Are you looking for a way to evaluate or assess your learners' portfolio work in your Moodle Learning Management System (LMS)? You can do exactly this with the Mahara assignment submission plugin for Moodle. Plus, your lecturers can continue to work in the Moodle gradebook using rubrics and provide learners with portfolio feedback via your LMS. That means you can seamlessly amplify the experience and assessment support provided to your learners. Read on to learn more about the Mahara Moodle plugin.
What is the Mahara assignment submission plugin for Moodle?
Essentially, the Mahara assignment submission plugin(external link) for Moodle enables you to add Mahara functionality to your Moodle LMS. Using the plugin means your learners can use Mahara to create their portfolios as usual and submit them for assessment within Moodle. Incorporating Mahara into your Moodle LMS is a great way to aid students so they can:
- reflect on their learning, challenges, and successes,
- showcase evidence of competency standards,
- track their progress,
- complete a portfolio as part of an assessment task.
With the Mahara assignment submission plugin for Moodle, your learners and lecturers can easily access the submitted portfolios. Mahara portfolios from within Moodle, creating a seamless experience between the two applications.
Why should students submit their portfolio instead of just sharing it with me?
When your students share their portfolios with you, you can see both complete and incomplete work. This is great for a work-in-progress and feedback approach. However, when it comes to grading, you might want more control over what you're assessing, without students making further updates on the work you are reviewing. That's where the portfolio submission feature comes in handy. Essentially, when a student submits their work, the portfolio cannot be edited any more. This means you see their work exactly as it was when they submitted it, and you don't have to worry about any changes during your review.
Moreover, you can set up the assignment to automatically make a copy of the assessed portfolio. This copy is stored in the Mahara administration area. This is particularly useful for organisations needing to keep assessed work for several years.
How do I set up the Mahara plugin in Moodle?
- You can download the Mahara assignment submission plugin from our public repository on GitHub(external link) or via the Moodle plugin database(external link).
- Once you’ve downloaded the plugin, you need to configure it. To learn how to set up the connection check out the video below.
- Then, once the plugin is configured, you can use it in a standard Moodle assignment with your regular grading options, including advanced grading options like rubrics and the marking workflow. The grade information is stored in Moodle, allowing you to have a complete view of all your learner's grades in one place, including for the portfolio.
What are the benefits of using the plugin?
The top benefits of using the Mahara assignment submission plugin for Moodle are:
- Seamless experience: Access submissions directly from within your course space.
- Prompt portfolio submissions: Set reminders for learners to submit their work on time.
- Grading tool familiarity: Use the same grading tools you are accustomed to when using the Moodle assignment.
- Automatically archive assessed work: Keep workspaces clutter-free and focused on the next task without worrying about retrievability using the archive feature.
- Connect a similarity or plagiarism checker: If your organisation requires all assessed work to go through a plagiarism or similarity checker, you can use the Mahara assignment submission plugin in conjunction with Ouriginal(external link) directly from within Moodle. Contact us to learn more about this functionality.
I need Mahara and Moodle support – where can I get it?
Catalyst is the sole maintainer and primary developer of the Mahara project, so we are well-equipped to handle your ePortfolio needs. Additionally, we’re one of the biggest contributors to Moodle and have won awards for our work, such as ‘Moodle Global Partner’ of the Year 2023.
Our technical staff and learning designers can assist you with getting the most out of your Mahara portfolio platform and Moodle LMS. Contact our team of experts today.