Mahara is a

free and open-source Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

web-based

electronic portfolio An electronic portfolio (also known as a digital portfolio, online portfolio, e-portfolio, e-folio, or eFolio) is a collection of electronic evidence assembled and managed by a user, usually on the Web. Such electronic evidence may include input te ...

(eportfolio) management system written in

PHP PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared toward web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by The PHP Group ...

and distributed under the

GNU Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general us ...

. The

Māori language Māori (), or ('the Māori language'), also known as ('the language'), is an Eastern Polynesian language spoken by the Māori people, the indigenous population of mainland New Zealand. Closely related to Cook Islands Māori, Tuamotuan, and ...

word means "to think about or consider".

History

Mahara began in 2006 as a collaboration between

Massey University Massey University ( mi, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa) is a university based in Palmerston North, New Zealand, with significant campuses in Albany and Wellington. Massey University has approximately 30,883 students, 13,796 of whom are extramural or ...

Auckland University of Technology Auckland University of Technology (AUT) ( mi, Te Wānanga Aronui o Tāmaki Makau Rau) is a university in New Zealand, formed on 1 January 2000 when a former technical college (originally established in 1895) was granted university status. AUT ...

the Open Polytechnic of New Zealand The Open Polytechnic of New Zealand or Open Polytechnic (Māori: Kuratini Tuwhera) is a government-owned tertiary education institution operating as the specialist national provider of open and distance learning (ODL). On 1 April 2020, The Open Po ...

and

Victoria University of Wellington Victoria University of Wellington ( mi, Te Herenga Waka) is a university in Wellington, New Zealand. It was established in 1897 by Act of Parliament, and was a constituent college of the University of New Zealand. The university is well know ...

, funded by the New Zealand Tertiary Education Commission. Mahara was initially developed by Catalyst IT Limited, a New Zealand

open-source software Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Op ...

company, and first released in April 2008. Development of Mahara has since expanded to include a community of contributors, including the

New Zealand Ministry of Education The Ministry of Education (Māori: ''Te Tāhuhu o te Mātauranga'') is the public service department of New Zealand charged with overseeing the New Zealand education system. The Ministry was formed in 1989 when the former, all-encompassing De ...

. The software was designed to be an open-source electronic portfolio platform to support the student learning and

personal learning environment Personalized learning, individualized instruction, personal learning environment and direct instruction all refer to efforts to tailor education to meet the different needs of students. Overview The use of the term "personalized learning" dates ba ...

goals of

educational institution An educational institution is a place where people of different ages gain an education, including preschools, childcare, primary-elementary schools, secondary-high schools, and universities. They provide a large variety of learning environments an ...

s. Mahara allows students to select their own work and prepare an online portfolio, to both share in a university classroom context and show to future employers.

Language support

Mahara supports translation into different languages using language packs, and contributions of complete or near-complete coverage have been provided for Japanese, Basque, French, Māori, Slovenian, German, Czech, and Danish languages.

References

External links

* Cross-platform software Free educational software Free learning support software Free software programmed in PHP Free content management systems Classroom management software {{cms-software-stub