Tammy Page and Yvette Salamon at Mahara Hui in Auckland on 10 April 2015 https://maharahui.org.nz/course/view.php?id=3

1. Mahara - Clinical Placement e-Portfolio
Presented by Tamara Page and Yvette Salamon

2. Adelaide
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3. University of Adelaide
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4. Pre –registration programs
• Bachelor of Nursing
– 3 year pre registration undergraduate program
• First years
– 3 days in class and 2 days in clinical
• Second/Third years
– 2 days in classroom and 3 days in clinical
• Master of Clinical Nursing
– 2 years pre registration post graduate program
• Block classes
• Block placement
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5. University of Adelaide 5

6. Background
• Faculty of Health Sciences e-Assessment grants
available
– Suggested that the School of Nursing could pilot
Mahara Project
– Successful Stage One
• Project team consisted of:
– Tamara Page (Course Coordinator)
– Yvette Salamon (Lecturer )
– Trisha Franceschilli (e-Learning Adviser)
– Karina Judson (Business Analyst)
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7. Motivation to Pilot Mahara
• Nursing has moved strongly toward using Portfolios and
e-portfolio’s as evidence to prove a continuous lifelong
learning approach to their knowledge development and
completion of their annual CPD of 20 points
• It is now mandated that every nurse will complete and
keep evidence of their ongoing annual education to
comply with regulations for Re-registration with the
Nurses Board
• Every year a number of nurses are randomly selected by
the Board and audited, risk reprimand or failure to
Register if they lack proof of CPD Points
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8. Advantages of Mahara
• ePortfolio’s such as Mahara provide a scaffold for
lifelong learning
• They can assist the learner to provide evidence of their
current competence
• Serve as a continuous repository for evidence of
progressive development of professional and personal
knowledge base and skill acquisition
• Pertinent throughout the learners career as it can
effective map their evolution as senior, competent and
experienced Registered Nurses
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9. Situation Pre Mahara Trial
• Currently MyUni (Blackboard) is used to host
students documents that are required for them
to complete the compulsory aspect of their
assessment each clinical placement venue
• These documents are:
– NCAS Summative assessments
– NCAS Employer competencies
– Venue Attendance record
– Agreed Objectives
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10. Currently……
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11. The Issues Briefly
• Each of these records are required to be accessed
individually through the students name in current
electronic system
• Locating and tracking these documents after the
semester has been difficult for both students and
lecturers
• Poor compliance which is hard to police in current
system thus:
– Some students hand up hard copies
– Many submit poor quality scans or photos in their upload
– Most submit multiple pages for single assessments not on document
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12. Mahara e-Portfolio
• Provides:
– Ease of eAssessment of Clinical Placement documents (which
was the primary focus of the proposal to trial the tool)
– Provide timely productive feedback from placement lecturers
– Assist students to develop a professional portfolio for
eAssessment but also to gather data for future employment
opportunities and to prepare for student centred lifelong learning
– Effective communication between Clinical Lecturers and
students during clinical placement to ensure the development of
critical thinking and problem solving skills were fully utilised
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13. Stage One Trial
• Scope
– The Master of Clinical Nursing program which is a
post graduate, pre-registration program
• Cohort
– 11 students were used to pilot the project in their
2014 Nov/Dec placements
• Time Frame
– Preparation - four weeks
– Trial period - five weeks
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14. Stage One Trial Process
• Project team met weekly
• IT established the platform
• Functionality of the system was tested amongst team
members
• Any issues were highlighted and sent to the IT team
members for troubleshooting
• Two template pages developed
• All previously submitted portfolio documents for the student
cohort were uploaded into the respective template pages
• A user guide was developed for the students
• An articulate storyline guide was developed
• Student education session was completed
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15. Mahara Articulate Help Guide
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16. What Mahara looked like in our Trial
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17. eAssessment Page
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18. 18

19. Set-Up Groups and Forums
• groups
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20. Challenges - General
• Familiarity – Team newly trained in system so
much trial and error and answering Q’s from
students could be difficult
• Language was not the same between different
parties
• Compounded because the trial occurred at the end
of the year and the end of their course and
learning a new system was not a priority for some
• Students non-compliance
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21. Challenges – Uploading Documents
• Students finished most of the tasks with minimal problems
• Weekly meetings identified an issue of difficulty or delays in
uploading files
• This issue was investigated and it was found other students,
four in total, had also experienced this issue
• Due to the use of incompatible browsers and systems
between the students devices and the Mahara system
• Was resolved mid-trial
• Student comments in the evaluation indicated that they were
happy overall with Mahara and its ease of use, with seven of
the nine statements receiving positive feedback
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22. Challenges – Communication
• Forums within the group were created it was assumed students who
were part of the group would receive messages as they were posted
however this was not the case
• Students needed to subscribe to each forum and this was not in the
Cheat Sheets or instruction videos provided at the commencement
of the trial
• Highlighted and disseminated to students which greatly improved
communication
• No repository in Mahara for sent messages which will be rectified by
our current upgrade to the next version
• Student comments and the responses in the evaluation suggested
that they were overall happy with the basic functionality of the
communication tools within Mahara
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23. Challenges – Time Constraints
• Student responses within the evaluation suggested that
students were overall positive regarding Mahara ability
to develop and improve their learning experience
• Some comments received reflected the lack of time for
the students to properly evaluate the tool and explore to
advantages of Mahara
• This was reflected by the Lecturers and further trials
with larger numbers was requested
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24. Challenges – Support
• Student evaluation responses suggest that students were
positive regarding the training given prior to the Mahara trial
commencing and the support provided during the trial with
all statements indicated positive feedback
• The students indicated they primarily used the Lecturers for
support followed by other students
• Support meetings conducted while students were on
placements were only attended by those who had encountered
issues or who had feedback regarding their experiences
• Need to develop a Help repository which is currently being
developed
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25. Overall
• Benefits in ease of timely assessment outweighs the
challenges encountered thus far
• Mahara made assessment and tracking of assessment
much easier for our nursing students out on clinical
placement
• Allows time friendly communication
• Challenges encountered should not continue as obstacles
• ePortfolio aspect needs to be explored
• Ability to export portfolio documents at completion of
program
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26. The University of Adelaide Graduate Attributes
1. Deep discipline knowledge
• informed and infused by cutting edge research, scaffolded throughout their program of
studies
2. Critical thinking and problem solving
• demonstrated through appropriate and relevant assessment
3. Teamwork and communication skills
• honed through assessment and practice throughout the program of studies
• encouraged and valued in all aspects of learning
4. Career and leadership readiness
• technology savvy
6. Self-awareness and emotional intelligence
• A capacity for self-reflection and a willingness to engage in self-appraisal
• Open to objective and constructive feedback from supervisors and peers
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27. Stage Two Trial
• The trial has been expanded across all nursing pre-
registration students (approx 450 students)
• Approved for full year – with potential for 3 years
• 9 Clinical lecturers that facilitate students on
placement require education and ongoing support
• Approval for use in other schools from the Faculty of
Health Sciences
• Psychology and Vet Science completing Stage One
• Trial will give insight into the potentials of utilising
Mahara on a broader scale
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28. Priorities for Stage Two
• Return with what we have learnt
• Make the system work for the benefit of the students
• Engage staff to utilise the tool for their own professional purposes such as:
– Showcasing their work
– Organising their projects
– Mapping higher degree by research such as PhD
• Enable electronic signoff
• Model professional development to students via development of ePortfolio’s
within the school
• Develop Help Tools
• Individualise Theme/Language/Help for UofA
• Explore and develop template “Collections” for better assessment of competence
• Explore Use within course delivery
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29. University of Adelaide 29
Collections
Badges
Reflection
Matrix Rubrics
Copyright
Life long learning
Scaffolding
One stop shop
CV
AssessmentCPD pointsCompetencies

30. tamara.page@adelaide.edu.au
+610408812307
yvette.salamon@adelaide.edu.au
+610439343700
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