Blocks: Number of blocks included in the page.

Visits: Number of visits to the page.

Comments: Number of comments on the page.

Paginator to jump to additional results.

Total number of results.

Results per page: Change how many results you want to display per page.

Click the Download icon to download the report as CSV file.

11.7.6.5. People overview report

The people overview report gives an overview of activty of people on the site for a given day:

Date

Number of people who logged in

Number of accounts created

Total number of people in the selected institution

People overview report

Title of the report.

Institution that was selected for the report. If it says “All institutions”, then the report is over the entire site.

Time frame over which is being reported.

Click the Configure button to change the report settings.

Date: Date of the login.

Logged in: Number of people who logged in on that day.

Created: Number of user accounts created on that day.

Total: Total number of people in the selected institution on that day.

Paginator to jump to additional results.

Total number of results.

Results per page: Change how many results you want to display per page.

Click the Download icon to download the report as CSV file.

11.7.6.6. Portfolio access report

You can view all the portfolios that have been created by people on the site or in a particular institution and with whom they have been shared. This facilitates troubleshooting when people cannot view pages of others and the administrator would otherwise have to log in to the user account to check page permissions.

The report displays:

Portfolio owner

Title of the portfolio

Number of pages in the portfolio

Access list, i.e. who has permission to view the portfolio

You can display the portfolio access for all people on the site or your chosen institution. Alternatively, you can select people on Administration menu → Users → User search and report only over them:

On the User search page, select the people for whom you wish to see the portfolio access report and click the Get reports for selected users button. You are taken into the Reports section.

Click the Configure report button.

Report type: Select “Portfolio access”.

From: Choose your start date.

To: Choose your end date or leave it at today’s date.

Click the Submit button.

The report shows the information for the selected users.

Portfolio access report

Title of the report.

Institution that was selected for the report. If it says “All institutions”, then the report is over the entire site.

Time frame over which is being reported.

Note

The time frame here refers to pages or collections created within the start and end dates.

Number of selected users for the report if it is not over an entire institution. Click the Remove filter button to report over all people in the chosen institution.

Click the Configure button to change the report settings.

Owner: Person who is the owner of the portfolio.

Page / collection: Title of the portfolio.

Pages: Number of pages within a collection.

Access list: Listed are who has access to the portfolio.

If a portfolio has been shared with only a certain role within a group, that is stated.

Number of secret URLs created for the portfolio.

Paginator to jump to additional results.

Total number of results.

Results per page: Change how many results you want to display per page.

Click the Download icon to download the report as CSV file.

Note

Though all pages, collections and groups are linked, you may not have direct access to them if you are not on the access list or a member of the group yourself.

11.7.6.7. User activity report

This report displays information about a user and their level of activity on the site during the selected time frame:

User information

Number of artefacts created or modified

Number of pages created

Number of collections created

Number of groups created

Number of logins

Number of actions (create and modify an artefact, forum post, personal pages and collection, group pages and collections, comments, page views)

Last login

Last activity

Note

This report requires event logging to be turned on for the entire site. Since events cannot be put into the database in retrospect, correct data is only collected from the time the full event logging has been turned on.

You can display the user activity for all people on the site or your chosen institution. Alternatively, you can select people on Administration menu → Users → User search and report only over them:

On the User search page, select the people for whom you wish to see the user activity report and click the Get reports for selected users button. You are taken into the Reports section.

Click the Configure report button.

Report type: Select “User activity”.

From: Choose your start date.

To: Choose your end date or leave it at today’s date.

Click the Submit button.

The report shows the information for the selected users.

User activity report

Title of the report.

Institution that was selected for the report. If it says “All institutions”, then the report is over the entire site.

Time frame over which is being reported.

Note

Activity is shown for people who were logged in during this time frame.

Number of selected users for the report if it is not over an entire institution. Click the Remove filter button to report over all people in the chosen institution.

Click the Configure button to change the report settings.

First name: First name of the user.

Last name: Last name of the user.

Display name: If the user chose to set a display name, it is displayed here.

Username: Username of the user.

Artefacts: Number of artefacts created or updated.

Pages: Number of pages created during the time frame.

Collections: Number of collections created during the time frame.

Groups: Number of groups created during the time frame.

Logins: Number of total logins on the site.

Actions: Number of actions the user has taken on the site, i.e. created and modified an artefact, wrote a forum post, created and modified personal pages and collection, created and modified group pages and collections, wrote comments, viwed pages.

Last login: Date and time when the user was in their account last.

Last activity: Last activity in the user’s account.

Note

Masquerading sessions are listed as activity. They do not count as a last login though.

Total number of results.

Click the Download icon to download the report as CSV file.

11.7.6.8. User details report

The user details report provides basic account information about a person and is well suited for exports if you want to update accounts via a CSV file:

Username

Email address

First name

Last name

ID number

Display name

Remote username

Last login

Number of probation points

You can display the user details for all people on the site or your chosen institution. Alternatively, you can select people on Administration menu → Users → User search and report only over them:

On the User search page, select the people for whom you wish to see account details and click the Get reports for selected users button. You are taken into the Reports section.

Click the Configure report button.

Report type: Select “User details”.

From: Choose your start date.

To: Choose your end date or leave it at today’s date.

Columns: Select additional columns to display more information if you wish.

Click the Submit button.

The report shows the information for the selected users.

User details report

Title of the report.

Institution that was selected for the report. If it says “All institutions”, then the report is over the entire site.

Time frame over which is being reported.

Number of selected users for the report if it is not over an entire institution. Click the Remove filter button to report over all people in the chosen institution.

Click the Configure button to change the report settings.

First name: First name of the user.

Last name: Last name of the user.

Email: Email address of the user.

ID number: ID number of the user if one was given.

Display name: If the user chose to set a display name, it is displayed here.

Username: Username of the user.

Remote username: If the user has an authentication method that requires a remote username, it is listed here.

Last login: Date and time when the user was in their account last.

Total number of results.

Click the Download icon to download the report as CSV file.

Note

If the site has spam probation points enabled, these can be displayed in the table as well.

11.8. Extensions

Administration menu → Extensions

Note

Extensions is only accessible by site administrators.

Extensions in Mahara serve to provide certain functionality in the system. Extensions can be installed at any point and can also be hidden.

11.8.1. Plugin administration

Administration menu → Extensions → Plugin administration

The Plugin administration lists all the plugins that are currently installed on your Mahara instance and provides a link to the plugin configuration settings where available.

Plugins in Mahara are always installed and can be accessed if users know the URLs and would otherwise have access. Rather than enabling and disabling the functionality, plugins are hidden or made visible by clicking on the Hide or Show buttons beside the plugins. When hiding an artefact type plugin, Mahara stops the display of the blocks related to it as well.

Warning when a plugin is not yet installed

If you added a plugin to your site’s codebase or if a new plugin was added to Mahara since the last upgrade that you performed, you will need to install it. A plugin that is not yet fully installed is marked with a warning and listed first in its section. Click the Install link to start the installation process.

In order to delete a plugin completely, you must delete the code and all database tables that pertain to the plugin. Additionally, you need to delete it from a number of system tables, e.g. “artefact”, “artefact_config”, “artefact_cron”, etc. As an example, view the information on how to uninstall the My Learning plugin [https://wiki.mahara.org/index.php/Plugins/Artefact/My_Learning/Uninstalling].

Note

Core Mahara functionality can be made unavailable to users by hiding it. This may be useful if you connect Mahara to another system that already provides this functionality or if you do not wish your users to use that functionality. However, the decision about hiding a functionality should be considered thoroughly as it may also mean that users may not be able to have as many artefacts available to them as they could have.

In the following, only the plugins that have additional settings are discussed.

11.8.1.1. Blocktype: File / folder

You can decide the default sort order for files displayed in a Folder block and whether viewers of portfolio pages that contain a Folder block should be able to download the contents of the folder as zip file in one go.

Configure the Folder block

Default sort order of files: Decide whether the default sort order for displaying files in a Folder block should be alphabetically ascending or descending.

Note

Page authors can change the sort order for each block.

Download folders as zip files: Switching this option to “Yes”, you can download the contents of a folder displayed in a Folder block as zip file. Thus, it is very easy for a viewer to grab all files at once and download them to their computer.

See also

Site administrators decide in the Artefact type: File settings for how long the zip file is kept on the server.

11.8.1.2. Blocktype: File / gallery

You can provide additional image gallery settings and also allow your users to make Flickr and Photobucket image galleries available. The settings you make on this page will be the default settings for all users.

Configure the Image gallery block

Use Slimbox2: Switch this option to “Yes” if you want to enlarge images from your image gallery on the page in an overlay instead of opening them in a new window.

Use photo frame: Turn this option on if you want to put a frame around the thumbnail of each photo in photo galleries.

Maximum photo width: Set the maximum width (in pixel) to which the photos will be resized when viewed with Slimbox2.

Flickr API key: If you want to allow users to display photos from Flickr, you need a valid Flickr API key. You can apply for the key at Flickr [https://www.flickr.com/services/apps/create/apply].

Photobucket API key: If you want to allow users to display photos from Photobucket, you need a valid API and private API key. You can get them from the developer page of Photobucket [http://developer.photobucket.com/].

Photobucket API private key: Provide the private API key from Photobucket that you will have received.

Click the Save button to keep your changes.

11.8.1.3. Blocktype: File / internalmedia

Configure which file types users can embed into the Embedded media block. If you disable a file type that has already been used in a block, it will not be rendered any more.

Mahara comes with Video.js [https://videojs.com/], a media player that can play a number of media files and does not require Flash (though it does have a Flash fallback option). Other video file types can be enabled, but users must have the appropriate software installed on their computers and the respective plugins enabled in their browsers to play them.

Configure the Embedded media block

Turn on the file types that you wish your users to be able to show on their portfolio pages.

Click the Save button to keep your changes.

Note

If you allow the embedding of file types that cannot be played by Video.js, some users may not have the necessary software installed for displaying these file types.

Here’s an overview of the video and audio file formats that can be played by Video.js and which browsers can view them. Only because Video.js supports them does not mean that all browsers can play them. They still need to support a specific file format themselves. Listed are only the browsers that Mahara supports.

iOS devices may not always display MP4 files as the devices may only recognize the MPEG4 “Baseline” profile rather than the “High” profile. You can read the Apple specifications [https://developer.apple.com/library/iad/documentation/AudioVideo/Conceptual/Using_HTML5_Audio_Video/Device-SpecificConsiderations/Device-SpecificConsiderations.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40009523-CH5-SW1] and convert a video if needed using Handbrake [https://handbrake.fr/downloads.php]. Newer iOS devices (from the iPhone 5S on) should play “High” profile videos.

File format

Chrome

Chrome for Android

Firefox

Internet Explorer / Edge

Opera

Safari (incl. iOS)

3GPP media file

FLV Flash movie (requires Flash)

MP3 audio

MP4 video (H.264)

MPEG movie

OGA audio

OGG Vorbis audio file

OGV video

WEBM video file

Note

While you can upload any file fromat from any computer or Android device, you are not able to upload audio files from an iOS device. You can only upload .mov video files. These require a browser plugin to be played and are not served via Video.js.

AVI and WMV files can only be played on computers running Windows unless you have a browser plugin installed on another operating system.

11.8.1.4. Blocktype: Text

You can convert Note blocktypes to Text blocktypes across the entire instance.

Configure text settings

Mahara calculates how many notes can be converted. Notes with the following characteristics are included in the conversion process. Notes that:

have not been re-used in another block;

do not have a license attached;

do not use tags;

do not have any attachments;

have not received any comments.

Turn on the option Convert “Note” blocks to convert all notes.

Click the Save button to start the conversion process. This may take some time depending on how many notes are to be converted.

See also

If you have a large site, the conversion of notes to text may take a very long time. It can be beneficial to use the command-line script [https://bugs.launchpad.net/mahara/+bug/1427898].

11.8.1.5. Blocktype: Wall

You can limit the number of characters that are allowed for wall posts in this configuration setting. Existing posts will not be changed.

Configure wall settings

Choose the maximum number of characters for your wall posts.

Click the Save button to keep your changes.

11.8.1.6. Artefact type: Comments

Turn comment ratings on to enable ratings in the comment section on artefacts and pages. You can change the look of the comment ratings as well as the scale.

Note

Ratings cannot be on their own. They require either a comment or a file attachment.

Enable comment ratings

Enable comment ratings: Switch to “Yes” to enable comment ratings.

Icon to use to display ratings: Use the drop-down menu to select the icon that you want to use for your ratings. You can choose between:

Star

Heart

Thumbs up

Tick

Number of rating choices: Choose the scale that users will see when rating comments.

Note

If you change the number of rating choices, the ratings themselves will not be recalculated to fit that new scale.

Colour: Use the colour picker to select the colour for your icon or enter the hexadecimal color code [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_colors].

Generated example: See a preview of what your comment ratings will look like.

Click the Save button to keep your changes.

11.8.1.7. Artefact type: File

You can configure a variety of options for uploading files:

Default user quota

Default group quota

Upload agreement

Resize images on upload

Profile picture size

Comments

Folder downloads

11.8.1.7.1. Default user quota

Configure the default user quota

Default quota: You can set the amount of disk space that new users will have as their quota. Existing user quotas will not be changed.

Update user quotas: Switch this option to “Yes” if you want to update the file quota for existing users with the value under Default quota. Only then will they be updated.

Enforce a site-wide maximum quota: Switch to “Yes” if you do not wish an administrator to go beyond the allowed maximum quota.

Maximum quota: You can set the maximum quota that an administrator can give to a user. Existing user quotas will not be affected.

Quota notification threshold: You can set a percentage for when a user receives a notification about reaching the upload limit for files. They can then decide to delete files to free up space or contact the site or institution administrator to check if they can receive more space.

Site administrator notification: Switch to “Yes” if the site administrator shall receive the quota notification emails for individual users to take action.

Institutional override: Switch this option to “Yes” if you want to allow institution administrators to set user file quotas and have default quotas for each institution.

Click the Save button at the bottom of the page when you are finished making your changes or continue to the next section on this page.

11.8.1.7.2. Default group quota

Configure the default group quota

Default group quota: You can set the amount of disk space that each group will have as its quota. Existing groups will not be affected.

Update group quotas: Switch to “Yes” if you want to update the file quota for existing groups with the value under Default quota. Only then will they be updated.

Click the Save button at the bottom of the page when you are finished making your changes or continue to the next section on this page.

11.8.1.7.3. Upload agreement

Configure the upload agreement

Require agreement: Switch to “Yes” if you want to force users to agree to certain terms before they can upload a file to the site. They must accept this agreement before they are able to choose a file from their computer to upload to Mahara.

Default agreement: This is the default agreement that will be displayed if you selected the option Require agreement and if you don’t want to use your own custom agreement.

Use custom agreement: If you want to write your own upload agreement, switch this option to “Yes” in addition to Require agreement.

Custom agreement: If you want to use a custom upload agreement, write it here.

Click the Save button at the bottom of the page when you are finished making your changes or continue to the next section on this page.

11.8.1.7.4. Resize images on upload

Configure the image resizing options

Resize large images automatically: Switch this option to “Yes” to resize any image that is uploaded to the maximum width and height settings.

User option: Switch to “Yes” if you wan to display users the option to resize images automatically in their account settings.

Maximum width: Choose the maximum width (in pixels) to which images will be resized upon uploading.

Maximum height: Choose the maximum height (in pixels) to which images will be resized upon uploading.

Click the Save button at the bottom of the page when you are finished making your changes or continue to the next section on this page.

11.8.1.7.5. Profile picture size

Configure the size of the profile pictures

Width: Choose the maximum width (in pixels) of the profile pictures for users.

Height: Choose the maximum height (in pixels) of the profile pictures for users.

Click the Save button at the bottom of the page when you are finished making your changes or continue to the next section on this page.

Note

All images uploaded to the profile pictures area will be resized to these dimensions if they are larger.

11.8.1.7.6. Comments

Configure the default comment settings for different file types

Click the Select All button to mark all file types.

Click the Select none button to clear your selections of the checkboxes.

Default comment permission: Choose the artefact types which shall have comments enabled per default. Users can override these settings for individual artefacts in the files area. You can enable comments for:

archive, i.e. compressed file

audio file

file

folder

image

profile picture

video file

Click the Save button at the bottom of the page when you are finished making your changes or continue to the next section on this page.

11.8.1.7.7. Folder downloads

Configure the folder download settings

Length of time to keep zip files: Choose the amount of time for how long you want to keep the zip files on the server that are created during the folder download process. The default time frame is 3,600 seconds (1 hour).

Click the Save button when you are finished making your changes.

11.8.1.8. Artefact type: Profile

For profile information you can decide which fields a user must provide when a user account is created manually or via CSV file. These fields are marked mandatory fields.

The profile fields marked searchable fields are available for all logged-in users to search on.

Decide which profile fields you want to display in Administration menu → Users → User search.

See also

You can add custom profile fields more easily via an addition to a local file [https://bugs.launchpad.net/mahara/+bug/1661125] in the Mahara code base.

Choose mandatory and searchable profile fields

Mandatory fields: Select the fields that you wish all users to fill in. Certain fields cannot be deselected.

Searchable fields: Select the fields that can be searched on by others. Certain fields cannot be deselected.

Administration user search: Select the fields that you want to display in the User search table. The fields you select here are not exported to the CSV file though.

Note

Use the Select all and Select none buttons to select all profile fields at once or to clear your selection respectively.

Click the Save button to accept your changes.

11.8.1.9. Authentication: SAML

If you wish to use SAML authentication anywhere on your site, you can find all necessary information on your site’s metadata and certificate here.

Note

SimpleSAMLphp is a managed dependency that is included in Mahara, which makes the installation of SAML-based authentication methods easier.

You may need to install a few more dependencies manually. Please follow the on-screen instructions if that were the case.

Prepare your site for SAML authentication

Service Provider entityId: This is the unique ID that identifies your Mahara instance to the Identity Provider, e.g. example.org/mahara. It is filled in automatically with the wwwroot of your instance. If it is incorrect, you can change it here.

Service Provider metadata: The metadata link takes you to the page with your SAML metadata that you would need to give to the Identity Provider.

Signature algorithm: This is the algorithm that will be used to sign SAML requests. This makes it possible to use the SAML authentication with ADFS (Active Directory Federation Services). The following options are available:

SHA256 (Default)

SHA384

SHA512

Legacy SHA1 (Dangerous)

Warning

The SHA1 algorithm is only provided for backwards compatibility. Unless you absolutely must use it, it is recommended to avoid it and use at least SHA256 instead.

Public key: The public key is generated and rotated automatically. Typically, you would not need to copy it from here since you copy the entire metadata. It is displayed for verification purposes.

new in Mahara 18.10 Installed Identity Providers: A list of all SAML Identity Providers available for use on the site.

Identity Provider entity: Title of the Identity Provider’s authentication.

Provider: Name of the Identity Provider.

Institutions: Institution or institutions that use this IdP. The link takes you to the institution’s contacts page.

Delete IdP: Click the Delete button to remove the IdP that should not be used anymore on the site. You see the button only for IdPs that are not used in any institution.

Click the Save button to make your changes or to rotate the key manually.

Note

If you click the Save button to rotate the public key, double check that it was changed by checking the expiry date and also the last few characters of the public key.

11.8.1.10. Search: Elasticsearch

The regular Mahara search is limited to finding users and in certain places titles, descriptions and tags of pages or collections. However, Mahara can be extended to use allow for fulltext search capabilities. The Mahara core project team chose to use Elasticsearch [https://www.elastic.co/products/elasticsearch]. This is a powerful and extensible fulltext search engine. It does require a Java server, e.g. Tomcat, to run and thus may not be available for small instances of Mahara.

Note

If you are upgrading from a version of Mahara prior to Mahara 17.10 and you already had Elasticsearch in use, please take a look at the upgrade instructions [https://git.mahara.org/mahara/mahara/blob/18.04_STABLE/htdocs/search/elasticsearch/upgrade_elasticsearch.readme].

Configure the Elasticsearch plugin

Most of the Elasticsearch configuration needs to be done on the server level. Here you only see the settings, but cannot change them directly.

Cron record limit: Decide on the maximum number of records to be passed from the queue to the Elasticsearch server on each cron run. An empty field or 0 means that there is no limit.

Artefact types: Check the artefact types that you want to include in the search index. Only artefact types that have a hierarchy defined below are valid. You will need to reset artefacts in the queue below for your changes to take effect.

Artefact types hierarchy: Enter the hierarchy for each artefact type separated by | (a pipe). Place each artefact type on a row by itself.

Index reset: View the number of records of each type currently in the queue to be sent to the Elasticsearch server. Items are sent to the Elasticsearch server each time the search plugin’s cron task runs (every 5 minutes).

Click the Reset button to clear the search index and thus deleting all records and requeuing them.

Click the Save button to accept your changes.

See also

You can find more information about Elasticsearch in Mahara on the wiki [https://wiki.mahara.org/index.php/Developer_Area/Specifications_in_Development/Elasticsearch]. There are also some developer notes [https://wiki.mahara.org/index.php/Developer_Area/Specifications_in_Development/Elasticsearch_Plugin] to get you started.

11.8.1.11. Search: Internal search

If your site has a lot of users and uses a PostgreSQL database, user searches will be faster with exact user searching enabled. The setting will still work with MySQL databases, but it is unlikely that it increases search performance significantly.

The advantage of the exact user search is that if you have 20 users with the first name “Percy” but different last names, you may find the user you are looking for more quickly because you can search for “Percy Pearle” and the result list will not show “Percy Pearl”, “Percy Sutter”, “Percy Townsend” etc.

However, partial matches on profile fields will not return results, so if for example you have a user called “Percy”, then typing “Perc” into the search box will not find that user anymore.

Configure the internal search plugin

Exact user searches: Switch this option to “Yes” if you want to enable exact user searches.

Click the Save button to keep your changes.

11.8.1.12. Interaction: Forum

The post delay setting determines the time (in minutes) that users have for editing their forum posts before they are mailed out. Once a forum post has been mailed and further edits are made, the date, time and editor are mentioned in the post.

Set the edit time before the forum post is finalised

Post delay: Set the time in minutes before a post is finalised and further edits are marked as such.

Click the Save button to keep your changes.

11.8.1.13. Module: LTI

You can activate the LTI API in order to use the LTI integration.

Configure the LTI plugin

The message lets you know whether the LTI functionality is enabled or not.

Configuration item: List of the configuration items for LTI.

Status: Displays which configuration items are ready to be used and which ones are not.

Auto-configure LTI: Switch to Yes if you want all settings to be made automatically.

Note

Once the auto-configuration was successful, you do not see this option anymore. You can bring it back by making a change in the Web services section manually.

Click the Save button to save your changes.

11.8.1.14. Module: Mobile API

You can activate the mobile API in order to use “Mahara Mobile”, the new Mahara app.

Configure the mobile API

The message lets you know whether the mobile apps API is enabled or not.

Configuration item: List of the configuration items for the mobile apps API.

Status: Displays which configuration items are ready to be used and which ones are not.

Auto-configure mobile apps API? Switch to Yes if you want all settings to be made automatically.

Note

Once the auto-configuration was successful, you do not see this option anymore. You can bring it back by making a change in the Web services section manually.

Manual token generation: Switch to Yes if you want to allow your users to create the initial app token manually. This is only needed if the authentication method does not support the token generation. This is the case with MNet for example.

Click the Save button to save your changes.

11.8.2. HTML filters

Administration menu → Extensions → HTML filters

Mahara uses HTML Purifier [http://htmlpurifier.org/] to filter out malicious code that could threaten the security of the system. If you have code, e.g. iFrames or JavaScript that you wish to use and that otherwise gets filtered out, you will have to write a filter to circumvent that. Filters should always be specific to their purpose and not give ‘carte blanche’ to ensure security as much as possible.

Mahara already comes with a number of installed filters. Others can be uploaded and then installed. If you have created a new set of HTML filters, you can install them by unzipping the files into the folder /htdocs/lib/htmlpurifiercustom and then click the Install button.

Custom filters for iFrames that allow the embedding of media content such as YouTube and WikiEducator allow users to grab the URL of the page on which the media is displayed instead of having to find the actual embed code.

Note

You do not necessarily require bespoke filters for media that you wish to embed via <iframe> embed code. If you are happy to use the original embed code, you can add it to the list of allowed iframe sources.

If you wish to be able to paste the URL instead (like for a YouTube video), then you would need a bespoke filter.

11.8.3. Allowed iframe sources

Administration menu → Extensions → Allowed iframe sources

This feature allows you as site administrator to specify the base URLs for media that you want your users to be able to embed. These iframes are then considered safe and will not be stripped out of a Text or Note block, the External media block or a journal entry where you can use them. You do not have to write bespoke filters for using these iframe sources.

The administrator interface allows you to add and manage these sources easily. Mahara already comes with a number of built-in iframe sources that you can take as examples.

Add and edit allowed iframe sources

Display name: What the user will see in the external media block.

Site: The base URL of the iframe code.

Click the Edit button

to update the display name of an existing iframe source or the favicon source.

Click the Delete button to remove an existing iframe source.

Display name: Change the display name of an existing iframe source here after having clicked the Edit button

.

Icon host: Choose the base URL where the favicon can be found for the site that you are updating in case it is not fetched automatically.

Click the Save button to keep your changes for this site.

Site: Add a new iframe source by entering its base URL here. Please make sure to leave out the https://. Only letters, digits and . / - _ are allowed.

Display name: Choose a display name for your iframe source. Typically, this is the name of the site that hosts the external content.

Click the Add button to place your new site into the list of allowed iframe sources. If the favicon does not display, edit your site and specify the icon host as per Step 6.

Note

Some sites can be reached via a variety of URLs, e.g. GoogleApps, Glogster. You need to provide all possible base URLs to ensure that the iframes are displayed. If you give the individual sites of one provider the same name, it will only show up once in the list of iframe sources in the external media block and not clutter the space unnecessarily.

See also

Community members started to collect iframe sources that they are using on their sites to share which URLs would need to be provided to get the iframes to work. You can check out the list on the wiki [https://wiki.mahara.org/wiki/Allowed_iframe_sources] and also add your own iframe sources there.

11.8.4. Clean URLs

Administration menu → Extensions → Clean URLs

You can configure your site to use human-readable URLs for user profiles, groups and (group) portfolio pages. For example:

profile page: https://mahara.example.com/user/bob

portfolio page: https://mahara.example.com/user/bob/bobs-portfolio-page

group homepage: https://mahara.example.com/group/bobs-group

group portfolio page: https://mahara.example.com/group/bobs-group/an-interesting-group-page

This option allows you to create more memorable URLs.

See also

Please follow the configuration instructions on the wiki [https://wiki.mahara.org/index.php/System_Administrator%27s_Guide/Clean_URL_Configuration] for enabling this feature on your site. You need access to the server to do so.

In the administration area you can generate clean URLs for existing users, groups and pages. This is handy when you upgraded from an earlier version of Mahara or want to reset all custom URLs.

Regenerate clean URLs for existing users in bulk

Click the Submit button to regenerate clean URLs. Please beware that all existing clean URLs are lost.

You see the results of the action at the top of the screen.

Warning

If you generate clean URLs for all users from here, those who have already changed their URLs will lose their changes and links will be broken. We recommend you use this feature only when upgrading your Mahara site or when things have gone wrong with the clean URL generation.

11.8.5. SmartEvidence

For SmartEvidence, please refer to the separate section on it.

11.8.6. Web services

For web services, please see the separate section.

11.9. SmartEvidence

Administration menu → Extensions → SmartEvidence

Note

The SmartEvidence administration area is only accessible by site administrators.

The implementation of SmartEvidence is experimental. While the majority of the functionality works as intended there are a few areas that still need to be sorted out, .e.g. the export of the SmartEvidence map in both HTML and Leap2A.

SmartEvidence allows you to work with competency frameworks in Mahara and associate them automatically with an evidence map for a visualisation of the competencies already gained, in progress, and not yet started.

“Competencies” is used in a wide sense here. SmartEvidence can be used for multiple purposes including competency-based assessment, graduate attributes, skills accomplishment and many more. It can also be used for self-assessment purposes.

Note

The Annotations blocktype must be enabled on the site in order to use SmartEvidence.

11.9.1. Overview

Overview of the installed SmartEvidence frameworks

Click the Add framework button to upload a new SmartEvidence framework.

Name: Displays the name of the framework.

Used in collections: Shows how many times the framework has been used.

Self-assess: Indicates whether the framework allows self-assessment or not.

Active A green checkmark indicates when a framework can be used by people on the site.

Click the Delete button if you want to remove a framework. You can only remove frameworks that are not in use.

Note

Mahara comes with three competency frameworks pre-installed to make testing easier. You can delete them if you do not want your users to work with them.

Click the Manage button to change settings for a framework.

11.9.2. SmartEvidence framework settings

In the SmartEvidence framework settings you can decide whether a framework is active and which assessment statuses you want to display.

Settings for a SmartEvidence framework

Click the Manage button to change settings for a framework.

Active framework: Switch to “Yes” if you want to allow people to use the framework. If a framework is inactive, but people had already started on it, they can continue and finish it. People who had not yet selected the framework are not able to see it though.

Note

Switching a framework to be inactive is useful if a new version of the framework is issued and those who haven’t already started under the old framework should use the new one.

Ready for assessment: Decide whether you want to display a number in the Smartevidence matrix of how many pages have been added to the “Ready for assessment” status.

Doesn’t meet the standard: Switch to “Yes” if you want to see a summary of all “Doesn’t meet the standard” assessments in an overview.

Partially meets the standard: Switch to “Yes” if you want to see a summary of all “Partcially meets the standard” assessments in an overview.

Meets the standard: You cannot change this switch. A summary of all achieved standards is always displayed.

Click the Save button to save your changes or click Cancel to revert them.

Note

If your assessment statuses use different language, then that is reflected in the choices.

Filled-in SmartEvidence matrix showing all status summaries

11.9.3. Download framework files

The easiest to get started with a SmartEvidence framework is to download an existing one [https://seafile.catalyst.net.nz/d/c5a4876b06]. You can then make any number of changes.

Note

If you created your own SmartEvidence framework files that you want to share with the community, please send them to us for review and inclusion in the downloadable ones.

11.9.4. Create a framework file

You can use any text editor to create and edit your SmartEvidence framework files. If you have an edit that supports syntaxhighlighting for JSON files, you have an advantage as you can differentiate text that you can change from prompts that Mahara needs to interpret the file more easily.

You can also use a JSON editor, e.g. JSON Editor Online [http://jsoneditoronline.org/] or JSONedit [https://mb21.github.io/JSONedit/]. These make it easy for you to edit the file because you can view it without much of the JSON syntax that is required.

Note

It is best to start your framework file with the help of one of the samples [https://seafile.catalyst.net.nz/d/c5a4876b06/] as you then know the structure and have all relevant elements in the file.

11.9.4.1. Start of the file

A framework file contains a number of parameters at the beginning that allow you to customise the framework to your needs.

The start of a matrix file

institution: The shortname of the institution in which the framework should be used is entered here. If the framework is for all institutions, all is placed here.

Note

The institution shortname can be seen by hovering over the institution name on the Institution overview page and looking at the end of the URL. The last parameter is the institution shortname.

name: The title of the framework as it should be shown to the users.

description: The description of the framework is displayed on the SmartEvidence page in a collection. It can contain basic HTML code.

If the HTML code in the description field requires the use of quotation marks, these need to be escaped. Otherwise, they would be interpreted as commands. The escaping is done easily by placing a backslash right in front of the quotation mark: \".

selfassess: Determine whether users can self-assess their competencies or whether the competencies can only be assessed by somebody else. The following two values are allowed:

true: Users can self-assess.

false: Users cannot perform self-assessment.

evidencestatuses: Currently, there are four evidence statuses that can be used in an evidence map: begun, incomplete, partialcomplete, and completed. You can decide what words are used for these statuses in the framework that you set up. This allows you to easily set up frameworks in different languages for example.

standards: The rest of the document holds the standards and sub-standards.

Note

Be careful when changing a matrix file and make sure not to remove any commas, quotation marks, brackets, curly braces or any other marks in sections that you use. They are required for the correct interpretation of the file.

You can check if your file contains all necessary syntax by pasting it into the JSON Formatter and Validator [https://jsonformatter.curiousconcept.com/] for example. If there are any issues and JSON cannot interpret your file, the validator specifies the places where the errors occur so you can track them down more easily and fix.

11.9.4.2. Standards section

You can define the standards after the initial information. They provide the heading level on the SmartEvidence overview page.

The standards in a matrix file

standards: Introduction of this section. You can define as many standards as you want. There is no limit.

shortname: Each standard needs a shortname, e.g. a number or a summary of the full title. The shortname is mandatory and a maximum of 100 characters long.

name: Title of the standard. It is mandatory and a maximum of 255 characters long.

description: The description is optional and is displayed when you hover over the name of the standard (touch-click on mobile).

standardid: Give each standard a natural number so they can be placed in the correct order and referred back to from the standard elements.

Do not place a comma after the closing curly brace of the last standard.

11.9.4.3. Standard elements section

Define all the standard elements, i.e. the individual sub-standards after the standards. They are the ones to which you can add evidence.

Note

Place all sub levels immediately after the higher level standard element so that the mapping is happening correctly.

The standard elements in a matrix file

standardelements: Introduction of this section. There is no limit on how many standard elements you can define.

shortname: The shortname is displayed on the SmartEvidence overview page. It is mandatory and a maximum of 100 characters long.

name: Title of the standard element. It is mandatory and a maximum of 255 characters long.

description: The description is optional and is displayed when you hover over the name of the standard (touch-click on mobile).

standardid: Provide the ID of the standard to which you want to associate a particular standard element.

elementid: Give your standard element an ID so you can refer to it when you have another sub level. The ID needs to be placed between quotation marks.

parentelementid: Provide the elementid of the parent standard element if the standard element that you set up is on a level lower. The ID needs to be placed between quotation marks.

Note

When a standard element has a lower level, it cannot be associated with evidence itself, but only the standard elements on the lower level.

11.9.4.4. The end of the file

When you defined all your standards and standard elements, you can end the file.

The end of a matrix file

Do not put a comma after the last curly brace of the last standard element.

Make sure to close all angular brackets and curly braces.

11.9.4.5. The result

Once you finished the file, you can upload it into Mahara and start using it.

The finished result once uploaded

Title of the framework

Description of the framework

A standard. It cannot have evidence associated, only its lower levels.

A standard element.

A standard element with further lower level elements. It cannot have evidence associated, only its lower level.

A third level of elements.

Note

You can have more than 3 levels in your competency framework. The readability decreases though with many levels.

11.9.5. Add a framework

You can upload a SmartEvidence framework by clicking the Add framework button.

Upload a .matrix file that contains a competency framework

Click the Browse button to choose the matrix file that contains the framework that you want to use.

Click the Upload matrix button to upload the file.

11.9.6. Work with a framework

See also

You can find more information on how to use a SmartEvidence framework in the portfolio section.

11.10. Web services

Administration menu → Web services

Note

Web services are only accessible by site administrators.

Web services allow you to connect your Mahara site with other applications that have web services / APIs as well. It might require some configuration or the development of specific web services functions to accomplish the integration you are looking for. The Mahara web services are a framework that makes it possible to develop additional APIs without having to do a great deal more than defining a function that exposes the required functionality, and the associated interface definition.

In order to use web services, your site must use a SSL certificate. When your site is not in production mode, you can test web services without SSL.

11.10.1. Configuration

Administration menu → Web services → Configuration

On this page you set up various web services rules and enable or disable them.

11.10.1.1. Enable web service functionality

You can enable web services globally and then configure protocols individually to suit your needs. Once a protocol is enabled, it can be used for all functions, users and tokens.

Switch web services and individual protocols on and off

Allow outgoing web service requests: If set to “Yes”, web services are available to be used on your site for outgoing calls.

Accept incoming web service requests: If set to “Yes”, web services are available to be used on your site for incoming calls, for example via Mahara Mobile.

SOAP: Allow this protocol if you want to be able to use the Simple Object Access Protocol.

XML-RPC: Set this to “Yes” if you want to make remote procedure calls to XML content. This protocol is used by MNet.

Note

As long as MNet is supported in Mahara, you can use that to configure your connection to Moodle.

REST: Allow the REpresentational State Transfer protocol by switching this setting to “Yes”. The REST interface also supports JSON authentication.

OAuth: If you want to use the OAuth (Open Authentication) protocol, switch this setting to “Yes”.

Note

If you disable web services, any activated individual protocols under “Protocol” are turned off and would need to be enabled manually again when you switch web services on again.

11.10.1.2. Networking certificates

In this section, the public key of your Mahara certicate that is created on Administration menu → Configure site → Networking is displayed for convenience.

11.10.1.3. Manage service groups

Service groups are the units of allocation of access to a user (simple authentication) or user tokens. They are a collection of functions. Mahara already comes with a series of service groups and functions that you can configure. More service groups can be added.

Overview of the available service groups and their basic settings

Service: The service group under which a number of related functions are grouped that you can enable or disable.

Component: The area through which a service group is available. It is generally “webservice”.

Enabled: If a service group is enabled, you see the Enabled icon . If it is not enabled, you see the Disabled icon .

Authorised users only: If the service group can be used by people who log in with a username and password, you see the Enabled icon . If it is not possible to use it as such a user, you see the Disabled icon .

User token access: You see the Enabled icon if access to the functions of this group requires a user token. If access via a user token is not allowed, you see the Disabled icon .

Functions: This is a list of functions that are associated with the service group.

Note

Clicking on one of the functions takes you to the web services documentation for this function. More information about the web service function is available there including a description of the functions API, input and output parameters, and error handling.

Click the Edit button to make changes to the service group as described below.

Click the Delete button to completely remove the service group.

Note

In many cases you may not want to delete the web service group entirely as you would need to re-create it and associate functions with it if you required it at a later stage. Disabling the group would often be sufficient.

If you want to create a new service group, add it in this field and click the Add button. You can then see your new group in the list of service groups and configure it by clicking the Edit button next to it.

When you selected the service group you want to edit, you see the following screen.

Edit the settings of a service group

Name: Name of the service group

Short name: This is a short name for the service that is required by applications that connect to Mahara in order to refer to this service.

Service: Set this switch to “Yes” if you want to use this service group. You can tweak the individual functions below.

Authorised users only: Set this switch to “Yes” if only people with a username and password should be affected by this service group.

User token access: Set this switch to “Yes” if you want users to have individual tokens in order to access certain functionalities.

Note

The user token access gives the enitre Mahara userbase the possibility to make use of the API. Therfore generally, it should be restricted to service groups that give access to user-focused functions like mahara_user_get_my_user for the current user’s own details.

The name of the function.

Enabled: This setting enables or disables the use of this function.

Class name: The name of the class that is part of the function.

Method name: The name of the method that is being called. The link takes you to the web services documentation for that method.

Click the Save button when you are finished making your changes, or click Back if you want to cancel the changes.

11.10.1.4. Manage service access tokens

You can generate access tokens for individual users and associate service groups to which that user shall have access.

Overview of the access tokens

Token: The token that was generated for a particular user.

Institution: Lists the institution in which the user is a member.

User: The username is displayed and linked to the user’s settings page in the administration.

Service: The service group for which the token was generated.

Enabled: If this service group is enabled, you see the Enabled icon . If it is not enabled, you see the Disabled icon .

Web services security: If web services security is enabled, you see the Enabled icon . Otherwise, you see the Disabled icon .

Functions: This is a list of all the functions that the token has access to for the selected service.

Click the Edit button to make changes to the settings.

Click the Delete button to remove the token.

Username: Type a username of a user for whom you wish to add a token. You can either start typing the name or the username of a person registered on your site. You will receive suggestions for names as you type.

Click the Generate token button for a new access token to be created for that user. You are taken to a screen where you can associate a service group to this token (see below). You can only enter one username.

When you create a token for a user, you need to provide some additional information.

Configure a service access token

Verify that you are editing the correct token.

Institution: Select the institution of the user.

Username: Verify that you have the correct username for which you want to set up a token. The username is linked to the user’s settings page in the administration.

Service: Choose the service group from the drop-down list for which you want to enable the token. Only services that allow user token access can be chosen.

Enabled: The token is automatically enabled when the service group is enabled.

Note

If you want to disable a service group, please do so in the section Manage service groups.

Authorised users only: This switch is not used in this context because here you create a token. That’s why it is disabled.

Functions: A list of functions that the token has access to.

Note

When you change the service, the list of functions is not automatically updated. You only see the updated list when you save the page.

Enable web services security (XML-RPC only): This feature is only available for XML-RPC based authentication.

Public key: Enter the public key for added web service security (only for XML-RPC based authentication).

Public key expires: Date on which the public key that you entered expires. The date is only updated once you save the form.

Click the Save button when you are finished making your changes, or click Back if you want to cancel the changes.

11.10.1.5. Manage service users

If you do not wish to use a token for your users, but give them access to functions via their usernames, you should choose this option. Users must:

only be configured once.

have the “webservice” authentication method in an institution in which they are a member.

Note

Users with the authentication method “webservice” can only access Mahara via web services and cannot use the standard login form.

Manage service users overview section

User: The username is displayed of the user for whom you configured a service group. It is linked to the user’s account settings page in the administration.

Institution: Lists the institution in which the user is a member.

Service: The service group that is associated with the user.

Enabled: If this service group is enabled, you see the Enabled icon . If it is not enabled, you see the Disabled icon .

Web services security: If web services security is enabled, you see the Enabled icon . Otherwise, you see the Disabled icon .

Functions: This is a list of all the functions that the user has access to for the selected service.

Click the Edit button to make changes to the settings.

Click the Delete button to remove the user from the access to the associated service group.

Username: Type a username of a user for whom you wish to manage the services. You can either start typing the name or the username of a person registered on your site. You will receive suggestions for names as you type. The user must have web services as authentication method.

Click the Generate token button for a new access token to be created for that user. You are taken to a screen where you can associate a service group to this token (see below). You can only enter one username.

When you add a user, you need to provide some additional information.

Associate a user with a specific service group

Service owner: The username is displayed. It must match the username below.

Institution: Verify that the institution of the user is correct. If it is not, you can change the institution on the user’s account settings page.

Username: Verify that you have the correct username for which you want to set up a token.

Service: Choose the service group from the drop-down menu to which you want to give the user access. Only services that allow access via a username can be chosen.

Enabled: The settings are automatically enabled when the service group is enabled.

Note

If you want to disable a service group, please do so in the section Manage service groups.

Authorised users only: This switch is set to “Yes” automatically when the service group is configured to allow access via a username.

Functions: A list of functions that the user has access to.

Note

When you change the service, the list of functions is not automatically updated. You only see the updated list when you save the page.

Enable web services security (XML-RPC only): This feature is only available for XML-RPC based authentication.

Public key: Enter the public key for added web service security (only for XML-RPC based authentication).

Public key expires: Date on which the public key that you entered expires. The date is only updated once you save the form.

Click the Save button when you are finished making your changes, or click Back if you want to cancel the changes.

11.10.2. Application connections

Administration menu → Web services → Application connections

This is an overview page of all the connections that you have allowed either via personal user tokens or OAuth access tokens.

Overview of the application connections

The section Personal user tokens displays all the tokens that you have generated for individual users and whether they have been accessed or not amongst others.

Service access: This column displays the service group for which you created a token.

Enabled: If the service group is enabled, you see the Enabled icon . If it is not enabled, you see the Disabled icon .

Client app: Display how the access token was generated.

Token: The token is displayed here.

Functions: The functions that are part of the service group are listed and linked. The links go to the web services documentation for the function that you selected.

Last access: List the date and time of the last use of the token.

Expires: Show the expiry date of the token.

Click the Generate button to generate a new random token.

Click the Delete button to delete the token. The user group and functions are still available. You can then click the Generate button to create a new token.

Note

The Delete button is only available when a token was generated.

In the OAuth access tokens section you see any tokens generated to be used with OAuth.

11.10.3. Connection manager

Administration menu → Web services → Connection manager

The connection manager facilitates the use of web services by making the setup of connections easier.

For more information, see the wiki [https://wiki.mahara.org/index.php/Developer_Area/Specifications_in_Development/MNet_replacement/Connection_manager] (original idea) and the feature request item [https://bugs.launchpad.net/mahara/+bug/1393536].

Overview for the connection manager

11.10.4. Registration of external apps

Administration menu → Web services → External apps

You can use this page to register external applications that are connected via OAuth. An example is LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability). You can enable external tools for institutions and specific service definitions, for which a consumer key and secret will be generated automatically.

Register an external application

Application: Lists the applications that are connected via OAuth.

Owner: User who has set up the OAuth service.

Consumer key: The consumer key for the OAuth service.

Consumer secret: The consumer secret for the OAuth service.

Enabled: If the application is enabled, you see the Enabled icon . If it is not enabled, you see the Disabled icon .

Institution: The institution for which the external app has been set up.

Click the Edit button to make changes to the settings.

Click the Delete button to remove the application so it cannot connect anymore to Mahara via OAuth.

Click the Manage button to decide on more settings where available.

Application: Give your application that you want to add a name.

Choose which institution shall have access to your chosen application via OAuth.

Choose the service group that you want to associate with this application.

Click the Add button to create the OAuth authentication for the seleced service. You are taken to a screen where you can configure your application (see below).

When you want an application to connect via OAuth to Mahara, you need to provide some more information.

Configure an OAuth service

Server key: The consumer key for the OAuth service.

Consumer secret: The consumer secret for the OAuth service.

Application title: Give your application that you want to add a name.

Service owner: User who has set up the OAuth service.

Appliation URI: URI of the application.

Callback URI: The callback URI for the application.

Institution: Select the institution for which you want to set up OAuth.

Service: Select the service group that you want to set up for OAuth.

Enabled: The application is automatically enabled when OAuth is enabled.

Functions: A list of functions that the application has access to.

Note

When you change the service, the list of functions is not updated automatically. You only see the updated list when you save the page.

Click the Save button when you are finished making your changes, or click Back if you want to cancel the changes.

11.10.5. Web services logs

Administration menu → Web services → Web services logs

You can view the logs from the web services and narrow you search so you only see the relevant information.

Search the web services logs

User: Type the username of the person for whom you want to see the logs. You can only enter one username. You can either start typing the name or the username of a person registered on your site. You will receive suggestions for names as you type.

Protocol: Select the web services protocol that is associated with the user. You can only see the protocols that are enabled.

Auth type: Choose the type of authentication that you selected for the user. The options are:

All: Display the logs for any authentication type.

Token: Only display logs when the user has a user token.

User: Display the logs when the user uses the username for the web service.

OAuth: Select this option if you only want to see logs when the user logs in via OAuth.

Function: Search for the function that you are interested in.

Only errors: Switch to “Yes” if you only want to see log information that contains an error.

Click the Go button to start your search.

If there are any results for your search, you will see them in the Results area.

Results for the search of the web services logs

User: Display the username of the user for which there is a log entry.

Institution: Display the name of the institution in which the user is a member.

Protocol: Show the protocol that is associated with the user for the chosen context.

Authentication type: Show the authentication type that is associated with the user.

Function: Display the function for which there is a log entry.

Time taken: The time it took to fetch the log entry.

When: Display the date that the log entry was produced.

You can change the sort order for any column by clicking its column title.

Info: Error messages are displayed here.

11.10.6. Web services test client

Administration menu → Web services → Web services test client

The test client gives you the opportunity to test your settings. Please beware that the functions are executed on the system and not a separate test instance.

Web services test client

Note

When you start the configuration, you only see the protocol and the authentication type if you only have one protocol selected. The other fields are revealed once you made a decision on what to test.

Protocol: You only see the web services protocols that are currently enabled. If you see more than one, select the one that you want to test.

Authentication type: Select the authentication type that you would like to include in your test. Click the Next button to see the following option.

Service: Choose the service group that you want to test. Click the Next button to see the following option.

Functions: Select the function that you want to include in your test. Click the Next button to see the following option.

wstoken: Enter the web services token for the user that you want to test.

Note

If you selected “User” for the authentication type, you’ll also see a field wspassword that you can fill in.

Click the Execute button if you want to run the test, or click Cancel if you want to abort the test.

Once the test has run, the results of the test are displayed on the screen.

11.11. Experimental features

As site administrator you have three experimental features available to you:

bulk export of Leap2A files

bulk import of Leap2A files

usersuniquebyusername variable

You cannot access these features from any navigation, but you must type the URL directly in the case of the bulk options or set up a config.php variable.

Warning

The export and import of portfolios uses quite a lot of computing power. Therefore, these bulk options require even more memory. Please try them first out on a test installation or export / import only a small number of users instead of an entire institution at once.

11.11.1. Bulk export of Leap2A files

[your regular Mahara URL]/admin/users/bulkexport.php

If you need to export the portfolios of multiple users at once, you can do so from the bulk export page. Please remember that this is an experimental feature at the moment.

Experimental feature: Bulk export

Institution: Choose the institution from the drop-down menu for which you want to export all user portfolios in the Leap2A format.

Usernames to export: Alternatively, choose this option if you only wish to export some users’ portfolios. Each username must be on a separate line.

Click the Export users button to start the export process. This might take a while.

Note

You can look up the usernames on the user search page or if you exported a CSV file of users, you have the usernames in there as well.

11.11.2. Bulk import of Leap2A files

[your regular Mahara URL]/admin/users/bulkimport.php

If you need to import the portfolios of multiple users at once, you can do so from the bulk import page. Please remember that this is an experimental feature at the moment. You must have Leap2A files to import. The import of HTML files is not possible.

The easiest option to import user portfolios in bulk is to use the bulk export file as all information is contained therein. If that is not possible, you can create the necessary ZIP file manually.

11.11.2.1. Bulk import using a bulk export file

Experimental feature: Bulk import

Ideally, you have exported the users you wish to import using the bulk export functionality on the other Mahara instance. Then the bulk export file already contains all necessary files and mappings.

Note

Before importing these new user accounts, you can change the usernames for these new accounts in the usernames.csv file that is included in the bulk export file.

Institution: Choose the institution in which the users shall become members.

Bulk export file: Choose the bulk export ZIP file which contains all users that shall be created. A new user account will be created for each of them.

Email users about their account: Check this option if the new users shall receive an email about their new account. This is especially important if they do not know that their account has been moved or if you want to change their username. Don’t use this option if you want to use an external authentication method for their account. They would be emailed their internal Mahara account details but then not be able to use them.

Click the Import button to start the process. Please be patient as the import may take some time.

11.11.2.2. Bulk import from scratch

If you want to import user portfolios into one institution using their Leap2A files that you did not receive via the bulk export functionality, you can still import them in bulk.

Create a folder, e.g. mahara-bulk-import.

Create the CSV file usernames.csv in the folder mahara-bulk-import.

Create a line for each user that you are importing that contains the username and the name of the ZIP file that contains the corresponding Leap2A file.

Create the sub folder users in it. Do not choose a different name.

Place all Leap2A files that you wish to import into one institution into the users sub folder. Make sure that each ZIP file has a corresponding entry in usernames.csv.

Create a ZIP file from the folder mahara-bulk-import once you have all users in it.

Go to [your regular Mahara URL]/admin/users/bulkimport.php.

Institution: Choose the institution in which the users shall become members.

Bulk export file: Choose the bulk export ZIP file which contains all users that shall be created. A new user account will be created for each of them.

Email users about their account: Check this option if the new users shall receive an email about their new account. This is especially important if you change their username and if they do not know that their account has been moved.

Click the Import button to start the process. Please be patient as the import may take some time.

Note

The CSV file usernames.csv should look like this and does not have a header row:

"petra","mahara-export-leap-user4-1334451885.zip"

"polly","mahara-export-leap-user5-1334451888.zip"

11.11.3. usersuniquebyusername variable

usersuniquebyusername is a config.php setting that should be used with extreme caution as it could be misused.

Below is the documentation that can be found in the code. This feature is discussed for example in the discussion topics Mahara Moodle integration and bug? [https://mahara.org/interaction/forum/topic.php?id=1118] and SSO: Mahara to Moodle [https://mahara.org/interaction/forum/topic.php?id=2022].

Note

When turned on, this setting means that it does not matter which other application the user SSOs from, they will be given the same account in Mahara.

This setting is one that has security implications unless only turned on by people who know what they are doing. In particular, every system linked to Mahara should be making sure that same username == same person. This happens for example if two Moodles are using the same LDAP server for authentication.

If this setting is on, it must NOT be possible to self register on the site for ANY institution - otherwise users could simply pick usernames of people’s accounts they wished to steal. That is why you should not see the registration checkboxes in any institution if you have this feature turned on.

11.12. Config.php variables

Some site options cannot be set in the administration area but need to be updated directly on the server in the config.php file. In this section, you see the settings that are possible and why you might want to include them in your config.php file for your site.

Note

Some of the config parameters have an equivalent setting in the Administration area. If you set a value explicitely in your config.php file, it overwrites any value entered in the administration, and the field becomes unavailable for editing.

The config.php file sits in the /htdocs directory of your site. If you want to view all possible variables and their default values, you can find them in /htdocs/lib/config-defaults.php. You can overwrite any default values by placing the variable in your config.php file.

11.12.1. Anatomy of a config variable

A configuration variable needs to be written in the correct syntax in order to function. In Mahara, this is done the following way: $cfg->variable = value;.

A typical configuration variable

$cfg->: Stands for “configuration” and indicates that what follows is a configuration variable.

variable =: Here you see the variable that is to be set. Generally, it consists of one word, or words are joined together with underscores. The variable cannot contain any spaces.

value;: The value that the variable takes is displayed. The values can be different things, for example:

“true” or “false”

text

numbers

file path

Note

If you want to change the default behaviour of a variable in your instance of Mahara, copy it from the config-defaults.php file into your config.php file so it won’t get overwritten when you update the codebase. The config.php file is never changed by an update or upgrade of Mahara.

11.12.2. developermode: Enable or disable developer mode

$cfg->developermode = true; or $cfg->developermode = false;

When you enable developer mode, the following two changes are made automatically for your site:

debug.css will be included on each page. You can edit this file to add debugging CSS at your discretion.

Note

developermode=true is less powerful than the productionmode=false.

11.12.3. directorypermissions: Permissions to use in dataroot

$cfg->directorypermissions = 0700; (default)

You can set what permissions are used for files and directories in the Mahara dataroot. The default allows only the web server user to read the data. If you are on shared hosting and might want to download the contents of your dataroot later, e.g. for backup purposes, set this to 0755. Otherwise, leave it as is.

11.12.4. insecuredataroot: Share the same dataroot with another Mahara

$cfg->insecuredataroot = false; (default) or $cfg->insecuredataroot = true;

You can enforce checking that files that are served have come from dataroot. You would only want to turn this on if you were running more than one Mahara against the same dataroot. If you are doing that, make sure you create separate dataroots for each installation, but symlink the artefact directory from all of them to one of them, and turn on “insecuredataroot” on all the ones for which you created symlinks.

11.12.5. noreplyaddress: System email address

$cfg->noreplyaddress = 'noreply@yourdomainhere';

Set the system mail address. Notifications are sent from this address (except for a few emails when a person doesn’t yet have an account). You can also set it in Administration menu → Configure site → Site options → Email settings.

Typically, the noreply address is one that is not monitored as people are not supposed to reply to it.

11.12.6. log targets: Destination for log information

Typical production environment:

$cfg->log_dbg_targets     = LOG_TARGET_ERRORLOG;

$cfg->log_info_targets    = LOG_TARGET_ERRORLOG;

$cfg->log_warn_targets    = LOG_TARGET_ERRORLOG;

Typical non-production environment:

$cfg->log_dbg_targets     = LOG_TARGET_SCREEN | LOG_TARGET_ERRORLOG;

$cfg->log_info_targets    = LOG_TARGET_SCREEN | LOG_TARGET_ERRORLOG;

$cfg->log_warn_targets    = LOG_TARGET_SCREEN | LOG_TARGET_ERRORLOG;

$cfg->log_environ_targets = LOG_TARGET_SCREEN | LOG_TARGET_ERRORLOG;

There are 4 different types of log messages that you can log to an error log and / or display on screen:

dbg: Debugging messages

info: Informational messages

warn: Warning messages

environ: Environment errors

You can log the different messages to different destinations:

LOG_TARGET_SCREEN: Display error messages on the screen. This is useful during testing and when debugging, but should not be used on a live site.

LOG_TARGET_ADMIN: Show error messages on the screen, but only when you are in the Administration area.

LOG_TARGET_ERRORLOG: Send log information to the error log as specified in your Apache configuration. It is recommended to use this setting for all log levels no matter the other targets that you specified.

LOG_TARGET_FILE: This allows you to specify a file to which messages will be logged. It’s best to pick a path in dataroot, but note that log files tend to get very large over time. So it’s advisable to implement some kind of logrotate if you want to leave this on all the time. The other option is to just turn this option on when you are getting a specific error or want to see the logging, and know that you’re not going to let the log file get large.

You can combine the targets with bitwise operations, e.g. LOG_TARGET_SCREEN | LOG_TARGET_ERRORLOG.

11.12.7. log_file: File containing error messages

$cfg->log_file = '/path/to/dataroot/error.log';

If you use LOG_TARGET_FILE, this is the file to which errors will be logged. By default, it will write to the file error.log under the dataroot. If you change this in config.php, make sure you use a folder which is writable by the web server.

11.12.8. log_backtrace_levels: Log backtraces

For example: $cfg->log_backtrace_levels = LOG_LEVEL_WARN | LOG_LEVEL_ENVIRON; (default)

The log levels that will generate backtraces. Useful for development, but probably only warnings are useful on a live site.

11.12.9. log_backtrace_print_args: Log backtraces

$cfg->log_backtrace_print_args = null; (default)

Print the values of function and method arguments when printing a backtrace. This can be useful for debugging, but it is a security risk because function parameters may include sensitive data such as passwords and private keys. Though arguments whose names suggest that they contain passwords, will still be blanked out even if this feature is enabled.

A null value here tells Mahara to hide argument values when $cfg->productionmode is enabled, and to show them otherwise. A true or false tells Mahara to always show or hide argument values in backtraces regardless of the value of $cfg->productionmode.

11.12.10. error_reporting: Error reporting

$cfg->error_reporting = E_ALL & ~E_STRICT; (default)

This parameter indicates what level of errors to print to the Mahara logs. It gets passed directly to the PHP function error_reporting().

Note

There are some limitations in this method because it doesn’t get called until several scripts have already been compiled: init.php, config.php, config-defaults.php, errors.php, and the file directly invoked in the URL. So, compile-time errors in those files, which includes most strict errors, will be unaffected by this setting.

11.12.11. openbadgedisplayer_source: Open Badges displayer sources

$cfg->openbadgedisplayer_source = '{"shortname":"url","shortname":"url"}';

In order to display Open Badges in the “Open Badges” block, the sites that host the badges need to be configured. Per default, the Mozilla Backpack [https://backpack.openbadges.org/] and the Open Badge Passport [https://openbadgepassport.com] can be connected to. If you have other sources, you would need to add them to the allowed sources.

11.12.12. passwordsaltmain: Set a site-wide password salt

$cfg->passwordsaltmain = 'your secret phrase here';

A password salt helps “hash” passwords more securely in the database to make hacking them more difficult. Using a phrase is a good start. Passwords are already not displayed in plain text in the database, they are hashed. The salt helps randomise that even more.

If you don’t have a password salt set, you see a warning on the “Admin home” page.

11.12.13. pathtoclam: Path to virus scanner ClamAV

$cfg->pathtoclam = '/path/to/your/clamscan';

If you are running the antivirus engine ClamAV [https://www.clamav.net/] on your server and don’t scan for viruses on the system level, you can let Mahara know where to find it so files that are uploaded are scanned. For security reasons, the path to ClamAV on your server needs to be provided in the config.php file.

You can see the path that has been set in the “Security settings”.

11.12.14. probationenabled: Give users probation status

$cfg->probationenabled = true; or $cfg->probationenabled = false;

If $cfg->probationenabled = true;, you should set $cfg->probationstartingpoints = 2; as well.

You can set a spam probation level for your users to prevent self-registered users from posting spam especially on a public site. Use the following two variables to do that:

$cfg->probationenabled = true;: This setting decides whether users can be put on probation.

$cfg->probationstartingpoints = 2;: This setting determines how many probation points a newly self-registered user has per default. In this example, users would get two probation points that they need to get rid off before all functionality is available to them.

You can change the probation points individually on the user’s account settings page displayed by clicking on a person’s username in Administration menu → User → User search.

When you enable probation, people who leave comments on a page or artefact and are not logged in, cannot post URLs either.

11.12.15. productionmode: Enable or disable production mode

$cfg->productionmode = true; or $cfg->productionmode = false;

If production mode is disabled, a message is displayed at the top of the screen alerting to that effect.

Info message when site is not in prodution mode

A number of parameters are overridden with sensible defaults for a testing or development site. For the current list of parameters, please see init.php. These settings include:

Print debug, information and warning messages as well as environment targets to the screen and the error log. This helps to see error messages quickly as they appear directly on the screen.

Turn on developer mode.

Disable cache.

Note

Paradoxically, you will need to set productionmode=true if you want to fine-tune your settings on a test / development site because productionmode=false overrides a lot of settings with sensible developer mode defaults.

11.12.16. remoteavatarbaseurl: Remote avatar server URL

$cfg->remoteavatarbaseurl = 'https://example.com/avatar/';

Profile pictures of your users can be pulled from an avatar service such as Gravatar. If you run your own service. e.g. Libravatar [https://www.libravatar.org/], you can point Mahara directly to it with this configuration variable.

You decide in the “User settings” whether remote avatars can be displayed or not.

11.12.17. renamecopies: Rename copied pages and collections

$cfg->renamecopies = true; or $cfg->renamecopies = false;

The site administrator can decide to add “Copy of…” for copied pages and collections. If $cfg->renamecopies = true;, copies of new pages and collections will have “Copy of” prepended to their titles. The default setting is $cfg->renamecopies = false;.

11.12.18. sendemail: Send all emails to one address

$cfg->sendemail = true; or $cfg->sendemail = false;

Decide whether you want to send emails from your instance of Mahara. If set to false, Mahara will not send any emails. This is useful when setting up a non-production instance of Mahara with real data where you don’t want to accidentally send email to users from this particular Mahara instance.

11.12.19. sendallemailto: Send all emails to one address

$cfg->sendallemailto = 'you@yourdomain';

You can use this setting to have all emails from this instance of Mahara sent to one particular email address instead of their real recipients. Leave $cfg->sendemail = true; if you want to use this setting.

This setting is handy for test instances when you want to replicate an issue or test a new feature with real data, but do not want the users to receive notifications accidentally.

11.12.20. sessionhandler: Select the session handler

$cfg->sessionhandler = 'file'; or $cfg->sessionhandler = 'memcached'; or $cfg->sessionhandler = 'redis';

Mahara supports three different session handlers:

file storage

Memcached

Redis

Memcached and Redis are recommended for large sites as data is accessed more quickly. Redis is beneficial in a cluster environment.

Both Memcached and Redis require a few more configuration variables to be set. Please review /htdocs/lib/config-defaults.php for more information.

11.12.21. showloginsideblock: Show or hide the login sideblock

$cfg->showloginsideblock = true; or $cfg->showloginsideblock = false;

You can hide the login form by adding the value $cfg->showloginsideblock = false; to your config.php file. Once you have done that, only a link to the login form is displayed for an administrator or other users with internal Mahara accounts to log into the site.

Link to the login form

This is useful if you have single sign-on set up and automatically log in to Mahara via another site.

Per default, the value is set to “true” so that the login sideblock is displayed.

11.12.22. sitethemeprefs: Choose your browse theme from any theme

$cfg->sitethemeprefs = true; or $cfg->sitethemeprefs = false;

If the site administrator allowed it, you can choose any theme that is available to you as your browse theme on your “Account settings” page. In that case, you are not restricted to only use your institution theme or if you are a member of multiple institutions choose between them.

11.12.23. skins: Skins

$cfg->skins = true; or $cfg->skins = false;

You can allow your users to personalise their portfolio pages beyond choosing a theme. This is done via skins in Mahara. Skins can be created on the site level or by individuals. Institutions can allow or deny the use of skins for their users.

11.12.24. urlsecret: Run the cron or upgrade only when you are authorised

$cfg->urlsecret = 'somesecret';

Without this configuration variable, anybody can run the cron job (scheduled tasks) on your site or an upgrade potentially causing problems.

Place this variable into your config.php file to overwrite the default value. Choose your own secret phrase (enclose it with single quotation marks) that only select few people know who are allowed to run the cron or an upgrade.

Whenever you want to run the cron or perform an upgrade, you need to add your secret word at the end of the URL. The URLs for the cron and the upgrade look like this then (replace “somesecret” with your own secret word):

cron: /lib/cron.php?urlsecret=somesecret

upgrade: /admin/upgrade.php?urlsecret=somesecret

Note

When you have a developer instance or a test server that is behind a firewall, you may not want to add the urlsecret every time, especially when you are the only one who has access to those sites. You could put $cfg->urlsecret = null; into the config.php files for these sites and circumvent the requirement of entering a secret phrase. However, you should not use that on a production site or any other site that is accessible to many people.

11.12.25. usersuniquebyusername: The internal Mahara username prevails when connecting external authentication methods

$cfg->usersuniquebyusername = true; or $cfg->usersuniquebyusername = false;

This is an experimental feature. When turned on, this setting means that it does not matter which other application the user SSOs from, they will be given the same account in Mahara as the internal username is matched and the remote username ignored.

11.13. Command-line interfaces (CLI)

Command-line interfaces (CLI) allow advanced users to interact with Mahara through the command line or terminal rather than through a graphical interface. That can speed up certain actions or make them easier to execute.

Note

You can view help information on the individual commands that are available for each script:

sudo -u www-data php htdocs/admin/cli/[file name of the script].php -h

11.13.1. new in Mahara 18.10 Delete certain groups in bulk

If you have a large site and deleted a lot of users, you may also wish to clean up old groups in an efficient way. You can do the following with the bulk group deletion script:

delete all groups that have no members, e.g. after users were deleted;

and delete all groups that have only site administrators as members;

and / or delete only groups associated with a certain institution.

Execute the script with the following command. A dry run is made by default so that no data is deleted by accident.

sudo -u www-data php htdocs/admin/cli/delete_inactive_groups.php

11.13.2. new in Mahara 18.10 Delete certain users in bulk

If you want to delete users in bulk from the site without needing to go to the administration screen, especially if you have more than 500 users to delete, you can use CLI. This script allows you to do the following:

delete all users that have never logged in, i.e. that were created manually, via CSV file, or an automated process;

and / or delete all users that have not logged in since a certain date;

and / or delete only those users from a specific institution;

delete users that are members of a specific group.

Execute the script with the following command. A dry run is made by default so that no data is deleted by accident.

sudo -u www-data php htdocs/admin/cli/delete_inactive_users.php

11.13.3. Index sites running Elasticsearch faster

Note

Prerequisite: Elasticsearch is installed and set up to run on the site.

When a large site is indexed or re-indexed so that Elasticsearch can display results, this process can take a very long time because the indexing happens on cron runs. If the batch that was indexed finished before the end of the cron though, there is a lag between the next batch starting up again. The fast_index CLI script starts the next batch indexing right after the previous one finished.

You run the script with the following command:

sudo -u www-data php admin/cli/fast_index.php

11.13.4. Install and update language packs

Typically, if you want to update a language pack, you need to download the entire language pack manually and place it into the appropriate folder. This is cumbersome, especially when you want to update the language packs during minor point updates.

Using CLI, you can speed up the process.

Install or update language packs for your instance of Mahara by listing the language codes.

Example (de = German, fr = French):

sudo -u www-data php admin/cli/sync_langpacks.php -l=de,fr

This will make a backup of the existing languages if they exist into the dataroot’s langpacks_backup directory.

Note

The language codes that are used are the official international ones used for the Mahara language packs [https://langpacks.mahara.org/].

Don’t make backups: Add the -b=false flag

Example:

sudo -u www-data php admin/cli/sync_langpacks.php -l=de,fr -b=false

Restore a backup: Use the -r=true flag

Example:

sudo -u www-data php admin/cli/sync_langpacks.php -l=de,fr -r=true

This will ignore trying to update the English language as that is set within Mahara itself.

11.14. Style guide

[your regular Mahara URL]/theme/styleguide.php

The style guide is a reference guide for developers. It describes the components that are used in Mahara and provides their CSS markup so you can check easily if you have styled everything consistently with the rest of the environment.

If you want to check what the individual components look like in a different theme, simply switch the site theme and refresh the style guide.

Note

Currently, the style guide is only available in English, and more elements will be added with time.

The style guide

Navigation to reach the various different component groups within Mahara easily.

Title and short description of the component.

What the component looks like.

The code that is needed to produce the component.

Note

This often has to be adjusted somewhat to account for different text on a button or different options. This is the code of the example.

Click the Copy button to copy the code to the clipboard.

12. Staff access

Institution staff members enjoy a number of additional rights to regular members, for example:

creation of controlled groups

viewing of the real names of users

access to the User search page in the administration

viewing of the access list of user’s pages if allowed

Institution staff members have an additional navigation item: Institution information.

Main navigation for staff members

12.1. User search

Administration menu → Users → User search

Note

Staff members have the majority of the functionality available on this page as institution administrators.

When you are on the User search page, you can view all members of your institution or just a select few. You only see the following options if you have the permission to access user reports.

Note

Staff members cannot manipulate user account information or access user pages to which they have not received direct access from the user. The reports page only lists the pages, but does not give default access.

User search page as viewed by a staff member

Click the All button to select all users and click the None button to deselect all users.

You can also tick the checkbox for an individual user to select them.

Click the Get reports for selected users button to

view user reports

download user account information for further actions

view information on masquerading sessions if that feature is turned on

Note

For more information on what you can see in this action, please refer to the section “People reports”.

12.2. Reports

Administration menu → Reports

The functionality available to staff members is similar to the one for institution administrators in the “Reports” section if the site administrator allowed staff members to view reports.

13. External apps via LTI

You can use web services and authentication methods to connect other applications to Mahara. Depending on the type of integration you are seeking, you may be able to simply set the connection up in Mahara itself. In other cases, some development work may be needed.

Learning Tools Interoperability [http://www.imsglobal.org/activity/learning-tools-interoperability] (LTI) allows learning applications like learning management systems (LMS) to talk to each other and exchange information in a standard way making it possible to easily connect the systems without extensive configuration each time.

At the moment Mahara supports LTI for authentication purposes.

The following describe how you can connect Mahara to some learning management systems via LTI.

13.1. Setup on Mahara

In order to use LTI for authentication purposes, you need to complete the setup on Mahara as well as on the LMS.

Instructions are provided for Canvas and Moodle later one. If you use a different LMS, please check that documentation on how to set up an LTI connection.

13.1.1. Enable LTI for the site

You need to ensure that LTI is enabled for your Mahra site. You do that by activating it in the Plugin administration.

The LTI plugin is enabled

The LTI plugin is enabled when there are no warning signs on the plugin page and the text at the top reads “The LTI API is enabled”.

13.1.2. Enable LTI for an institution

You can enable LTI for an institution as site administrator. Institution administrators cannot set up LTI for their own institution.

Enable LTI for an institution

Go to Administration menu → Web services → External apps.

Application: Give your application that you want to connect a name. This is an identifier that only you need to understand.

Choose the institution in which you want to set up the application.

Select “LTI integration” from the drop-down menu.

Click the Add button to generate the consumer key and secret.

Note

If your institution does not already have the “Web services” authentication method, it will be added automatically.

Click the Manage button if you want to see more options and make a decision on them.

Note

At the moment, you can only choose to have users created automatically when they log in via LTI for the first time. Setting the switch to “Yes” is typically a good thing because then any user from your LMS can go into Mahara directly without having to have an account set up beforehand.

See further down for information on using LTI with another authentication method.

13.2. Use LTI with a second authentication method

You can allow your users to log in via LTI and another authentication method within the same institution. There are two possible ways:

Users log in via Mahara first and only then via LTI.

Users log in via LTI first and then via Mahara.

The first case, users log in via Mahara initially, is the easier one as you don’t have to adjust their account settings manually. If users log in via LTI first, their authentication method needs to be adjusted so that they don’t end up with two accounts.

Technically, you can use any authentication method that you have available in Mahara as second authentication method for LTI, including MNet. However, since MNet doesn’t allow you to log in via the Mahara homepage and LTI is a replacement for MNet, this authentication method is not mentioned as one to be connected.

You can set the SAML authentication method as parent authentication method to LTI. That allows people to log in via SAML or LTI and be put into the same account.

Note

This is currently only possible for SAML authentication but not for LDAP / Active Directory or a third-party authentication method.

Set a parent authentication method for LTI

Click the Manage button next to the LTI app on Administration menu → Web services → External apps.

Institution: The institution for which you created the LTI app is listed.

Auto-create users: Flip the switch to “Yes” if you want to allow anybody who has access to the LTI link to create an account automatically.

Parent authority: Select the authentication method that should be the parent to LTI thus allowing people to log in directly via both and be in the same account.

Note

You can use SAML or new in Mahara 18.10 LDAP as parent authentication methods for LTI.

13.2.1. Log in via Mahara and then LTI

Your users can log in via Mahara and the LMS.

Ensure that the authentication method that your users shall use is set up for your institution.

Make sure that you have web services set up as authentication method as well for your institution.

Set up the consumer secret and key for the LTI integration as described under “Enable LTI for an institution”

Complete the setup of the integration on your LMS of choice.

Ask your users to log into Mahara first, set up their accounts manually or via a CSV file, synchronize their accounts via LDAP, or have accounts auto-created by SAML on first login.

As a user:

Log in on the Mahara homepage.

Your account is set up if it doesn’t already exist.

Go to your LMS.

Click the link that takes you into your portfolio. You can often find that link in the course in which you are asked to create a portfolio or on your profile page in your LMS.

You get access to the same account that you had already set up on Mahara.

13.2.2. Log in via LTI and then Mahara

If you want your users to log in via LTI first and then Mahara, you need to change the authentication method of the users to make the second authentication method, i.e. internal, LDAP, SAML or IMAP, the primary one. If you don’t do that, a second account will be created.

The following describes the work flow and includes the steps that you need to take in order to allow a user to log in via both authentication methods if they logged in via LTI first.

Ensure that the authentication method that your users shall use is set up for your institution.

Make sure that you have web services set up as authentication method as well for your institution.

Set up the consumer secret and key for the LTI integration as described under “Enable LTI for an institution”

Complete the setup of the integration on your LMS of choice.

Your users go to the LMS and click the link to the portfolio, which creates an account for them.

Warning

If you leave things here and don’t continue with the next steps, and your users log in via the Mahara homepage, they will have a second account created.

Change the authentication method of the user to the non-LTI one. In the case of single sign-on via the SAML plugin, you will also need to provide a remote username.

See also

You can learn how to change the authentication method for internal and LDAP accounts and for accounts that require a remote username.

13.3. Setup in Canvas

You can set up the LTI connection to Mahara either for all your courses in Canvas or for a single course.

The advantage of setting up the connection for your entire instance of Canvas is that your teachers do not have to set up the connection themselves and everybody connects to the same instance of Mahara and to the same institution.

If you want to ive more control to what institution in Mahara your learners shall connect, you can set up the LTI connection on the course level.

You can choose to set up the connection via the Edu App Center or via manual configuration. The manual configuration allows you to open Mahara in its own window rather than within Canvas.

13.3.1. Setup via the Edu App Center

When you set up Mahara via the Edu App Center, your Mahara instance is opened as iframe within Canvas reducing the space you have available to view Mahara. You will always see the Canvas navigation around it as well.

Warning

For security reasons, Mahara prevents being embedded as iframe in another website. If you want to use the Edu App Center and not set up Mahara manually (just slightly longer setup time), you will need to disable a security feature on Mahara, which is not recommended. You can do so by adding $cfg->sameoriginframes = false; to your config.php.

See also

If you want to have Mahara opened in a separate window, you can follow the setup instructions for that.

Choose Mahara from the Edu App Center

Click Settings in your Canvas site or course.

Note

If you choose to put the link in your site, all courses will have the link in their navigation. If you decide to put the link only into your course, only your course participants will be able to access Mahara.

Click the Apps tab. You have access to the Edu App Center.

Search for “mahara” in the search field.

Click the Mahara app that is presented to you. You are taken to a screen that shows you more information about the app itself.

Click the Add App button to start the configuration.

In order to add the connection to Mahara, you need to have set up Canvas as external tool in Mahara for your institution because you require the consumer key and consumer secret.

Configure Mahara via the Edu App Center

Name: You can decide what you want to call the app. The name you choose here will be the one displayed in your course navigation.

Consumer Key: Paste the consumer key from Mahara for the LTI connection that you set up earlier.

Shared Secret: Paste the consumer secret from Mahara for the LTI connection that you set up earlier.

Launch URL: Paste the URL of your Mahara instance.

Click the Add App button to finish the setup.

Click the Close button or the Close icon to abort the setup.

The app appears in your course navigation when you refresh the page.

Click the app to be authenticated in your Mahara instance.

Note

If you already have an account in the institution in Mahara with the email address you use in Canvas, you are taken to that account.

If your email address does not yet exist in Mahara and you allowed for automatic account creation, an account will be set up for you.

If your email address exists in Mahara but you are not a member of the institution for which you set up the Canvas integration, you receive an error message and will need to become a member of that institution before you can log in via Canvas.

13.3.2. Manual setup

The manual setup of the connection to Mahara is also easy.

Choose to set up Mahara manually

Click Settings in your Canvas site or course.

Note

If you choose to put the link in your site, all courses will have the link in their navigation. If you decide to put the link only into your course, only your course participants will be able to access Mahara.

Click the Apps tab.

Click the View App Configurations button.

Click the App button to add your Mahara app manually.

You add the details for your Mahara instance in the pop-up window.

Configure the connection to Mahara

Configuration Type: Select “By URL”. The configuration parameters are available in your Mahara instance.

Name: You can decide what you want to call the app. The name you choose here will be the one displayed in your course navigation.

Consumer Key: Paste the consumer key from Mahara for the LTI connection that you set up earlier.

Shared Secret: Paste the consumer secret from Mahara for the LTI connection that you set up earlier.

Config URL: Paste the URL of your Mahara instance and add the following to the end of it: /module/lti/configxml.php

Click the Submit button to finish the setup.

Click the Cancel button or the Close icon to abort the setup.

You are taken to the “External Apps” page.

You will need to add a custom parameter in order to use the assignment submission functionality.

Make changes to the LTI setup

Next to the app that you just created, click the Configure button.

Select the Edit option.

Now you can enter the additional parameter without which the connection cannot be established properly.

Edit the LTI configuration in Canvas

Name: The name of your external application.

Consumer Key: Review or change the consumer key here that you have from your Mahara instance.

Shared Secret: That is the “Consumer secret” on Mahara. If it has changed, update it here.

Launch URL: The launch URL is the domain of your Mahara instance with /webservice/rest/server.php at the end of it.

Note

This URL is different from the one that you entered when setting up the connection. That is correct. When you set up the connection, you need to use /module/lti/configxml.php for Canvas to complete the setup properly.

Domain: Do not enter anything here.

Privacy: Leave this set to “Public”.

Custom Fields: Add wsfunction=module_lti_launch here so that the assignment submission process works.

Description: You can leave the default text here.

Click the Submit button to finish the setup.

Click the Cancel button or the Close icon to abort the setup.

You are taken to the “External Apps” page.

The app appears in your course navigation when you refresh the page.

Click the app to be authenticated in your Mahara instance.

Note

If you already have an account in the institution in Mahara with the email address you use in Canvas, you are taken to that account.

If your email address does not yet exist in Mahara and you allowed for automatic account creation, an account will be set up for you.

If your email address exists in Mahara but you are not a member of the institution for which you set up the Canvas integration, you receive an error message and will need to become a member of that institution before you can log in via Canvas.

13.4. Setup in Moodle

You can set up Mahara in two different ways for use in Moodle:

General setup on the site level to make it easier for teachers as they won’t require the technical details

Manual setup on the course level

All screenshots were made with Moodle 3.5.

13.4.1. Preconfigure LTI for all courses to use

Go to Site administration → Plugins → Activity modules → Manage activities → Edit preconfigured tool

Configure Moodle to connect to Mahara

Tool name: Give a name that your teachers will recognize.

Tool URL: Provide the launch URL. It consists of the base URL of your Mahara site and the following added to the end of it: /webservice/rest/server.php?wsfunction=module_lti_launch

Tool description: This field is optional. Providing a description will help your teachers to identify the tool more easily.

Consumer key: Paste the consumer key from Mahara for the LTI connection that you set up earlier.

Shared secret: Paste the consumer secret from Mahara for the LTI connection that you set up earlier.

Default launch container: Choose “New window” or “Existing window”. Do not choose to embed Mahara. That will not work as you are not allowed to embed Mahara into other websites. Furthermore, it will reduce the space that you have available to work in Mahara.

Secure icon URL: If you don’t want to display the regular Moodle icon for external tools, you can provide a link to your favorite icon. It is recommended that you provide one that sits on your Mahara site and has the dimensions needed by Moodle for best results.

Click the Save changes button to accept the configuration or the Cancel button if you want to abort setting up the tool.

Note

You do not have to make changes to any of the other settings on the page.

13.4.2. Use a preconfigured Mahara site in a course

If Mahara was already set up as external tool on the site level in Moodle, a teacher only needs to select it when adding the “External tool” activity in Moodle.

Choose a preconfigured Mahara instance in Moodle

Activity name: Give your activity a title.

Preconfigured tool: Select your Mahara instance from the drop-down menu. It may not be called “Mahara”. Certain fields are not editable when you choose this option as they are determined by the existing site-wide configuration.

Note

Click the Show more… link if you want to make some additional changes.

new in Mahara 18.10 Privacy: Tick the option “Accept grades from the tool” if you want to be able to use the activity for the submission of a portfolio.

Click the Save and return to course button to be taken back to your course page, click the Save and display button to launch into Mahara immediately, or click the Cancel button to abort adding Mahara to your course as activity.

13.4.3. Configure Mahara in a course activity manually

You can set up the connection to Mahara also on the activity level in Moodle without having preconfigured it first on the site level. This can be beneficial if your course is the only one connecting to a specific Mahara site that other courses should not have access to.

If everyone should have access to the same Mahara site, setting up a preconfiguration on the site level is advised though.

Set up Mahara as external tool in a Moodle course

Activity name: Give your activity a title.

Activity description: Provide a description of your activity. This field is optional.

Preconfigured tool: Select “Automatic, based on tool URL”.

Secure tool URL: Provide the launch URL. It consists of the base URL of your Mahara site and the following added to the end of it: /webservice/rest/server.php?wsfunction=module_lti_launch

Note

You could use the “Tool URL” field, but since web services in Mahara only work over SSL (unless you have a developer instance), choosing the “Secure tool URL” is recommended.

Launch container: Choose “New window” or “Existing window”. Do not choose to embed Mahara. That will not work as you are not allowed to embed Mahara into other websites. Furthermore, it will reduce the space that you have available to work in Mahara.

Consumer key: Paste the consumer key from Mahara for the LTI connection that you set up earlier.

Shared secret: Paste the consumer secret from Mahara for the LTI connection that you set up earlier.

Secure icon URL: If you don’t want to display the regular Moodle icon for external tools, you can provide a link to your favorite icon. It is recommended that you provide one that sits on your Mahara site and has the dimensions needed by Moodle for best results.

new in Mahara 18.10 Privacy: Tick the option “Accept grades from the tool” if you want to be able to use the activity for the submission of a portfolio.

Click the Save and return to course button to be taken back to your course page, click the Save and display button to launch into Mahara immediately, or click the Cancel button to abort adding Mahara to your course as activity.

Note

You do not have to make changes to any of the other settings on the page.

13.5. Setup in Blackboard

You can set up the connection to Mahara via LTI through the built-in “Basic LTI Tools” in Blackboard.

13.5.1. Configure LTI for the site

An administrator needs to set up an LTI tool before it can be added to a course.

13.5.1.1. Set up a building block

Choose to set up an LTI tool

When you are in the Building Blocks area, select LTI Tool Providers to start setting up the connection to Mahara.

On the next screen, click the Register Provider Domain button.

Register the LTI provider

Provider Domain: Enter the URL of your Mahara site.

Provider Domain Status: If you want to use the LTI connection, you should select “Approved”.

Default Configuration: You can decide whether to provide a separate configuration for each instance in which you want to use LTI in a course or set it globally.

Set separately for each link: Use this option if you want to connect to different institutions in one Mahara instance. Note that you will need to provide the consumer key and secret each time you want to add an LTI building block to a course.

Set globally: Use this option when everyone shall enter the same institution in Mahara. You do not need to provide the consumer key and secret when a link to Mahara is added in a course as it is set here.

Tool Provider Key: Paste the consumer key from Mahara for the LTI connection that you set up earlier.

Tool Provider Secret: Paste the consumer secret from Mahara for the LTI connection that you set up earlier.

Tool Provider Customised Parameters: Enter the following parameter: wsfunction=module_lti_launch.

Send User Data: Decide how you want to send user data to Mahara:

Never: No user data is sent.

Send user data only over SSL: User data is sent encrypted. This option is the preferred option for production sites. The web services in Mahara require that an SSL connection is established unless you are connection to a site that is not in production mode.

Send user data over any connection: You can choose this option because web services in Mahara require an SSL connection when in production mode. This option is useful for testing purposes as your testing instance may not have an SSL certificate.

User Fields to be Sent: Select, which user fields you want to send across to Mahara.

Role in Course: Currently, Mahara ignores this field.

Name: The first name and last name are sent to Mahara.

Email Address: The email address of the person clicking the LTI link is sent to Mahara.

Show User Acknowledgement Message: You can require anyone clicking the link to acknowledge that they are getting set up on Mahara. This can be useful if you want to provide a special message upon logging in.

Message Text: Enter the text for the “User Acknowledgement Message”.

Click the Submit button to continue or click the Cancel button to abort the changes.

13.5.1.2. Manage the placement of the building block

Manage the placement of the LTI connection

When you are back on the LTI Tool Providers screen, make a right mouse click on the Mahara URL and select Manage Placements in order to create a placement for your courses. On the following screen, click the Create Placement link.

Create a placement for the LTI connection

Label: Give your connection a name that is displayed to students and teachers in the course.

Description: You can enter a description for the connection.

Handle: Give the placement a unique name. It does not appear in the course navigation.

Availability: Choose to make the placement available or not. If you select “No”, you can prepare the placement, but your students will not see it.

Type: The type decides how students can interact with the tool. Choose “Content Type” and select the “Tools” option.

Icon: You can upload a custom icon for the placement to identify it more easily. The icon needs to have the dimensions 50 x 50 pixels.

Tool Provider URL: Enter the URL of your Mahara site.

Tool Provider Key: Paste the consumer key from Mahara for the LTI connection that you set up earlier.

Tool Provider Secret: Paste the consumer secret from Mahara for the LTI connection that you set up earlier.

Tool Provider Customised Parameters: Enter the following parameter: wsfunction=module_lti_launch.

Click the Submit button to continue or click the Cancel button to abort the changes.

13.5.1.3. Add the placement to a course

Select the placement in your course

Click the “Mahara” placement in your course navigation.

Click the Tools button.

Select the Mahara LTI tool. Note: You may have given it a different name than is displayed here.

Finalize the settings for the course link

Name: You can change the default name if you want to display a different one.

Colour of Name: Choose the color of the link in the course.

Description: Enter a description if you like that is displayed to the students and teachers in the course.

Permit Users to View this Content: Decide whether students and teachers can see the link in the course.

Track Number of Views: Decide whether you want to include the clicking of the link in your reporting.

Select Date and Time Restrictions: Enter a date and time if you want to make the link available automatically at a specific time.

Click the Submit button to continue or click the Cancel button to abort the changes.

Your link is now ready to be used. Students and teachers in the course can log into Mahara via it.

Warning

For security reasons, Mahara prevents being embedded as iframe in another website. However, it seems that there is no setting in Blackboard to allow Mahara to be opened in a new window or on top of the Blackboard site. If that is the case for you, you will need to disable a security feature on Mahara, which is not recommended. You can do so by adding $cfg->sameoriginframes = false; to your config.php.

13.6. new in Mahara 18.10 LTI for assignment submission

You can use the LTI setup to create an activity in an LMS and allow for a portfolio in Mahara to be graded.

13.6.1. Set up an assignment in Canvas

Prerequisite: You have set up the connection to Mahara already via the setup instructions.

In Canvas you can set up the LTI assignment submission as part of the assignment functionality.

Add an assignment to your Canvas course

In your course navigation, click the Assignments navigation item.

On the resulting page, click the Assignment button to set up a new assignment.

Note

You can add the assignment to a group of assignments as you wish.

Assignment settings for your LTI activity

Once you created an assignment, you can change its paramenters, including the assignment name.

Provide a description or task for the assignment.

Points: Enter “100” here as LTI expects a scale from 0 to 100.

Display Grade as: Decide how you want to display the final grade for the assignment.

Submission type: Select “External Tool” from the drop-down menu.

Click the Find button to see all external tools that are available in your course and select the Mahara one. Click the Save button to confirm your selection.

Load This Tool In A New Tab: Tick this check box if you want to load Mahara in a new tab. Note that there is no navigation visible on the Mahara submission screens because they are meant to be embedded in the assignment activity.

Click the Save button if you want to save an preview your assignment or click the Save & Publish button if you are ready to take the assignment live. Click the Cancel button to abort setting up the activity.

Click the activity name or button to finalize the assessment settings. Learners are not able to use the activity until these settings have been saved.

13.6.2. Set up an assignment in Moodle

Select to add the External Tool activity in Moodle.

During the setup ensure that you tick the check box next to “Accept grades from the tool” under “Privacy”. If you don’t tick this check box, you can only authenticate to Mahara but not select a portfolio for submission.

Click the activity name to finalize the assessment settings. Learners are not able to use the activity until these settings have been saved.

13.6.3. Confirm assessment settings

Before any learners can use the activity, you need to confirm the activity settings as a teacher.

Set the submission criteria

Email tutors on student submission: Set this to “Yes” if course tutors / teachers / assessors shall be informed when a submission has been made.

Keep portfolio locked after grading: Set this to “Yes” if you don’t want learners to make any changes to their portfolio once grading is done. The default setting is “No”.

Note

This option will keep the portfolio locked from editing, and learners can’t delete any of the submitted artefacts or make changes to them or delete the portfolio itself from their account. They can still make a copy or change artefacts that are not affected by the locking.

Archive when graded: If you want or need to keep a copy of the graded portfolio to comply with assessment regulations, you can set this option to “Yes”. An archive is made automatically after you finished grading and placed on the Mahara server. Administrators can view the archives in the “Archived submissions”, and a server administrator can download all archives from a folder within the content file structure of Mahara.

Warning

SmartEvidence collections cannot yet be archived properly as Leap2A.

Click the Save and allow submissions button to confirm the settings and allow your learners to submit their portfolios.

Note

You can change the assignment settings until the first learner submitted their portfolio. After that, they are locked in.

Currently, learners cannot re-submit portfolios to the same activity once you’ve completed grading. They can also not make any changes to the portfolio while it is being assessed.

13.6.4. Submit a portfolio as learner

As a learner, you can submit any of your portfolios to an assignment in your learning management system (LMS).

Note

Any portfolio you submit is locked. Depending on the assignment settings, you may be able to edit the portfolio again after grading.

Submit a portfolio for assessment via your LMS

Click the link to the assignment in your LMS. Mahara opens either in a new tab or embedded as iframe depending on the assignment settings.

If you don’t already have a portfolio that you can submit for this particular assignment, click the create one link. You are taken to Pages and collections where you can create a new portfolio. Once you are finished, click the assignment link in your LMS again to be taken to the correct submission screen.

If you do have a portfolio to submit, select it from the drop-down menu. You can select an entire collection or a page when it is not part of a collection.

Click the Submit button to confirm your choice.

Note

By clicking the Submit button, your portfolio is locked from editing.

You receive a confirmation on screen that lets you know when you submitted the portfolio.

Once your portfolio has been assessed and a grade given, you can see the result in Mahara after having clicked on the assignment link in the LMS.

View grade in Mahara

Review when you submitted your portfolio.

View the number of points you received on your portfolio.

View who assessed your portfolio.

Shows the time when the portfolio was assessed.

Note

Currently, you cannot re-submit a portfolio to the same assignment in the LMS.

13.6.5. Assess a portfolio as teacher

Once learners have submitted portfolios for assessment, as a teacher, you can click the link to the assignment in the LMS and be taken to Mahara, where you see all the submitted portfolios.

View portfolios that require assessment

First name: The first name of the portfolio author.

Last name: The last name of the portfolio author.

Portfolio title: Title of the submitted portfolio.

Time submitted: Time when the author submitted their portfolio.

Click the Grade link to be taken to the portfolio itself and give it a grade.

Grade: Grade given for this portfolio out of 100 points.

Time graded: Time when the grade was submitted.

Graded by: Teacher who graded the portfolio.

When you click the Grade link, you are taken to the portfolio and can review it. As usual, you can leave comments on the content where available and on a page itself. Once you are ready to give the grade, you can select it above the comments section.

Grade a portfolio

The name of the assignment is displayed.

The course title from the LMS is listed.

The time when the learner submitted the portfolio is shown.

Grade: Select a grade between 0 and 100 points from the drop-down menu.

Click the Submit button to lock the grade in. You cannot revoke your decision.

The grade is also entered into the gradebook in Moodle.

14. Mahoodle

“Mahoodle” is the common name given to the joining of Mahara + Moodle [https://moodle.org], an open source learning management system. Both systems have built-in support for each other in the form of:

single sign-on

transfer of content

Refer to the comprehensive guide about setting up Mahoodle [https://wiki.mahara.org/wiki/System_Administrator's_Guide/Moodle//Mahara_Integration] for step-by-step instructions on how to set everything up on the Moodle side and on Mahara. The guide explains the steps for both Moodle 1.9 and Moodle 2.x.

You can always only link one Moodle to one Mahara be it on the site level or in an individual institution. You cannot link from one Moodle into multiple institutions on Mahara.

14.1. Moodle to Mahara

Most of the time, Moodle is the primary system and users log in from Moodle to Mahara. However, it can also be set up the other way around. You can transfer the following information when an institution in Mahara is set up to be connected to a Moodle site:

Login information

User account details, see the information in the XML-RPC authentication method settings

Content that is exported via the Moodle 2 “Portfolio export” functionality [https://docs.moodle.org/22/en/Mahara_portfolio]

14.2. Mahara to Moodle

You can send information and content from Mahara to Moodle if you wish. The following are possible:

Login information

Submitting pages for assessment [https://wiki.mahara.org/index.php/System_Administrator%27s_Guide/Moodle//Mahara_Integration/View_Submission]

Displaying dashboard content [https://bugs.launchpad.net/mahara/+bug/882376]

Using Moodle’s login page [https://bugs.launchpad.net/mahara/+bug/885029]

14.3. Link to specific Mahara page in Moodle

Normally, when you log in to Mahara from Moodle, you land on the dashboard page. However, there is a trick to go directly to a specific page in Mahara.

See also

Thanks to Gordon McLeod [https://twitter.com/LearnTribe] who published this tip [https://portfolio.gla.ac.uk/view/view.php?id=20304].

In Moodle add the block Network servers to a page (temporarily) after you set up networking to Mahara.

Copy the Mahara URL. It usually looks like this: https://moodle.organisation.net/auth/mnet/jump.php?hostid=3.

Note

If you only have one MNet session to Mahara set up, the host ID is usually 3. However, if you deleted an MNet connection or have multiple ones, it might be different.

Paste that URL into a text editor because it is easier to make changes there.

Add &wantsurl= to the end of the URL to yield https://moodle.organisation.net/auth/mnet/jump.php?hostid=3&wantsurl=.

Copy the URL of the Mahara page to which you want to link, e.g. https://mahara.organisation.net/view/view.php?id=1234.

Append that URL to the Moodle jump URL, e.g. https://moodle.organisation.net/auth/mnet/jump.php?hostid=3&wantsurl=https://mahara.organisation.net/view/view.php?id=1234.

Delete the domain part of the Mahara URL, e.g. https://mahara.organisation.net. That leaves you with https://moodle.organisation.net/auth/mnet/jump.php?hostid=3&wantsurl=/view/view.php?id=1234.

Edit the remaining part of the Mahara URL to replace symbols with the URL hex code, e.g. https://moodle.organisation/auth/mnet/jump.php?hostid=3&wantsurl=%2Fview%2Fview.php%3Fid%3D1234.

See also

Common hex codes replacements [http://www.obkb.com/dcljr/charstxt.html] for characters that you find in Mahara URLs are:

slash / → %2F

question mark ? → %3F

equal sign = → %3D

hyphen - → %2D

Copy the resulting URL and link your text or a navigation menu item to arrive at this specific page in Mahara.

Note

If you want to allow all your Moodle users to arrive at a specific page or group in Mahara, you need to make sure that your users have access to the page or group. Otherwise, they would not see the content.

15. Mobile Mahara

You can use Mahara to a certain degree from a mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet that has internet browser capabilities. Depending on the device, not all functions may be available to you.

When you have an Android device or an iPhone, you can use an application to upload files directly from your device to Mahara.

15.1. Mobile browsing

Note

This section needs to be updated for Mahara 18.10 and tested if device detection is still relevant.

Mahara comes with a responsive design [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsive_web_design]. The purpose is to provide the best viewing experience on any device, but in particular mobile devices. Furthermore, certain functionality is not available on a mobile device if it does not allow for it, e.g. the use of the visual editor.

All themes in core Mahara are responsive.

That’s what the default theme looks like on an Android smartphone 2.3 (screen size 320 x 480) with device detection turned on.

3 different screens of Mahara with the default theme on an Android phone with device detection turned on

There is only one column. Everything is pushed to it, but as soon as the screen is big enough, the content moves back to its original columns.

A mobile friendly menu that can be unfolded to reach all navigation items.

Since blocks cannot be dragged over the screen, radio buttons below them allow them to be selected.

Once a block icon has been selected via its radio button, place it into the page by clicking the Add new block here button.

Text and Note blocks are shown without the visual editor as that does not work on an Android smartphone (2.3).

The following table captures features of Mahara and how they are represented on various mobile devices when device detection (dd) is turned on or off. Users can decide in which mode they want to browse if the site administrator allowed it in the user settings.

Feature

Android smartphone dd on

Android smartphone dd off

Android 10” tablet dd on

Android 10” tablet dd off

iPhone / iPad dd on

iPhone / iPad dd off

Place page edit blocks via radio buttons instead of drag & drop

Regular drag & drop interface in page editor

- but cannot be used

- but cannot be used

Visual editor (WYSIWYG editor)

- but cannot be used

- difficult

Plain text editor

Print link

Report objectionable content link

Add to watchlist link

15.2. Mahara Mobile

Mahara Mobile is available in the Android App Store [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mahara.mobile] for Android 5 or later and in the Apple Store [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mahara-mobile/id1172638950?mt=8] for iOS devices.

15.2.1. What is Mahara Mobile?

With the release of Mahara 16.10, the Mahara project has made available a new mobile app.

Mahara Mobile is an app that allows you to collect your learning evidence on your handheld device to easily upload it into Mahara. You can use the app offline during the collection process and only need an internet connection for uploading to your Mahara site.

That way, gathering evidence out in the field, in rural areas, at sea, in space, or even close to home if you have a very weak signal. Once you have access to a good internet connection again, you can upload your previously gathered content.

On Android devices, you can upload any file: images, video, audio, documents from Google Drive and so on. On iOS devices, can upload any type of file, provided you have an app installed that implements it, e.g Dropbox and Google Drive among others.

You can also draft journal entries and then continue writing them on Mahara or publish them.

You can use Mahara Mobile with as many Mahara sites as you wish, and you can connect multiple devices running Mahara Mobile to one Mahara account.

Note

You can manage your access tokens for your different devices on the “Apps” page.

15.2.2. Requirements

Mahara Mobile requires Mahara 16.10 or later as a number of changes in the Mahara API were made.

Your Mahara site needs to have an SSL certificate (putting the “s” into https://) as web services only work over SSL. Your test or development site can be used without SSL if you disable production mode in the config.php.

15.2.3. Connect Mahara Mobile to your account

Connecting Mahara Mobile to Mahara is very easy, and your settings are remembered until you log out or change to a different device in the app.

Note

To use Mahara Mobile, the site administrator needs to have ensured that the Mobile API is configured properly.

Home screen of Mahara Mobile

Enter the URL of your Mahara site. If your site does not use https://, enter the http:// protocol.

Tap the Next button. Mahara Mobile checks which authentication methods are available for you to use. Tap the Skip button if you do not want to connect to a Mahara instance just yet.

On the next screen, select how you want to log in to your Mahara site. Depending on the authentication methods that are available on your site, you may see one or more of the following options:

Single sign-on: You are re-directed to the normal login form on your site where you can tap the SSO button and enter your SSO details.

Local login: You are presented with a login form. Please enter your username and password. This authentication method is for internal Mahara accounts as well as LDAP accounts.

Paste in access token: Generate a token on Mahara in a browser and enter it in the text field.

When you authenticated successfully, you see your name and profile picture (if you uploaded one to Mahara) on the “User” screen.

15.2.4. “User” screen

On the User screen, you see information about the Mahara site that you connected to as well as basic profile information about yourself.

“User” screen of Mahara Mobile with profile information

Tap the User tab at the top of the app.

The site name of your Mahara site that you are connecting to.

Your profile picture from Mahara.

Note

Gravatars or other external avatars cannot be displayed at the moment.

Your first and last name.

The URL of your Mahara site.

Tap the Change server link in order to log out and be presented with the screen to enter your Mahara URL again.

Tap the Logout button to log out of your Mahara account on Mahara Mobile.

Note

If you are logged into Mahara on the same device, you will not be logged out from that browser session automatically.

Swipe down to synchronize the information with your Mahara server. You can also use the synchronization to retrieve tags.

15.2.5. “Add” screen

You can upload any file that your operating system allows you to upload, and you can create journal entries.

“Add” screen where you can upload files and add journal entries

Tap the Add tab at the top of the app.

Tap the Upload files button to select a file to upload. You can upload any file to which your operating system gives you access.

Tap the Add journal entry button to write a journal entry.

Once you added your file or finished your journal entry, you are taken to the Pending screen automatically. Depending on the size of your file or where they are located, it may take a couple of seconds for the file to appear as pending.

15.2.5.1. Upload a file

You can upload any files to which your operating system gives you access.

Tap the Upload files button to select a file to upload.

Browse to the file that you want to upload and select it.

Note

You cannot select multiple files at once.

You are taken to the Pending screen. It may take a little bit until you see your file there.

15.2.5.2. Add a journal entry

Add a journal entry

Title: Enter a title.

Details: Write your journal entry.

Note

If you want to add images or use styles in your entry, you can edit it on Mahara.

Tags: Enter tags or select from the ones that you already have.

Note

If you cannot see any tags, but you know that you have tags, you can go to the User screen and swipe down on the screen. That will synchronize Mahara Mobile and retrieve your tags.

Tap the Save button to keep your entry.

You are taken to the Pending screen.

15.2.6. “Pending” screen

You see all the uploads that are waiting to be transferred to Mahara on the Pending screen. You can edit details or remove items before they are uploaded.

“Pending” screen where you can review the items that you want to upload

Tap the Pending tab at the top of the app.

You see all pending uploads, no matter whether they are files or journal entries.

Each item ist listed individually, and you can tap it to see more information.

Tap the Edit button to change the title, description and tags.

Tap the Delete button to remove the item from the pending uploads. The item itself is still on your phone and not deleted.

If you have an image, you see a preview of it.

Tap the Upload to your Mahara button when you are ready to upload your items.

The upload may not succeed for a number of reasons. More detailed error messages are planned.

The file is larger than the maximum allowed file size.

The user quota has been reached.

There was an error connecting to the server.

15.2.7. Technical information

Mahara Mobile is built using Apache Cordova [https://cordova.apache.org/] allowing us to take advantage of the features of this framework.

If you’d like to contribute, you can download the code from git.mahara.org or Github [https://github.com/MaharaProject/mahara-mobile].

15.3. Previous Mahara apps

Before Mahara Mobile, users could work with MaharaDroid and PortfolioUp on Android and iOS respectively. User are encouraged to use Mahara Mobile instead.

16. Glossary

The glossary has two parts. Every user encounters the basic terms in Mahara. The advanced terms are for users who want to understand more and are especially for administrators.

The glossary gives you a very quick definition of a term. Where possible, terms are linked to their primary occurrence in the manual. As terms are interconnected and can appear in multiple places, please refer to the index for further locations or use the fulltext search in the sidebar to search for a specific concept.

Access

Your content is generally protected and private and not accessible to others by default. You put your content into pages and collections. Then you decide to publish your pages and collections for other users, groups or the public.

Access means that depending on the access permissions you give for a page or collection, individuals, members of a group, all users on your Mahara instance or anybody online can read and possibly also comment on your content if that functionality is enabled.

See also: Share

Account

You have personalised access to Mahara via a login and password. Your account identifies you in the system. Your name (and profile picture) are displayed around the system, e.g. on your profile page, forum posts, portfolio pages etc. You can manage your account in your settings.

Artefact

Artefacts are all types of content that you add to your personal content area, i.e. text, journal entries, pictures, audio files, video files, images etc.

Authentification

Mahara can administer users fully internally by creating accounts manually of by CSV file. If user account data is stored in external applications, e.g. an LDAP directory, a SimpleSAML identity provider or Moodle, users can use their usual logins and passwords to connect to Mahara. The authentication methods used in an institution are managed in the institution settings byt the site administrator.

Author

In general terms, authors are content creators and have the full rights on their works be it text, audio, video, still images or any other form of expression. If you are not the author of your own artefacts but wish to use somebody else’s work, make sure that you are allowed to do so. If you cannot use their work, you should not put it into your portfolio or use it in groups.

Block

Blocks exist on pages. They contain your artefacts that are displayed in context on a page to make up the portfolio.

Closed topic

A forum topic can be closed for members by the group administrator or forum moderator. The group members can read the topic content, but they cannot reply.

Collection

A collection is a bundle of pages that contain your artefacts. A navigation block or the navigation bar helps to move from page to page in a collection.

Comments

You can ask other users and / or friends to comment on your pages and / or collections that you have shared. Comments should be constructive and helpful. They should point out things that you did well and others that you may need to improve by providing constructive suggestions and encouragement for further learning.

The comments area is at the bottom of each page, but can also be turned off by the author of the page or artefact.

Controlled group

Controlled groups are similar to courses in learning management systems. The administrator can place users into the group who then cannot leave it. Usually, the administrator allows the submission of pages and collections to this group for assessment purposes.

Course group

Course groups allow the administrator to assign certain members the tutor role. Tutors can then give feedback on submitted pages and collections if these are allowed, but cannot add or remove users from the group.

Cover letter

Generally, the cover letter is the first page in an employment application and forms part of your résumé. It could be the first page in a collection for an employment or internship portfolio.

CSV file

CSV means “comma separated values” and describes the structure of a text file in which table columns are separated by a comma (or sometimes also semi-colon). You can create a CSV file with your data most easily in a spreadsheet software such as Libre Office Calc or MS Excel. You can use CSV files in Mahara to create and edit user accounts and groups as well as manage group members.

Dashboard

The dashboard is your start and overview page after you logged in. You can customise the information you see on your dashboard and for example have easy access to pages shared with you, your notifications, forum topics you are following etc.

Display name

You may not want to use your first and last name around the site and can thus create a display name, i.e. a nickname, if the site or institution administrator allows that. Furthermore, in huge institutions where several members have the same first and last name, the display name can be used to differentiate between them.

Editability of a group

Group administrators can decide if group members should only be able to add content to a group during a certain time frame. This can be useful when a group is course-related and shouldn’t allow the adding of files or conversations after the end of a course. Group administrators and tutors can always add, edit and delete content at all times.

Embed code

You can make content from other websites such as videos, audio, animations and presentations visible in Mahara by linking to it. If the external content can be embedded via an iframe or code that starts with <object> or <embed>, it can usually be displayed in Text or Note block or journal entry. Iframes can also be displayed in the External media block on a page. The site administrator may need to add specific iframes that you wish to embed to the allowed iframe sources.

Exact search

Exact search reduces the number of search results you get for users. Only results that are identical to the search terms will be found. For example, if you search for “james smith” without exact search turned on, your results page lists everyone starting with “james” no matter whether the last name is “smith” or not. If you turn on exact search, only users whose first and last name is “james smith” will be found. There is no need to use quotation marks when searching. Quotation marks are only necessary if you want to search for a display name that consists of two names. You must be a site administrator to turn exact search on or off.

Feedback

See “Comments”

Files area

You can use files in different locations: in your personal portfolio, groups, institutions and on the site level if you have access to the latter ones. The site administrator defines the size of the files area. Organise your files area carefully by placing your files into folders and by adding metadata such as descriptions and tags to your files and folders. That makes it much easier to distinguish a file after months from dozens or hundreds of others.

Filter

You can limit your search results to find your search term in tags only when you search shared pages. Furthermore, you can also limit your search for pages that have been shared with you or others.

Forum

Written asynchronous discussions in groups are separated into topics for better organisation and make up a forum.

Forum moderator

Forum moderators can edit forum posts and add posts in closed topics. They can edit forum topics or create new ones in the forum for which they are moderators.

Friend

Friends are your contacts on the site. You can ask other registered users to become your friends. If they agree, you can then invite them into groups or share pages or collections with them more easily. However, you do not have to become someone’s friend to view their portfolio pages or collections. A user can always share pages or collections with you without making you a friend.

Grading

You can use the submission functionality in groups to lock portfolio pages or collections when giving feedback. Mahara itself does not have a gradebook, but you could still record any grading results in the comment section at the bottom of each page and make it visible only to the author. Some institutions use the rating functionality in the comments section for grading purposes.

For more formal assessments, you can link Mahara to a learning management system. In Moodle for example, you can use the Mahara assignment submission plugin [https://github.com/MaharaProject/moodle-assignsubmission_mahara] to assess portfolios directly in Moodle using standard Moodle grading options such as outcomes or rubrics.

Group

You can create groups and invite other users into your groups to work collaboratively on projects. Groups can use forums for discussions, a group files area for sharing files, journals to reflect collectively and create and share pages and collections. The site administrator can disable the possibility to create groups for regular users.

Group administrator

Group administrators define group settings, create new forums and administer group members.

Group homepage

The group homepage is the starting point for activities in a group. You can show the group description, a list of group members, latest forum posts or any number of other blocks.

Inbox

Your inbox is the place where you can access the notifications and messages you received from other users or the system. You can decide whether you want to read your messages in your inbox or receive them via email.

Invitation

You can invite any other users to your groups if you are the group administrator, or you may be able to invite your friends into groups in which you are a member. The invited users can accept the invitation or reject it.

Institution

A Mahara site can consist of any number of independent institutions in which users and certain institution settings are administered. This allows the use of one Mahara instance for many organisations without the need to install Mahara for each.

Institution administrator

Institution administrators can manage institution settings and users. They do not have access to other institutions or settings on the site level.

Institution page

Institution administrators can create institution pages that can be used as examples or templates for institution members. They can be copied automatically into the accounts of new institution members.

Journal

You can collect personal reflections about a topic or learning progress in a journal. It consists of a series of these reflections that you write in individual journal entries. Per default, you have one journal, but you can add more if you enable multiple journals in your settings. You can add journals to pages as a whole, as individual entries or selected based on tags.

You can decide to publish a journal entry so others can see it if it is in a page or keep it as draft for yourself only.

Leap2A

Leap2A is a portfolio standard that is used by a number of ePortfolio systems for data exchange. In Mahara, users can export their entire portfolio or parts of it as Leap2A file and then have it imported into another Mahara instance or an ePortfolio system that supports Leap2A to continue straight away without having to re-create their portfolio. Since every portfolio system functions differently, a complete one-to-one transfer of information is not possible and in most cases some work is required after the transfer.

License

When you upload content to Mahara, you may need to agree to the upload agreement or specify a license for the content you upload so others know whether it is your own or was created by somebody else. You can use the Creative Commons block if you want to share an entire portfolio page under a Creative Commons license [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/].

Mahoodle

Mahoodle is the term used for connecting Mahara and Moodle for single sign-on and content exchange.

Member

Users in an institution are institution members and users in groups are group members.

Message

Messages are sent to you by other users. The messages appear in your inbox and can be delivered via email as well.

Moodle

Moodle [https://moodle.org] is a learning management system (LMS) and thus teacher-centred. Courses in Moodle are filled with learning content by teachers. Students (users) get access to the content and can discuss it and are often graded on their performance. Moodle and Mahara can be used in combination. If connected, users only need one account for both systems and can switch between them without a new login. Mahara can be used as personal repository for users, and they can copy their own assignments and course contributions into their Mahara account as artefacts.

Notification

Notifications are automatically created by the system and inform you about new feedback on your pages, new forum posts in groups, new access to other users’ pages and much more. The notifications appear in your inbox and can be delivered via email.

Objectionable material

On the page of a user to which you have access, you might come across content that is inappropriate, offensive or violates the terms of usage of the site. You can click the Report objectionable material link on the page or the artefact details page and give your reason why you marked this content as objectionable. Administrators are notified, can review the content and could block the offender from accessing the system until the content is removed. It cannot be defined in general terms what is considered inappropriate. The owner of the site has to define this based on the purpose of the site and the age of its users for example.

Forum posts can also be reported as objectionable by clicking the Report button.

Online users

This sidebar shows other users that have been online during the last 10 minutes. Institution administrators can limit this list to show only users from their own institution.

Open group

Open groups can be joined by anyone without group administrator approval.

Owner

The owner is the person or group that has created a page or collection or to whom artefacts belong.

Page

You can design pages by arranging artefacts on them. You define the page layout and - if enabled - the theme for it. You give other users access to pages so they can view your work and comment on it. Several pages can be added to a collection. All users can create personal pages and group members may be able to create group pages.

Pages can also be created as templates for further use by others.

Page layout

The page layout defines the number and width (wide or narrow) of columns on a page. You can also define rows in order to align your content on the page.

Plan

Plans are simple ToDo lists consisting of tasks. You can add your plans as blocks into your pages.

Portfolio

Portfolios gather stuff, i.e. learning artefacts and evidence. In Mahara you place your artefacts into pages which you can bundle up into collections. A page or a collection can then already be your portfolio. Thus, you can create many different portfolios. You decide whether you want to share your portfolios with others or keep them for yourself. You can create portfolios for many purposes, e.g.

reflecting on courses;

creating and reflecting on projects;

personal reflecting on individual development or separate learning processes;

creating résumés and your learner biography;

creating a showcase of your best work and much more.

Privacy statement

Information about the use of private data from the Mahara site. Usually, there is a link in the page footer to it.

Profile

Your profile page is visible to other users on Mahara. You should only display as much information about yourself as you are comfortable for other users to see. Your display name or if you do not have one, your first name and last name, is displayed along with your profile picture. Users may also be able to contact you and invite you to groups. All other elements on your profile page are optional.

Public group

Public groups are visible to anyone on the Internet. You do not have to be a member of the group to follow forum discussions or view pages. However, you need to be a group member to participate in the discussions or create pages yourself.

Recommendation

You can recommend a group to your friends if the group administrator allowed that. The group administrator then still needs to approve the group membership.

Résumé

The résumé details your education and employment history, your achievements as well as skills and interests in a tabular format. Generally, you use it when you apply for an internship or job. However, as the elements in your résumé are reusable, you can also use individual elements in other portfolios.

RSS feed

RSS feeds aggregate news from portal pages, forums or blogs. You can add RSS feeds from external sites to your pages using the “External feed” block. The content will be updated continuously. Mahara can also create RSS feeds for forums in public groups and journals that appear in public pages.

Search

You can search for pages by title, description or tags on “Shared with me” and will see a list of results immediately. You can also search for users by using the user search box. If the site administrator turned on exact search, you need to provide the complete name of users in order to find them. Otherwise, a part of their name is enough but often yields too many results. Fulltext search is not available if the site administrator installed Elasticsearch on the server.

Secret URL

You can create secret URLs for pages and collections to give users who do not have a login to the site access to your pages or collections. The difference to making pages or collections public is that search engines cannot find these pages (unless a link to them appears on a web page).

Share

You can share your pages and collections with other users by giving them access to them. The people with whom you have shared your pages and collections may comment on them. You can also share pages with people who do not have an account on the system by sharing your pages and collections with them via a secret URL.

Single sign-on

Single sign-on (SSO) describes the process to log in to one application and switch to another connected application without having to log in again. Moodle and Mahara are often connected via SSO, which is called MNet. The other built-in SSO authentication method in Mahara is SAML. Others can be added via plugins.

Site

Site means the whole site and the administration on the global level for a Mahara instance.

Site administrator

Site administrators can define system (site) settings for an entire Mahara instance. They can add, edit and delete user accounts and have access to all content even in private user areas as they can log in as any user, e.g. to assist with troubleshooting issues.

Site files

Files area on system (site) level that the site administrator can work with. Files that are placed in the public folder in the site files are available to all users.

Site page

Pages created on site level that can be put into new user accounts automatically as templates.

Skin

A skin is a way of customising the look of a portfolio page on top of a theme. The use of skins must be allowed by the site and institution administrator. If they are allowed, users can create them themselves and change the background, fonts and font color for certain elements on their page. Skins can also be shared with others on the site or exported and imported.

Staff

Staff on the site or institution level have a few additional permissions compared to regular users. For example, they can create controlled groups and hide groups, and they can also view statistics if the site administrator allowed that. Institution staff are also listed alongside institution administrators on their institution’s contact page.

Sticky topic

Topics in a forum are sorted according to the date and time of posts. The topic with the latest post is normally shown first. Sometimes topics should get more attention even if there are no new posts. They can be marked “sticky” and stay at the top of the topics list. Group administrators and forum moderators can mark topics as sticky or disable this setting.

Tag

Tags are keywords that facilitate searching for your artefacts, pages and collections when the title and description are not enough. You can view all your tagged content in a tag cloud in the sidebar and find content again more easily.

Tag cloud

You can display your most often used tags in the sidebar in a so called tag cloud. The tags are shown in different sizes: A tag that is used more often is bigger than a tag that is used seldom.

Task

Tasks are created as part of a plan to provide more details on it. They can also be used to list items on a ToDo list. A task is defined by a title, a description and a completion date.

Template

Pages and collections can be offered as templates to other users. They can be copied, or institution and site administrators can have them added automatically into the portfolio area of new users. Templates are used to jumpstart the collection of content and the creation of portfolios.

Terms and conditions

The terms and conditions define the appropriate use of the site. The site administrator can display a link to this page in the footer of every page and also ask users to confirm them during registration.

Theme

The graphical interface design is called theme. If you have institutions on your site, they can have their own theme. Users can also use individual themes for their portfolio pages if the site administrator allows that.

Topic

Discussion forums are made up of topics that represent a discussion around a particular theme each.

Tutor

Tutors only exist in course groups. They can give feedback on submitted pages that are locked from editing while they give feedback. After they are finished, they release the pages or collections and the portfolio authors can fully edit their content again.

User

Users are people who have access to the Mahara site and can log in in with a personal account.

Wall

The wall is a block on your profile page. Other users can leave a message on your wall.

Watchlist

You can add pages and collections that have been shared with you to your watchlist. You will receive notifications when these pages are updated.

17. Tips and tricks

This section of the user manual contains tips and tricks that Mahara users might find useful.

17.1. Insert an image into text

17.1.1. Select an image file

17.1.2. Use a base64 image

17.2. Insert a link to another portfolio page

17.3. Insert a link anchor

17.3.1. Set an anchor

17.3.2. Link to an anchor

17.4. Link to specific Mahara page in Moodle

17.1. Insert an image into text

17.1.1. Select an image file

You can add image files to any text in two ways by using the same functionality:

Link to the image that is available elsewhere online.

Use an image that you have on Mahara.

Note

Images are easy to add to text. However, make sure that you have the permission to use the image you link or upload.

Insert an image into text

Go to the visual editor and click on the Image button tinymce_image.

Image URL: Paste or type the image URL to an external image into this field. It must start with http:// or https://. You can then skip to step 7. If you are inserting an image from Mahara itself, the URL will be added automatically in the next steps.

Files area: Choose from which files area you would like to select an image:

My files: You see all the folders and files that you have created.

Group files: You see all the folders and files that you are allowed to publish.

Institution files: If you are an institution administrator, you will see institution folders and files.

Site files: If you are a site administrator, you will see all site folders and files. Otherwise, you can only see the ones that are in the folder public in the Site files.

License information: You see these fields if the site administrator turned on license metadata. Additionally, if you are in an institution, your institution administrator may require you to provide a license.

License: Your default license is displayed. You can set your default license in your account settings. You may choose a different license for each individual artefact.

Licensor: If you are uploading a file that somebody else created, you can attribute the work to them here and provide their name for example.

Original URL: If you are uploading somebody else’s file, provide a link to the original Internet address so that others can go there and view the original file.

If the site administrator turned on the image resizing option, you can decide whether you want to have your images resized if they are larger than the specified dimensions. This option is recommended to save space in your portfolio.

File: You do not have to go back to your Files area in Content in order to upload a file. You can do so directly from this screen.

Folder path: The breadcrumbs show in which folder you are currently. If you upload a file, it will be placed in this folder.

Click the Edit button to change any component of a folder or file, i.e. its name, description and tags. If you have a folder or file included in a page that you submitted for feedback, you will not be able to edit them.

Click into the row that contains the file you wish to select.

Width: Change the width of your image. If the image is recognised correctly, you have the image’s dimensions (in pixels) displayed directly.

Note

The size of the image will shrink automatically when there is less width than set in the image width to accommodate the responsive design.

Vertical space: Add more space (in pixels) above and below the image.

Horizontal space: Add more space (in pixels) to the left and righ of the image.

Border width: Add a simple black border to your image if you wish to do so. Here you can choose how wide that border will be.

Alignment: Decide where you want to place the image in relation to the text.

Style (CSS): Add CSS style information if you want to make specific changes beyond the basic settings. If you made any changes above, they will be placed into this field so you can change them directly here.

Click the Submit button to keep your changes. Alternatively, click Cancel if you want to abort inserting the image.

Click the Close button if you want to abort inserting an image.

If you are not happy with how the image looks, select it (it will get little square handles) and click the Image button tinymce_image again to make adjustments.

17.1.2. Use a base64 image

You can insert an image file encoded in base64 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base64] into a text area in which you can use the HTML editor.

Insert a base64 image via the HTML editor in the visual editor

Convert your image to be base64-encoded. There are a number of websites where you can do that online. Copy the encoded image.

Go to the visual editor and click the HTML icon tinymce HTML.

In order for the base64 image to be recognized as an image, it needs to be put into an image tag. Type the beginning of the image tag: <img src=".

Paste the base64-encoded image. It’s a lot of lines of characters that start with data:image.

Close your image tag so that the browser knows where your image ends: " />.

Click the OK button to return to the visual editor. If you inserted the image tag correctly, your image is displayed.

You can now change the size and position of your image if you like by selecting the image and clicking the Image icon tinymce_image.

Click the Save button to return to the page edit screen.

17.2. Insert a link to another portfolio page

You can insert a link directly to one of your personal portfolio pages without needing to know its URL.

Note

Currently, this feature only exists for linking to your own personal portfolio pages, but not for linking to other people’s pages or group, institution, or site pages.

Insert an internal link into text

When you are in Edit mode of your page, select the Text block and drag it into the page editing area.

Note

This works anywhere on the site where you have the visual editor available.

Write the text that you want to link and highlight it.

Click the Link icon tinymce link. The link configuration modal opens.

Text to display: You see the text that you highlighted.

Link list: The drop-down menu shows all the collections and pages that are not in a collection to which you can link.

Select the page to which your highlighted text should link.

Url: The full path to the page is entered automatically into this field.

Click the OK button to save your choice.

Continue writing your text and then save your content.

17.3. Insert a link anchor

Sometimes you may not wish to link to a particular page, but rather to a specific passage within a journal entry or some other text in a block.

In this case, you can set an anchor and link to it.

Note

Anchors only work within an artefact and not across pages or artefacts. That means that you can set an anchor within a journal entry, but you cannot link to that anchor from within another journal entry or text block.

In order to use anchors, you need to:

Set the anchor.

Link to the anchor.

17.3.1. Set an anchor

Set an anchor in text

When you are in Edit mode of your page, select the Text block and drag it into the page editing area.

Note

This works anywhere on the site where you have the visual editor available.

Write your long text and place the curson in the line to which you want to link directly.

Click the Anchor icon tinymce anchor. The anchor configuration modal opens.

Note

You will need to click the Toggle toolbars icon tinymce toggle toolbars to see the Anchor icon.

Id: Give your anchor a name so you can refer to it when setting your link.

Click the OK button to save your decision. You are returned to the edit screen for your text and see a little anchor where you had positioned your cursor.

Save your text.

17.3.2. Link to an anchor

Link to an anchor

You need to have set an anchor to somewhere else in the text that you are currently editing.

Highlight a word in your text that should take you to the anchor elsewhere in your text.

Click the Link icon tinymce link. The link configuration modal opens.

Text to display: You see the text that you highlighted.

Anchors: Select the anchor to which you want to link from the drop-down menu.

Url: The anchor that you selected is displayed.

Note

“user_” is added automatically as the visual editor TinyMCE requires it for the anchor to work.

Click the OK button to save your choice.

Click the Save button to save your text.

When you display the page (outside of the Edit mode), you can click the linked text, and you will jump to the section to which you had linked within that same text.

17.4. Link to specific Mahara page in Moodle

Normally, when you log in to Mahara from Moodle, you land on the dashboard page. However, there is a trick to go directly to a specific page in Mahara.

See also

Thanks to Gordon McLeod [https://twitter.com/LearnTribe] who published this tip [https://portfolio.gla.ac.uk/view/view.php?id=20304].

18. Frequently asked questions

This section of the user manual contains questions that are often asked by organizations wanting to start using Mahara.

18.1. Privacy

18.1.1. GDPR compliance

18.1.2. Data storage

18.1.3. Is Mahara missing any privacy-related features?

18.1. Privacy

Warning

It is the responsibility of each institution to check what it needs to do to be compliant with the privacy laws in its jurisdiction.

Disclaimer: The information provided here does not constitute legal advice but is provided for information purposes only. If you need legal advice, please consult your own lawyer.

18.1.1. GDPR compliance

Starting in Mahara 18.04, Mahara includes a number of extra privacy-related features to support institutions to be compliant with the GDPR [https://www.eugdpr.org/] (General Data Protection Regulation), the new EU privacy regulation, effective 25 May 2018. It requires organizations to be stricter in protecting the personal privacy of EU residents.

This does mean though that the software can cover all areas of compliance. Each institution will still need to provide a number of extra information as well as infrastructure to adhere to the GDPR. These include, but may not be limited to the following, depending on your use of personal data of the people who use your site:

Up-to-date privacy statement and terms and conditions;

Data protection officer and work flow for responding to inquiries;

Internal documentation around data protection.

Features in Mahara that cate to the GDPR compliance:

Everyone can be required to consent to the terms and conditions and the privacy statement of the site: This is the strict privacy mode.

Note

Currently, the strict privacy mode requires that it is not possible for people to be in multiple institutions.

If an institution has additional terms and conditions or privacy regulations to which its members need to consent when using the site, they can be dealt with on the institution level and members need to consent to them.

Whenever changes are made to the legal statements (terms and conditions and privacy statement), everyone affected by them needs to consent to the changed statement(s) when they log into the site the next time.

People can revoke their consent to any legal statement. That will result in a notification to the site or institution administrator for further communication. Additionally, the account will be suspended automatically.

A history of the legal statements is kept on the site level and the institution level and tracked who made the changes.

Everyone can delete their account or request the deletion of their account if an institution requires a review. In the GDPR, this is known as “the right to be forgotten”. All personal content is deleted. The content a person created outside of their personal space is not affected by the account deletion as it is tied to shared content rather than personal content. These include:

group discussion posts;

journal entries on the group, institution, or site level;

uploaded files to a group, institution, or site;

portfolios in groups, on the institution or site level.

A report detailing when people consented to which legal statement.

Names and email addresses of deleted users are not kept in the system but replaced. Typically, a record of them needs to stay in Mahara because they could have contributed to groups or left comments on other people’s portfolios. However, their name is not displayed. Instead, the generic name “Deleted user” is displayed.

18.1.2. Data storage

You can install Mahara on your own server infrastructure or use an existing (cloud) data center. It is up to your institution to make that decision based on your technical, financial, and legal requirements and obligations.

Mahara does not prevent you from installing the site anywhere you see fit and does increasingly support cloud storage.

18.1.3. Is Mahara missing any privacy-related features?

Mahara is being used around the world in many different countries. Each country has its own data protection and privacy laws that may change from time to time.

If you think that an existing law or one that is going to be in effect requires stricter measures around privacy, please file a request in our bug and feature tracker [https://bugs.launchpad.net/mahara/+filebug] or send us an email [https://mahara.org/contact.php] to make us aware of these regulations and discuss how Mahara can support them.

1. ToDo list

2. Information for Mahara user manual writers and translators

This is a list in progress. There are a number of things for which conventions were created. Here is the central space to keep them so that everyone has access to them.

The list is not in any particular order.

2.1. Install Sphinx

The Mahara user manual requires that Sphinx is installed on your computer. You can find information on how to install Sphinx on the Sphinx website [http://sphinx-doc.org/].

The following instructions are for Debian / Ubuntu based systems and require that you work in the terminal.

Install the Python virtual environment: sudo apt-get install python-virtualenv

If you also want to generate PDFs, you will need to install all the LaTeX dependencies: sudo apt-get install texlive-xetex texlive-lang-all texlive-fonts-extra

Create a folder on your computer (if you don’t already have one) where you place git repositories, e.g. code.

In the terminal, enter the folder “code”: cd code

Do a checkout of the code for the user manual:

via SSH: git clone git@git.mahara.org:user-manual/manual.git OR

via HTTS: git clone https://git.mahara.org/user-manual/manual.git

In the terminal, enter the folder “manual”: cd manual

Install the virtual environment for this folder: virtualenv venv

Activate the virtual environment: . venv/bin/activate

Install all requirements: pip install -r requirements.txt

Build the user manual in HTML: make html

Note

This will create all translations that are available for the user manual and will take a bit. If you only want to create the English user manual, you can compile it with make preview MAHARA=18.10

If you want to compile a PDF, you can do so via make latexpdf

Open the index.html file in a browser to view the manual. You can find it in the folder build/en/18.10.

Once you are done editing the user manual, you can deactivate the virtual environment by typing deactivate in the terminal.

2.2. Make changes to the user manual

Once you installed the user manual on your computer, you can make changes. The following actions are performed in the terminal.

Enter your user manual folder: cd code/manual

Start the virtual environment so you can compile the manual using Sphinx: . venv/bin/activate

Now make any changes in your preferred editor.

Compile a preview of the manual just in English: make preview MAHARA=18.10

Note

Change the version number depending on the version of Mahara that you are compiling.

Deactivate the virtual environment once you are done editing: deactivate

2.3. Screenshots

are placed using the “figure” directive.

always include alt text and a figure description. That sets them apart from the text.

are generally placed above a list if they are part of step-by-step instructions.

should have as few instructions as possible about the steps that are to be taken in them. Preferably, only the step numbers so that they can be exchanged more easily and the text of the steps is translatable because it is text and not part of the image. That could also mean that translators can translate the steps but don’t immediately have to change the screenshots.

get callouts that are pre-made and can be found in the Gimp file /images_originals/z_callouts.xcf.

only get an arrow if an item is to be pointed out but there are no steps involved. The arrow can be found in the file /images_originals/z_arrow.png.

that have callouts refer to the steps that need to be taken and that are explained below the figure.

should only show the necessary area and not the entire screen or URL address bars etc. where not necessary.

Most screenshots are added with the figure directive.

Example of including a screenshot

The first line provides the path to the file.

Note

The * replaces the file extension and Sphinx chooses the file that is most appropriate. Thus, files could have different image extensions, or you could have the same screenshots in different file formats that are then chosen by the programme to best suit the end format of the manual.

For the Mahara user manual we use .png files in general as we work with screenshots. It is still good to use the * instead of the .png extension in case the file format is changed at some point.

The second line represents the alt text that is displayed when hovering over the image, when no images are displayed or when viewing the page via a screen reader.

The third line must follow an empty line. This is the text that is displayed below the screenshot as figure description. In the PDF output, the descriptions will be numbered continuously.

If you don’t want to display all the information from a screen but only the top and the bottom part, you can use the file /images_originals/z_omission.xcf and place it into your screenshot. The sinus waves were created using the gimp plugin Shape paths [http://registry.gimp.org/node/59] with the following settings:

Sine Wave

Start X: 0

Start Y: 200 and upon the second run 215 to get the gap between the lines

Amplitude: 3

Wavelength: 25

Number of cycles: 40 (but depends on how wide the screenshot is)

Tick for Stroke path

Stroke color: CCCCCC

Note

If you want to include an image inline with the text and don’t want to or can’t use the regular figure, you should create a substitution and place it into the shortcuts.rstext file. There are plenty of examples in that shortcuts file already.

2.4. Admonitions in use are

note: for anything that should receive a bit more attention

Note

Notes can be placed directly within a bulleted list. As usual, an empty line before and after the note must be placed and the admonition must be indented by 3 spaces.

warning: for anything that needs to be done with caution

Warning

Try not to put everything into an admonition because then the truly important information is lost.

seealso: for references to other documents if they need special attention. References to other documents can also be included in the text inline.

See also

The Sphinx user documentation [http://www.sphinx-doc.org] is a great place to deepend your knowledge and understanding of using rST with Sphinx. If you have any questions, you can also check out the Sphinx discussion group [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/sphinx-dev].

todo: for keeping a running ToDo list. ToDo lists are currently disabled.

2.5. Conventions

Note

Languages that do not use spaces between words

Sphinx assumes that there is always a space before a command starts and after one ends. That is the only way that it has to recognize the markup characters as ones that tell Sphinx what to do.

This poses a problem in languages such as Japanese as there are no spaces between words.

You do need to put spaces into the text though. Otherwise, formatting won’t happen, index entries won’t get created, and substitutions are not done. Thus, replicate the spacing that you see in the English version. For example, put a space:

before and after a substitution such as |edit|,

before :index: and :ref: and when the index entry or reference ends.

before * when it is followed by a word and after the closing *, e.g. *word* because that indicates that the formatting is changed to word. The same goes for words that begin and end with **.

Each section that is related to a navigation menu item should have the path listed, e.g. Main menu → Create → Files. It is best if you copy the arrow to get the correct one.

Buttons such as Save or Copy page and also portfolio sections such as Content, Portfolio etc. are highlighted as emphasized text (with a single *).

Little buttons can be included in the text like , . They are added through a substitution. All replacements are kept in the file shortcuts.rstext which is included in each file in which a substitution is used by placing “.. include:: /shortcuts.rstext” in the first line of the file. Substitutions are referenced in the text as “*Edit* button |edit|” for example pointing out what the action is that you do with them. Translators should not edit the substitution “|edit|” itself, but only change “*Edit* button” taking care to include the * again without placing any spaces between the * and the text to ensure that the word appears highlighted.

An index entry should be created for each section.

New features receive an index entry as well in the form “single: New in Mahara x, [the functionality that is new]”. Index entries can be placed either above an entire section or inline. Inline is preferable for small functional changes so that readers are directly taken to the new functionality. This can be done like so:

:index:`Decide on the sort order <single: New in Mahara 18.10; Sort order of files in the "Folder" block>`

Warning

If there is not a punctuation mark just before “:index:” and/or after “>`”, you have to insert a space just before “:index:” and/or after “>`”.

Long sections like the administration are broken up into several pages to make the editing more manageable instead of having everything on one very long page.

reStructuredText does not have a set hierarchy of heading levels. They depend on the individual files. However, to be consistent, the following convention exists:

Heading 1, e.g. 1.: ===============

Heading 2, e.g. 1.1.: —————

Heading 3, e.g. 1.1.1.: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Heading 4, e.g. 1.1.1.1.: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Headings below h4 should be avoided.

The index page does not have headings besides the main heading. That prevents the table of contents and the other sections that have headings to be the main chapters of the manual. Keep index page headings to just bold with **.

2.6. In-text formatting

Bulletted lists have * as symbol to start each bullet point.

Numbered lists have #. to start each numbered item.

If you require an indented bulleted or numbered list, place a free line before the indented list and then indent each line with 3 spaces. There also needs to be an empty line when the indented list ends.

Emphasized text starts and ends with 1 *, e.g. *this*. It will then look like this.

Bold text starts and ends with 2 *, e.g. **this**. It will then look like this.

2.7. Hyperlinks

External links: “`[text that is linked] <URL>`_” - Translators should only replace “[text that is linked]”.

Internal references to which can be linked from elsewhere in the manual are created by placing “.. [reference_text]:” in a line right before a heading. I usually leave an empty line between the reference and the heading.

Linking to an internal reference: “:ref:`[text that is linked] <the internal reference>`” - Translators should only replace “[text that is linked]”.

The ` is an accent mark and not a straight single quote.

An in-text target can be achieved by placing the text to be linked within accent marks preceded by an underscrore: _`the internal reference`. Referencing is the usual :ref:`[text that is linked] <the internal reference>`.

2.8. Translators beware

Do not change the target for internal links that is placed between < >. If you do, the reference cannot be found. There should always be an explanatory text right before the pointy brackets. You can change that.

Similarly, you can change the text for a URL but not the URL itself unless you want to replace it with a URL to a site in your language.

If you translate the screenshots and other images, please ensure that you keep the folder structure of the “images” folder as you can see in the respective branch of the manual version you are editing in Git [https://git.mahara.org/user-manual/manual], for example for Mahara 18.10 [https://git.mahara.org/user-manual/manual/tree/18.10_STABLE/source/images].

You can find original images used for the manual in the folder “images_original” and then their respective subfolders. You can use them for your own translations if you only want to exchange the background but keep the callouts.

You do not have to redo any images that you do not “translate”, e.g. block icons, general buttons around Mahara and the text editor buttons. Any images that are not in your translation will be taken from the English original.

The user manual is updated once a day and new translation strings pulled in from Launchpad and images uploaded to Git prior to the compilation of the manual.

Currently, not everything can be translated in Sphinx. Hopefully, later versions will fix that.

Note

If you want to mention the names of the main translators of the user manual for your language, you can add a sentence right after “The Mahara user manual is written by Mahara community members.” That paragraph appears before the table of contents. There is no equivalent sentence in the English manual because it is not a translation.

Index

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X

A

Accept legal statements on first login

Access to site files in subfolders

Accessibility

Account

Apps

Custom profile URL

Delete account

General account options

Notification settings

Notifications

Password

Settings

Username

View legal statements

Account registration confirmation

Account settings

Administration

Default registration expiry lifetime

Override user account lifetime

Active Directory

Authentication

Add groups by CSV

Add institution

Institution

Add institution staff rights during registration approval

Add new journal entry directly from a page

Add new journal post directly from a page

Add other items to the shortcut list of the content chooser via an API

Add user

Administration

Add users by CSV

Administration

CSV files can have semicolon as separator

Progress bar for uploading users by CSV

Admin home

Administration

Admin institution invitation

Institution membership

Admin notifications

Administration

Administer groups

Group

Administration

Account settings

Add user

Add users by CSV

Admin home

Admin notifications

CLI

Change authentication method in bulk

Change the default page

Change user institution settings

Clear caches

Configure site

Cookie Consent

Delete user

Email settings

Experimental features

Export queue

Extensions

Fonts

Footer menu

General settings

Group

Group settings

Institution

Institution journals

Institution settings

Legal

Licenses

Links and resources

Log in as

Logging settings

Maintenance mode

Menu

Navigation

Networking

Notification settings

Profile completion

Proxy settings

Registration with the Mahara project

Reports

Revoke registration with the Mahara project

Search settings

Security settings

Share site pages and collections

Show users in public search

Site administrators

Site files

Site information

Site journals

Site options

Site pages and collections

Site settings

Site skins

Site staff

Static pages

Style guide

Suspend user

Suspended and expired users

Update users by CSV

User account settings

User bulk actions

User search

User settings

Users

Warnings

Web services

config.php

Administrator interface for adding iframe sources

Advanced reporting

Logging for advanced reporting

Advanced search options for shared portfolios

Allow anonymous pages

Allow authenticated feeds

Allow user CSV upload to ignore non-essential mandatory fields

Allow users to link own SAML account

Allow viewers to download files in a folder block

Android app

Annotation

Blocks

Anti-spam

Apps

Account

Archived submissions

Group

Artefact

Objectionable material report

Objectionable material review

Attach a file to a note

Note

Attachments on résumé fields, [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9]

Authentication

Active Directory

Authentication method order

IMAP

LDAP

SAML

Web services

XML-RPC

Authentication method

Authentication method order

Authentication

Automatic access to copied page or collection

Automatically allow public profiles with public pages

B

Base64 image

Blackboard

LTI setup

Block category

External content

Files and images and video

General

Journal

Personal info

Blocks

Annotation

Comments

Creative Commons license

Display an entire journal

Display my entire résumé

Display one journal entry

Display one résumé field

Display recent journal entries

Display tagged journal entries

Embedded media

External feed

External media

File to download

Folder

Google Apps

Group info

Group members

Group portfolios

Image

Image gallery

Latest changes I can view

My friends

My groups

My inbox

My portfolios

Navigation

Note

Open Badges

PDF

Peer assessment

Plans

Profile information

Recent forum posts

Sign-off

Social media

Some HTML

Text

Wall

Watched pages

Blocks usage matrix

Bulk export

Experimental features

Bulk import

Experimental features

Button for copying a group page

C

Canvas

LTI setup

Change authentication method

Change authentication method in bulk

Administration

Change default account settings upon user creation, [1]

Change remote username

Change user institution settings

Administration

Choose only from tags used in journal entries

ClamAV

Clean URLs

Clear caches

Administration

CLI

Administration

Delete certain groups in bulk

Delete certain users in bulk

Index sites running Elasticsearch faster

Install and update language packs

Collaboration report

People reports

Collection

Assessment

Feedback on a submitted collection

Comment

View artefact comments on a portfolio page

Comment block

Comments

Blocks

Change the look of comment ratings

Comment notification for institution pages and artefacts

Comment on content and portfolios

Comment time displayed in elapsed time

File settings

Notify group members about feedback on group pages

Plugins - configurable

Receive notifications about additional comments

Reply to comments

Threaded comments

View comments

Compose a message

Compose a message to multiple people

config.php

Administration

Destination for log information

Developer mode

Disable production mode

Error reporting

File containing error messages

Give users probation status (probationenabled)

Hide login sideblock (showloginsideblock)

Internal username counts instead of remote one (usersuniquebyusername)

Log backtraces, [1]

Open Badges displayer sources

Path to ClamAV (pathtoclam)

Permissions

Remote avatar server URL (remoteavatarbaseurl)

Rename copied pages and collections (renamecopies)

Run the cron or upgrade only when you are authorised (urlsecret)

Select session handler

Send all emails to one address), [1]

Set a site-wide password salt (passwordsaltmain)

Share the same dataroot with another Mahara

Skins (skins), [1]

System email address

publicsearchallowed

config.php variables

developermode

directorypermissions

error_reporting

insecuredataroot

log targets

log_backtrace_levels

log_backtrace_print_args

log_file

noreplyaddress

openbadgedisplayer_source

passwordsaltmain

pathtoclam

probationenabled

probationstartingpoints

productionmode

remoteavatarbaseurl

renamecopies

sendallemailto

sendemail

sessionhandler

showloginsideblock

skins, [1]

urlsecret

usersuniquebyusername

Configurable default video size of "Embedded media"

Configurable theme

Institution

Configuration of external image galleries

Configure site

Administration

Staff report access

Confirm registration site-wide

Confirmation message before deleting journal that is in use, [1], [2], [3]

Content

Files

Journal

Notes

Plans

Profile

Profile pictures

Remote avatars

Résumé builder

Content chooser on the left-hand side

Content report

Reports

Cookie Consent

Administration

Copy

Portfolio

Copy a group

Copy a portfolio as Leap2A without having an account, [1]

Copy an existing note

Note

Copy button directly on a page / collection that you can copy

Create Open Badges collection in the Mozilla Backpack

Creative Commons license

Blocks

Cron errors are displayed in red

Curriculum vitae

see Résumé

Custom group URL

Custom profile URL

Custom URL for group pages

Custom URL for portfolio pages

D

Dashboard

Blocks

Navigation

Quick links

Default account inactivity time

Default account lifetime

Default group quota

File settings

Default notification method

Default sort order of files in a folder block

Default user quota

File settings

Delete user

Administration

Device detection, [1], [2]

Direct link to objectionable artefact instead of page only

Disable bounced email addresses automatically

Disallow skins on a theme

Display an entire journal

Blocks

Display external / remote username field only for required authentication methods

Display group members according to their roles

Display my entire résumé

Blocks

Display note title on Notes overview page

Display one journal entry

Blocks

Display one résumé field

Blocks

Display recent journal entries

Blocks

Display tagged journal entries

Blocks

Select multiple tags to display tagged journal entries

Display tagged journal entries in full

Display the name of the person reporting objectionable material in the "From" field in the inbox

Display up to 100 members in the Group members block

Display used file quota in admin area

Display warning message when editing a note under "Content" that is used multiple times

Displaying dashboard content in Moodle

Double-click action when moving users

Download folder content as a zip file in the "Files" area

Drag and drop files into files area, [1]

Drag and drop pages into a collection

Drag and drop pages within a collection to sort them

Drop-down site navigation

E

Edit access to profile page

Edit institution

Institution

Edit site institution

Change the comment sort order for artefacts

Institution

Upload site logo

Editability of group content

Email settings

Administration

Embed PDF

Embedded media

Blocks

Browser compatibility

Plugins - configurable

Enable multiple journals

Exact search

Exact user search

Exempt page owner to receive notification when sharing with group

Expand the custom CSS text box

Expand the skin description text box

Experimental features

Administration

Bulk export

Bulk import

usersuniquebyusername

Export

HTML

Leap2A

Export feedback in HTML export

Export Leap2A via queue

Export queue

Administration

Extensions

Administration

HTML filters

Plugins

External content

Block category

External content block

External feed

External media

Google Apps

Open Badges

External feed

Blocks

Open RSS entries in new window

External media

Blocks

Embed content via Embedly

External media iframe filters

External resources in HTML

External tools

LTI

F

Feedback

Anonymous feedback

Give feedback

Give feedback anonymously

View feedback

Feedback notification for site pages and artefacts

File

Edit file

File area; File browser

File quota

Plugins - configurable

Rotate an image

Upload a file

Upload multiple files

File settings

Comments

Default group quota

Default user quota

Folder downloads

Profile picture size

Resize images on upload

Upload agreement

File to download

Blocks

Files and images and video

Block category

Files and images and video block

Embedded media

File(s) to download

Folder

Image

Image gallery

PDF

Some HTML

Filter by duplicate email addresses

Filter by login date in "User search"

Find people

Accept friend request

Deny friend request

Send friend request

Flexibility in number of users shown per page

Flexible page layout: Arrange content on pages in rows

Folder

Blocks

Download folder content as a zip file in the "Folders" block

Plugins - configurable

Sort order of files in the "Folder" block

Folder downloads

File settings

Fonts

Administration

Footer menu

Administration

Forum

Add forum topic

Bulk actions - administrator and moderator

Delete

Move discussion topics to another forum

Objectionable content on forum topics and post

Plugins - configurable

Post forum reply

Set up a forum

Subscribe to individual forum topics

Unsubscribe from individual forum topics

Friend invitation to join a group, [1]

Friend recommendation to join a group, [1]

Fulltext search, [1], [2], [3]

Plugins - configurable

G

General

Block category

General block

Annotation

Comments

Creative Commons license

Group info

Group members

Group portfolios

Latest changes I can view

My inbox

Navigation

Note

Peer assessment

Plans

Recent forum posts

Sign-off

Text

Watched pages

General settings

Administration

Generate new public key for MNet by deleting the existing one

Generate sitemap for public content

Glossary

Google Apps

Blocks

Gravatar, [1]

Group

Administer groups

Administration

Archived submissions

Create

Files

Forum

Group administrators

Group bulk creation and update

Group category - manage

Group homepage

Group members bulk update

Journals

Members

Pages and collections

Settings

Share

Group administrators

Group

Group bulk creation and update

CSV files can have semicolon as separator

Group

Group category

Group category - manage

Group

Group deletion notification

Group display in sidebar

Decide the sort order of your groups in the sidebar

Maximum number of groups to display in sidebar

Group file quota

Group homepage

Group

Group info

Blocks

Group information to include number of forums, topics and posts

Group journals

Group member

Change role of a member

Group members

Blocks

Group members bulk update

CSV files can have semicolon as separator

Group

Group page editing permission

Group portfolios

Blocks

Modified content triggers updated date

Only display collections from group members

Only display pages from group members

Sort group pages and collections

Sort shared pages and collections

Sort submitted pages and collections

Group settings

Administration

Groups

Find groups

Find people

Group functionalities

Institution membership

My friends

My groups

Topics

Groups report

Reports

H

Hide group

Hide group membership

HTML editor

HTML export

HTML filters

Extensions

HTML5 media player

I

Ignore maintenance mode

Image

Blocks

Rotate an image

Image descriptions in image gallery

Image gallery

Blocks

Image descriptions in image gallery

Plugins - configurable

Image gallery from external images

IMAP

Authentication

Import

Leap2A

Import Leap2A file

Inbox

Display unread notifications first

Link to compose a message from your inbox

Link to compose a message from your sent box

Notifications

Insecure SSL mode for feeds

Insert a link anchor

Insert an image into a note

Note

Insert an image into text

Insert an image from Mahara into text

Insert link to an internal portfolio page

Installation notice on "Admin home"

Institution

Add institution

Administration

Configurable theme

Edit institution

Edit site institution

Institution administrator

Institution files

Institution logo upload

Institution portfolios

Institution staff

Legal

Members

New account

Pending deletions

Pending user account registration

Share institution collections

Share institution pages

Static pages

Suspend institution

Tags

Institution administrator

Add user

Add users by CSV

Change authentication method in bulk

Export queue

Group administration

Institution

Institution administration

Institution journals

Update users by CSV

User management

Institution comparison report

Institution reports

Institution default quota

Institution default quota update

Institution files

Institution

Institution homepage

Institution journals

Administration

Institution legal statements

Institution logo upload

Institution

Institution membership

Admin institution invitation

Members who left institution

Remove members from institution

Request institution membership

Revoke membership invitation

Institution membership to be found in "Groups"

Institution overview report

Institution reports

Institution portfolios

Institution

Institution reports

Institution comparison report

Institution overview report

Logins report

Reports

Institution setting

"Online users" side block

Change the comment sort order for artefacts

Default institution language

Page skins

Institution setting for public pages

Institution settings

Administration

Institution staff

Institution

Institution static pages

Institution theme configuration

Integration with an LMS

Internal search

Plugins - configurable

iOS app

J

Journal

Add attachment

Add image

Add journal entry

Block category

Multiple journals

Settings

Journal block

Add new journal post directly from a page

Display an entire journal

Display one journal entry

Display recent journal entries

Display tagged journal entries

Journals

Group

L

Latest changes I can view

Blocks

LDAP

Authentication

Group sync

User sync

LDAP group sync

LDAP user sync

Leap2A export, [1]

Leap2A import, [1]

Legal

Administration

Institution

Legal consent report

People reports

License metadata

License metadata: Add license information to a journal

License metadata: Add license information to a journal entry

License metadata: Add license information to a note

License metadata: Add license information to a plan

License metadata: Add license information to a plan's task

License metadata: Add license information to files

License metadata: Add license information to your résumé

License metadata: Configure licenses

License metadata: Institution settings

License metadata: Set default license

Licenses

Administration

Limit the number of users in the "Online users" sidebar

Limit user search results to institution

Limited deleting of feedback on group pages

Link group names from administrator interface

Link profile picture and name to user profile in "User search"

Link to profile pictures page

Link to the edit screen of your profile page

Link to user manual

Links and resources

Administration

List of accessible portfolio pages on "My friends" page

Local customisation of the "Static pages" list

Log in as

Administration

Logged-in profile page access

Logging settings

Administration

Login

Hide login form

Logins report

Institution reports

LTI

Enable LTI

Enable LTI for institution

LTI and second authentication method

Plugins - configurable

LTI setup

Blackboard

Canvas

Mahara

Moodle

M

Mahara

Books

E-learning

Enhancing the software

Framework

Get involved

Help

LTI setup

Test it

Usage

Version number

What is it?

Mahara logo changes according to background of configurable theme

Mahara logo that can be picked up by Facebook

Mahoodle, [1]

Link to specific Mahara page from Moodle

Mahara to Moodle

Moodle to Mahara

see XML-RPC

Maintenance mode

Administration

Masquerading

see Log in as

Masquerading sessions report

People reports

Masquerading: Logging settings

Masquerading: Masquerading notification

Masquerading: Notify user

Masquerading: Provide reason

Masquerading: Require reason

MathJax support

Members

Institution

Members who left institution

Institution membership

Menu

Administration

Metaphor

MNet

see XML-RPC

Mobile API

Plugins - configurable

Mobile Mahara

Mahara Mobile

MaharaDroid

Mobile browsing

PortfolioUp

Mobile upload, [1]

Moodle

LTI setup

see XML-RPC

Multiple institutions

Institution expiry; Auto-suspend expired institutions

Multiple mobile upload tokens

My friends

Blocks

My groups

Blocks

Limit number of groups in the "My groups" block"

Sort groups in the "My groups" block

My inbox

Blocks

My portfolios

Blocks

N

Navigation

Admin menu navigation

Administration

Blocks

Main menu navigation

User menu navigation

Networking

Administration

New account

Institution

New in Mahara 18.10

Add more blocks to group, institution, and site pages

Advanced options for page creation

Can't delete feedback while portfolio is submitted

Copy group portfolio into members' accounts

Decide on number of tasks to display in a block

Define custom landing page after login

Delete certain groups in bulk via CLI

Delete certain users in bulk via CLI

Inbox not in sub menu anymore

Increased row limit for custom layout to 20

Institution tags

LDAP as parent authentication for LTI

LTI for assignment submission

List collection pages and page tags on "Tags" page

List of SAML Identity Providers available on the site

Lock blocks on a page & don't delete them

Navigation menu item changes

Not completed tasks are shown first in a plan

Objectionable content report

Page instructions

Peer assessment

Populate a page with tagged content

Removed Panoramio as external photo gallery

Revoke access to portfolio as administrator

Search your portfolios based on multiple tags

Set your default time zone

Sign off and verify a page

Tags on Google Apps block

Tags on Open Badges block

Tags on external feed block

Tags on external media block

Tags on résumé block

Tags on résumé field block

Tags on text block

Timeline: View old versions of a portfolio page

Turn on institution tags

Update task status of a plan on page in edit mode

Update task status of a plan on page in view mode

View results for individuals in page activity report

View tagged content of others

New in Mahara 18.10' Display more than 1 plan in a block

Note

Attach a file to a note

Blocks

Copy an existing note

Insert an image into a note

Notes

Notification expiry

Notification settings

Account

Administration

Annotation feedback

Notification to administrators about full institution membership quota

Notification to group members when new group page is created

Notifications

Account

Inbox

Search your notifications in your "Inbox"

Search your notifications in your "Sent" messages

Sent messages

O

Objectionable content report

Reports

Online users side block

Open Badges

Blocks

Override default site pages

Override user account lifetime

Owners retains access to their uploaded files in a group

P

Page

Assessment

Comments

Export

Feedback

Feedback on a submitted page

Import

Lesser used functionality on a page is accessible via a button

Lock page

Objectionable material report

Objectionable material review

Page editor

Skins

Page activity report

People reports

Page editor

Content chooser

Edit layout

Editor navigation

Page layout area

Page sort order is remembered, [1]

Pagination of posts in a forum topic

Parent folder icon

Participation report, [1]

Password policy

PDF

Blocks

Peer assessment

Blocks

Pending deletions

Institution

Pending user account registration

Institution

People overview report

People reports

People reports

Collaboration report

Legal consent report

Masquerading sessions report

Page activity report

People overview report

Portfolio access report

Reports

User activity report

User details report

Personal info

Block category

Personal info block

Display my entire résumé

Display one résumé field

My friends

My groups

My portfolios

Profile information

Social media

Wall

Plan

Add task

Display plan description on portfolio page

Display tags for a plan's task

Display tags on plan tasks on a page

Edit task

New plan

Plans

Blocks

Plugins

Extensions

Not yet installed plugins are listed first

Plugins - configurable

Comments

Embedded media

File

Folder

Forum

Fulltext search

Image gallery

Internal search

LTI

Mobile API

Profile

SAML

Text

Wall

Portfolio

Add collection

Add page

Add pages to a collection

Assessment

Comments

Copy portfolio

Delete a portfolio

Display page

Edit a page

Export

Feedback

Feedback on a submitted collection

Feedback on a submitted page

Icons on the overview page

Import

Manage pages in a collection

Objectionable material report

Objectionable material review

Page and collections

Share, [1]

Shared by me

Tag

Timeline

Portfolio access report

People reports

Portfolio search

Portfolios

Overview

Portfolios shared with me

Probation status for new self-registered users

Profile

About me

Add custom profile fields

Add email address

Contact information

Delete email address

Display profile fields in "User search"

General

Plugins - configurable

Social media

Profile completion

Administration

Profile completion activation

Profile information

Blocks

Profile page

Profile picture location

Profile picture size

File settings

Proxy settings

Administration

Public group

Public pages

Public profile

Q

Quota notification threshold

R

Recent forum posts

Blocks

Rectractable blocks

Registration agreement

Registration with the Mahara project

Administration

Remote avatars

Content

Remove members from institution

Institution membership

Reports

Administration

Content report

Groups report

Institution reports

Objectionable content report

People reports

Reports accessible by staff members

Request institution membership

Institution membership

Resize images on upload

File settings

Resize images on upload - per file upload

Resize images on upload - user default setting

Responsive design, [1]

Revoke membership invitation

Institution membership

Revoke registration with the Mahara project

Administration

Résumé builder

Achievements

Cover letter

Education and employment

Goals

Interests

License

Personal information

Skills

S

Safeguard before moving away accidentally before having saved information

SAML

Add SAML IdP metadata directly in Mahara

Authentication

Auto refresh of SAML metadata

Plugins - configurable

SAML as parent authentication to LTI

Select the signature algorithm for SAML authentication

Use ADFS as authentication method via SAML

Wrong login message for SAML

Search for friends on "Edit access"

Search only for groups you can join

Search settings

Administration

Search shared pages and collections by the owner

Security settings

Administration

Path to ClamAV

reCAPTCHA

Select all pages at once to be added to a collection

Select group members to notify of new and shared pages

Send a message

Send a message to multiple people

Send forum post notification immediately, [1]

Send friend request

Limit friendship request message to 255 characters

Show date when a friend request was issued

Sent messages

Notifications

Session handler

Memcached

Session handler: Redis

Session lifetime

Settings

Share

Advanced options

Edit access

Profile page access

Secret URL

Share institution collections

Institution

Share institution pages

Institution

Share site pages and collections

Administration

Share with "Favourite users"

Share with institution

Show if institutions require approval

Sign-off

Blocks

Site administrator

Account settings

Add user

Add users by CSV

Admin home

Administration overview

Bulk export

Bulk import

Change authentication method in bulk

Clean URLs

Clear caches

Configure site

Cookie Consent

Email settings

Experimental features

Export queue

Extensions

Fonts

Footer menu

General settings

Group administration

Group settings

HTML filters

Institution administration

Institution settings

Legal

Licenses

Links and resources

Logging settings

Maintenance mode

Manage iframe sources

Menu

Networking

Plugins

Proxy settings

Registration with the Mahara project

Revoke registration with the Mahara project

Search settings

Security settings

Share site pages and collections

Site administrators

Site files

Site information

Site journals

Site options

Site pages and collections

Site settings

Site skins

Site staff

SmartEvidence

Static pages

Style guide

Update users by CSV

User management

User settings

Warnings

Web services

usersuniquebyusername

Site administrators

Administration

Site files

Administration

Site information

Administration

Site journals

Administration

Site options

Administration

Site pages and collections

Administration

Default dashboard page

Default group homepage

Default profile page

Site settings

Administration

Site skins

Administration

Site staff

Administration

Sitemap

Skins, [1]

Disallow skins on a theme

Small page header is visible at all times

Small page headers

SmartEvidence, [1]

Add a framework

Assess a standard

Copy SmartEvidence collection

Create a framework file

Display all assessment statuses in SmartEvidence matrix

Download a framework file

Overview

Select a framework

Write an annotation

settings

SmartEvidence: Active frameworks for an institution

SmartEvidence: Active frameworks for the site institution

Social media

Blocks

Some HTML

Blocks

Sort group members

Spam protection

Probation status for new self-registered users

reCAPTCHA

Staff

Additional group creation options

Reports

User search

Staff information

Staff report access

Staff statistics access setting

Static pages

Administration

Institution

Statics about forum content in a group

Style guide

Administration

Submission

Turn on the archiving of pages / collections in a group as staff member or administrator

Submit a collection for assessment

Submit collections to a group

Suspend institution

Institution

Suspend user

Administration

Suspended and expired users

Administration

System mail address

T

Tag cloud

Tagging

Add a tag

Choose tags via select box

Edit tags

My tags

Tag cloud

View tagged content of others

Tags

Institution

Tags on collections, [1]

Temporarily lock account after too many wrong tries

Text

Blocks

Command-line script for converting notes to text

Plugins - configurable

Tips

Insert an image file into text

U

Unpublish a journal entry per the "Unpublish" button

Update file quota in bulk

Update group members by CSV

Update group quota

Update groups by CSV

Update users by CSV

Administration

Upload agreement

File settings

Upload multiple files

URL for publication

Use export queue for personal portfolio export (experimental)

Used user quota

User account settings

Administration

User activity report

People reports

User bulk actions

Administration

Change authentication method

Delete users

Set spam probation

Suspend users

User can choose institution theme when in multiple institutions

User can choose theme for browsing the site

User details report

People reports

User search

Administration

Display all secondary email addresses on the "User search" page

Primary and secondary email addresses are searchable

User search for staff members

User settings

Administration

Allow multiple journals for everyone per default

Never display usernames

User tags

Username display on the dashboard

Users

Administration

usersuniquebyusername

Experimental features

Using Moodle's login page

V

View and reactivate expired users in bulk

View skin metadata, [1]

Virus checking

W

Wall

Blocks

Plugins - configurable

Use visual editor for wall post

Wall post notification delivery setting (general)

Wall post notification delivery setting (personal)

Wall posts are sent as notification

Warning about changes in access permissions when adding pages to collection

Warning about small PHP session entropy length

Warning time for inactivity / expiry

Warning when deleting a page that is in a collection

Warnings

Administration

Watched pages

Activities of my friends

Blocks

Watchlist

Watchlist notification delay

Web services

Administration

Application connections

Authentication

Configuration

Connection manager

Registration of external apps

Use web services without SSL in testing mode

Web services logs

Web services test client

Web services configuration

Enable web service functionality

Manage service access tokens

Manage service groups

Manage service users

Networking certificates

X

XML-RPC

Authentication

Enter the port directly with the WWW root for XML-RPC / MNet

8.1. Account settings

User menu → Settings

The account settings of a user can be accessed via the Settings page in the User menu in the top right of a page.

Acces the Settings page

8.1.1. New password

You can change your Mahara password on the Settings page.

Note

If you do not see this section on your Settings page, you cannot change your password. Your login and password are managed elsewhere. This is the case if your institution has set up single sign-on for example. If you want to change your password in such a case but don’t know where, please contact your institution administrators. They will be able to tell you where you can change your password.

Change your password

Current password: Enter your current password.

New password: Enter your preferred new password.

The password strength indicator shows how strong your password is in relation to the password policy.

The minimum requirements for the password are mentioned in the help text.

Confirm password: Re-enter your new password to confirm its spelling.

Make further changes on the page if you wish.

Click the Save button at the bottom of the page.

Your password must have a minimum of six characters. Passwords are case sensitive and must be different from your username.

8.1.2. Change username

You need a username to log in to Mahara. If your account is not managed by single-sign on or another authentication method, you see this box with your current username in it. You can change your username at any time.

Change your username

Note

Usernames are 3-30 characters long and may contain letters, numbers and most common symbols excluding spaces.

8.1.3. Change profile URL

Note

You only see the “Change profile URL” part on your accounts settings page if the site administrator activated clean URLs and allowed you to change your profile URL.

Change profile URL

If you see this option, you can choose an identifier for your profile page. Per default, your username is chosen, but you may change that if the site administrator allowed it. Your identifier must be 3-30 characters long. You can only use lowercase letters from a-z, numbers and - (hyphen).

Your profile page is then accessible via the URL https://url-to-your-mahara-site/user/your-chosen-name. For example: https://mahara-university.org/user/paula.

Warning

Though you can change the URL to your profile page or any other portfolio page at any point, you shouldn’t do that because people who already know the URL to your page will not be able to access it anymore after you have changed it.

The original, internal Mahara URL, e.g. https://mahara-university.org/user/view.php?id=123 will still work.

8.1.4. General account options

The general account options are visible to all users no matter whether you can change your username and password or not. However, some options are only available if the site administrator turned them on.

View and change your general account options

Friends control: Choose whether other users may add you to their friends list. If you are added to a friends list, the owner of that list is added to yours as well. When you remove someone from your friends list, you are also removed from their list automatically. Your settings options are:

Nobody may add me as a friend: Other users do not see the option to add you as a friend.

New friends require my authorisation: Before someone can add you to their friends list, you must give your approval.

New friends are automatically authorised: You accept all friend requests automatically.

HTML editor: An HTML editor is available for use in some sections of the site. This is known as a ‘What you see is what you get’ (WYSIWYG) editor. It allows you to apply formatting to your text like in a word processor. If the editor is turned off, you can only enter plain text without any formatting like making text bold or colorising your text. If you do not have this option, the site administrator may have disabled it.

Default license: If the site administrator enabled License metadata in the general site settings, you can select your default license for your content that you create or upload. The default setting is “All rights reserved”, which means that you reserve all copyright.

If your institution administrator requires you to specify a license, you must set a license other than “None selected”.

You can choose any license from the drop-down menu that suits most of your content best. If you upload an artefact by another person that was published under a different license, you can choose that particular license on the artefact’s settings. If the site administrator allowed custom licenses, you can enter one using the drop-down menu option “Other license (enter URL)”.

Note

If you are not sure which default license to choose, please check with your organisation as it may require you to use a specific license. You can also consult a copyright lawyer (at cost).

If you are a member of multiple institutions and choose “Use institution default”, you will not be able to select the institution whose license you want to make the default one. One will be chosen by the system randomly.

Disable email: Use this setting to stop the site from sending you emails. It is advised that you generally regulate what is sent via email and what is not in the notifications.

Warning

If you disable your email address, you cannot reset your password as that requires the sending of an email. You will have to contact an administrator and have your password reset.

Messages from other users: Use this setting to choose who you wish to receive messages from. Use the notifications area to decide how you will receive these messages. Your options are:

Do not allow anyone to send me messages: Other users are not able to send you any messages.

Allow people on my friends list to send me messages: Only your friends can contact you in the system and send you a message.

Allow anyone to send me messages: Any user, no matter whether they are your friends or not, can contact you.

Note

These restrictions do not apply to users with ‘administrator’ or ‘staff’ access.

Language: If your Mahara instance is offered in multiple languages, you see this option and can choose in which language you want to navigate the site. The menu items and the contextual help appear in the language you have chosen. However, the content of portfolios or groups does not switch to that language automatically.

Theme:

If you belong to multiple institutions, you can choose the institution theme with which you wish to browse the site and see all your portfolios in (unless you chose a page theme or skin). Other users will see your pages in their own theme as this setting is not for choosing page themes.

If the site administrator allowed it, you can choose any theme that is available to you as your browse theme.

Show controls to add and remove columns when editing a page: You can add the Add and Remove buttons in the page editor to change the number of columns in a portfolio page quickly, see edit layout.

Multiple journals: By default, you have one journal. If you set this switch to “Yes”, you will be able to create more journals. Once you have created a second journal, you cannot switch this setting back to “No”.

Note

If you are using Moodle to export data to Mahara, you should enable multiple journals as content that is transferred using the Leap2A option is often placed into a new journal.

Maximum tags in cloud: Decide how many tags you wish to display in your personal tag cloud in the sidebar in Content and Portfolio.

Maximum number of groups to display: Decide how many groups you wish to display in your sidebar. If you do not enter any value, no group will be displayed.

Sort groups: Decide in which sort order your groups should be displayed in your sidebar:

Most recently joined: Groups are displayed in chronologically reverse order to show the groups that you joined recently first.

Earliest joined: This option displays your groups in the order in which you joined them.

A to Z: Alphabetically from A to Z. This is the default option.

Hide real name: You see this option if the site administrator allows users to hide their real name. If you switch this to “Yes”, others can only search for you using your display name.

Dashboard information: Choose this option if you want to display the quick links on your dashboard.

Profile completion progress bar: Switch this setting to “Yes” if you want to display the progress bar set up by your institution and tips on how to complete your profile.

Note

You only see this option if the administrator of your institution set up the profile completion.

If you are a member of multiple institutions, you can switch between the individual institutions in order to view the respective sidebar. sidebar_profile_completion

Resize large images on upload: If you enable this option, all large images will be resized to the maximum dimensions per default. You can disable this setting for the upload of individual images. You only see this option if the site administrator allowed it.

Device detection: If you enable this option and browse the site via a smartphone or tablet, you will only see functionality that can be handled comfortably on a mobile device. If you do not enable this option, you will see the site as it is on a mobile device. On small devices, the menu will change to a mobile-friendly one though. You only see this option if the site administrator allowed it.

Click the Save button when you have finished making your changes.

8.1.5. Delete account

You can delete your own account by clicking the Delete account button on the top of the Settings page.

Note

Every account can be deleted. It is up to the administrators to decide whether a review is required before the content of a user account can be deleted fully.

Delete your account and your entire content

Warning

Be absolutely sure that you want to delete your account. Your artefacts and portfolio pages cannot be restored once you deleted your account. Everything will be gone. You can make a backup of all your things (excluding group content) by exporting your portfolio.

If the site or the institution administrator decided that a review is required before you can delete your account, you will need to provide a reason for wanting to delete your account.

Reasons for deleting your account

Enter the reason for deleting your account.

Click the Send request button to request that your account be deleted.

The site administrator or institution administrator if you are a member in an institution receives a notification about your request and can approve or deny it.

On your account settings page, you can cancel or resend your account deletion request.

Cancel or resend your account deletion request

Click the “Cancel request” button if you want to keep your account.

Click the “Resend deletion notification” button if your administrator hasn’t deleted your account yet and hasn’t been in touch with any questions.

The date is displayed when you requested that your account be deleted.

4. Content

The Content tab holds all artefacts that you can create or upload for use in your portfolio. All information and files you provide here are initially only visible to you. Exceptions are:

your display name or if you don’t have one, your real name

your profile picture

Both these are visible in the Online users sidebar if that is activated. Your display name and profile picture are also visible on your profile page per default.

Only when you put artefacts into your portfolio pages or share them in a group will they be visible to others.

4.1. Profile

4.1.1. About me

4.1.2. Contact information

4.1.2.1. General information

4.1.2.2. Add and delete email addresses

4.1.3. Social media

4.1.3.1. View your list of social media accounts

4.1.3.2. Add a social media account

4.1.3.3. Delete a social media account

4.1.4. General

4.2. Profile pictures

4.2.1. Pictures uploaded to Mahara

4.2.2. Remote avatars

4.3. Files

4.3.1. File browser

4.3.2. Upload a file

4.3.3. Upload multiple files

4.3.4. Edit a file or folder

4.3.5. Rotate an image

4.3.6. File quota

4.4. Journals

4.4.1. Change your journal settings

4.4.2. Add a journal entry

4.4.3. Add an image into a journal entry

4.4.4. Add a file as attachment to a journal entry

4.4.5. Work with multiple journals

4.5. Résumé

4.5.1. Introduction

4.5.1.1. Write your cover letter

4.5.1.2. Provide personal information

4.5.2. Education and employment

4.5.2.1. Education history

4.5.2.2. Employment history

4.5.3. Achievements

4.5.3.1. Certifications, accreditations and awards

4.5.3.2. Books and publications

4.5.3.3. Professional memberships

4.5.4. Goals and skills

4.5.4.1. Goals

4.5.4.2. Skills

4.5.5. Interests

4.5.6. License

4.6. Plans

4.6.1. Create a new plan

4.6.2. Add tasks to a plan

4.6.3. View all tasks of a plan

4.6.3.1. View a plan under Content

4.6.3.2. View a plan on a portfolio page

4.6.4. Edit tasks in a plan

4.7. Notes

4.7.1. View your notes

4.7.2. Edit your notes

6. Groups

6.1. My groups

6.2. Find groups

6.3. Set up a group

6.3.1. Create a group as a user

6.3.2. Create a group as staff member or institution administrator

6.3.3. Create a group as a site administrator

6.3.4. Edit general group settings

6.4. Inside a group

6.4.1. Group homepage

6.4.1.1. View group homepage as regular group member

6.4.1.2. View group homepage as group administrator

6.4.2. Members

6.4.2.1. Members page

6.4.2.2. Change the role of a member

6.4.2.3. Invite a new member

6.4.2.4. Recommend a group to a friend

6.4.3. Forums

6.4.3.1. Set up a new forum

6.4.3.2. Add a forum topic

6.4.3.3. Reply to a topic or subsequent post

6.4.3.4. Delete a post, topic or forum

6.4.3.5. Administrative forum bulk actions

6.4.3.6. Subscribe to individual forum topics

6.4.3.7. Subscribe to individual forum topics

6.4.3.8. View objectionable content on forum topics and posts

6.4.4. Pages and collections

6.4.4.1. Group homepage

6.4.4.2. Regular group pages and collections

6.4.5. Journals

6.4.6. Share

6.4.7. Files

6.4.8. Report

6.5. My friends

6.5.1. Friends overview page

6.5.2. Remove a friend

6.6. Find people

6.6.1. Send a friend request

6.6.2. Accept a friend request

6.6.3. Deny a friend request

6.7. Institution membership

6.8. Topics

Groups can be used for collaboration among users as they offer the possibilities to:

discuss topics in forums

create and edit pages and collections together

share files

share pages

submit pages for assessment / feedback

Note

Groups can be created by every user, staff or administrators only. The site administrator decides that in Administration → Configure site → Group settings.

The Groups menu has a number of sub menus:

My groups: Displays the groups that you administer or in which you are a member. You can create new groups from here if you have the appropriate rights.

Find groups: Lists all groups in the system that you can view and allows you to join or request membership in them if groups allow that.

My friends: Displays your friends and gives you easy access to their profile pages.

Find people: Search for users in Mahara that you may wish to add to your friends list or whom you want to contact.

Shared pages: Lists the pages that you have permission to view.

Topics: Shows the latest discussion topics in your groups.

5. Portfolio

The Portfolio is the place in Mahara where you assemble the artefacts that you collect in Content into pages. You can then share these pages with others or simply keep them for yourself.

In this section you learn how to:

create portfolio pages

create collections to bundle portfolio pages

share your pages and / or collections

export your portfolio

give feedback on artefacts and pages

view your tag cloud and change tags

5.1. Pages and collections

5.1.1. Overview page

5.1.2. Icons on the overview page

5.1.2.1. Share your portfolio with others

5.1.2.2. Review existing sharing permissions

5.1.2.3. Access pages within a collection

5.1.2.4. More options

5.1.3. Profile page

5.1.4. Add a page

5.1.5. Edit an existing page

5.1.6. Add a collection

5.1.7. Add pages to a collection

5.1.8. Manage pages in a collection

5.1.9. Copy a portfolio

5.1.9.1. Copy a portfolio directly from its location

5.1.9.2. Copy a portfolio by searching for it

5.1.10. View a page

5.1.11. Give others access to your portfolio

5.1.12. Delete a portfolio

5.2. Page editor

5.2.1. Editor navigation

5.2.2. Edit layout

5.2.2.1. Choose a basic layout

5.2.2.2. Create a custom layout

5.2.3. Content chooser

5.2.4. Page layout area

5.2.5. Edit access

5.3. Skins

5.3.1. Create a skin

5.3.1.1. General

5.3.1.2. Background

5.3.1.3. Fonts and colours

5.3.1.4. Advanced

5.3.2. Choose a skin

5.3.3. View a page with a skin

5.3.4. What is the difference between themes and page skins?

5.3.5. Disallow skins on a theme

5.4. Shared by me

5.4.1. Edit access for users with an account

5.4.1.1. Basic settings

5.4.1.2. Advanced options

5.4.1.3. Select users

5.4.2. Edit access to your profile page

5.4.3. Edit access for users without an account

5.5. Shared with me

5.6. Export

5.7. Import

5.8. Commenting

5.8.1. View page comments

5.8.2. View artefact comments

5.8.3. Comment on portfolios

5.8.3.1. Leave comments being logged in

5.8.3.2. Give feedback when you are not logged in

5.9. Feedback for assessment

5.9.1. Submit a page or collection for assessment

5.9.1.1. Submit from the group homepage

5.9.1.2. Submit from the page itself

5.9.2. Instructor feedback

5.10. SmartEvidence

5.10.1. Set up a SmartEvidence framework

5.10.2. Select a framework

5.10.3. Add an annotation

5.10.4. Give feedback on an annotation

5.10.5. SmartEvidence map

5.10.6. Copy a SmartEvidence collection

5.11. Objectionable material

5.11.1. Report objectionable material

5.11.2. Review objectionable material

5.11.2.1. Inbox notification with objectionable material

5.11.2.2. Email with objectionable material

5.12. Tags

5.12.1. Add a tag

5.12.2. Tag cloud

5.12.3. My tags

5.12.4. Edit tags