Derrin Kent & Thomas W Bell - What's involved with a Mahara implementation

What's involved with
a Mahara implementation?

Derrin Kent @tdmderrin
MD of TDM.co
Thomas Bell @thomaswbell88
Implementation Manager at OssServices.com

What problem does this
technology solve?

Portfolio-Based
Learning
+
Evidence-Based
Learning

A classic failing software
implementation runs like this:
●
One educational manager opts to adopt …while others look
sceptically on.
●
The educational manager brings in technicians to install,
configure and launch the software and appoints a champion
who does not fully understand how to use the software.

●
Explicit staff and user time is not allocated, neither is any
further training, guidance and development time planned or
purchased.
●
The implementation quickly starts to lose direction and the
project ultimately fails.

Three broadly distinct
implementation stages
(each with phases within them)...

1. Analysis and Specification.
2. Planning, Design and Implementation.
3. Evaluation and Continuation.

Analysis & Specification
Phase 1: Decide if Mahara is right for you.
Phase 2: Understand your own specific needs and
working conditions.
Phase 3: Choose between running a Mahara-
partner support or running your own installation.
Phase 4: Scope out your implementation plan.

Planning, Design
and Implementation
Phase 5: Create a Buzz!
Phase 6: Get some quick wins in first
Phase 7: Continuously involve the users in your
planning and design process.
Phase 8: Keep going despite adversity.

Evaluation and Continuation

Phase 9: Review & Re-evaluate.
Phase 10: Change & Embed.

Phase 1: Decide if Mahara is
right for you.
Mahara ISN’T…
• Technically supported (although Mahara Partners
are available).

• A Learner Management System which tracks
progress against Competencies (although it
does integrate with TotaraLMS + where the TDM
Evidence tab and progress tracker tools do
exist).

Klaus Himpsl-
Gutermann
(& Peter
Baumgartner)
from Danube
University

https://mahara.org/user/view.php?id=238

Mahara IS Open Source:
No Vendor Lock-In (Buying Services v’s Renting
Property)

• Cannot be expired
• Tailorable (theme, codeline, language, architecture)

• Extensible (Plugins, integrations)

• International Community (security, roadmap,
knowledge transfer)

Phase 2: Understand your own
specific needs and working
conditions.
Understand fully where you are
and know exactly why you want
to go exactly where...
●
What educational objectives do you want to
achieve?
●
What business objectives do you want to achieve?
●
What organizational objectives do you want to
achieve?

If this is a “NO”…..
….could you turn it
into a “YES”?
Do all those involved: your leaders,
teachers/tutors, day-to-day administrators, IT
support staff, and your future end users all have a
common vision for your ePortfolio?
(Even if you are working as a go-it-alone teacher, are you
sure enough that your students will buy in to this?)

into a “YES”?
Is there a supportive external context for your
ePortfolio implementation? Is there explicit support
for this coming to you, for example, from central office,
from government-funded agencies, or from accrediting
bodies, trades guilds or workers’ unions?

into a “YES”?
Is there, and will there be, a
consistent and reliable inflow of
funding for your site’s ongoing
development and support?

into a “YES”?
Will there be a dedicated steering
group of visionaries and power-
brokers who will work to make your
implementation a success?

into a “YES”?
Will you continuously invest to employ or
upskill the competent staff you will need in
order to disseminate knowledge to newer
users?

into a “YES”?
Do you have:
• sufficiently skilled (specific competence)
and
• available (time/focus)
technical and pedagogical support
infrastructures in place?

into a “YES”?
Do your target end users have appropriate
access to your Mahara system in terms not only
of a reasonable internet supply, but also in
terms of physical access to machines in both
working and home-life contexts?

Complex change and emotional impact
Source: Thousand, J and Villa, R. (2000). Managing Complex Change

Threshold
Concepts
Gordon Joyes
at Mahara10

Threshold Concepts
Prof. Gordon Joyes - University of Nottingham
(following Jan Meyer and Ray Land)

Concept 1. Purpose
Concept 2. Learning Activity Design
Concept 3. Processes
Concept 4. Ownership
Concept 5. Disruptive Nature

Phase 3: Decide whether to
choose a Mahara Partner
or to go it alone?
https://
mahara.org/partners

Phase 4: Scope out your
implementation plan.
1. Decide on your implementation timeframe.
2. Ensure you have staff commitment and allocate staff
roles.
3. Draft out your initial Mahara site plan, structure + visual
design.
4. Draft out your Mahara-specific policies.
5. Start to embed Mahara use into wider institutional and
program priorities.
(NB. See book for lots of detailed guidance on these processes)

Phase 5: Create a Buzz!
• Draw up and implement a communications plan that targets all
different types of stakeholders
• Publicize some real-life case studies and examples of Mahara
in action. (https://mahara.org/newsletter/
• Make sure everyone gets a copy of your new user guide. http
://manual.mahara.org.
• Set the Expectations. E.g. explicit incentives and penalties
connected to user adoption
• Practically help people to overcome barriers.
• Offer support via telephone, face-to-face, live website support or
you could set up a Mahara group as a helpdesk
• Set up a “User Suggestions” facility
• Set the Standards. One idea is to award “medals” for
implementing standards in pages and groups.

Phase 6: Get some
quick wins in first.
• Can you identify some instant fixes where using
Mahara would solve a real problem you are facing?
• Can you identify which of your user groups would
respond best to an ePortfolio as a media for
learning delivery?
• Can you quickly prove that Mahara adoption will be
worth the effort?

Phase 7: Continuously involve
the users in your planning and
design process.
• Conduct regular response analyses.
• Get together for strategy reviews.
• Do something in response to what you find out.

Remember: a proper Mahara site isn’t a miracle of
people;
it is a miracle of community

Phase 8: Keep going
despite adversity.
“Implementation Resisters”
require two types of “Situational
Response Tactics” to deal with
them:
• Tactic 1: Big Bombs
• Tactic 2: Sniper Fire

People you love can become
Implementation Resisters…
The Pessimist might say: “We can’t change! We’re doomed!”
The Pragmatist might say: “We’ve done enough, let’s not change too
far!”
The Technophobe might say: “This is too difficult for me, it’s not fair!”
The Traditionalist might say: “I'm just too busy for this, this is a nice
to do, not a have-to-do!”
The Cynic may say: “This is just a passing fad, ignore it, it will go
away!”

...and, the implementation team's worst enemy,…
The Critic might say: “Rise up and rebel! We cannot allow this to
happen!”

Situational Response Tactic 1:
BIG BOMBS
• Powerbroker support
• Identify and provide missing information
• Visiting expert
• Generic questionnaires
• User guide promotions
• Poster campaign
• Competitions and celebrations:
• Mass emails, newsletters, SMS, news forums
• Formal training event

Situational Response Tactic 2:
SNIPER FIRE
• Corridor Conversations
• Mentor Matching
• Targeted emails / SMS messages / phone calls
• Targeted feedback questionnaires and response
strategy

Phase 9: Review and Re-evaluate.
Easier said than done!!
• Are the people really recording and linking to their knowledge in Mahara?
• If not, why not? How can you make it happen?
• Is Mahara helping learners to achieve their qualifications?
• Is Mahara helping people to do their work?
• Can you offer targeted support for groups who have been slow to
engage?
• Does everything really have to be digital?
• Are people actually identifying and meeting their learning, career and
personal goals?
• Is learning over Mahara ever being delivered more effectively through
other online or offline approaches?
• Are there variations in success between different types of learners?
• Are there any good reasons for the variations?
• How should you respond to these variations?
• Do the groups, forums, or learning program briefs always match the
aspirations and needs of the learners?

Do we measure what we value?
• Could you yourself set performance improvement targets based on metrics
gathered from the sorts of questions you have just asked?
• Are achievement targets set for all courses at all levels?
• Is Mahara participation a requirement?
• Should it be a requirement?
• Should you set participation targets or might that have a negative effect?
• If any targets are set, is everyone made aware of those targets?
• How?
• How effectively?
• Are staff or users themselves involved in the target setting?
• How do you communicate progress against targets?
• Simple graphical displays?
• How do you celebrate and reward individual successes and collective progress
against targets?
• Are targets revised frequently enough? By whom? How ambitiously?
• Do you care about all these targets?
• Wouldn’t it be best to leave the whole Mahara to grow ad hoc?

Phase 10: Change and Embed.
A thriving Mahara site will often be in a constant state of
flux, changing with the needs and focuses of the
organization and its people, embedding itself deeper and
deeper as an element of the wider e-institution.
• Is Mahara usage going to be integral to your business
development plan? (This is the information age after all, and
your country may even be a knowledge-based economy like the
UK and USA?).
• Will Mahara usage be integral to your organizational policies and
procedures?
• Will staff responsibilities for Mahara usage and management be a
defined and re-numerated element of their job description? Or
would you prefer to leave Mahara to be a self-managing
phenomenon?

DIRECTIVE
Top Down
EXPERT-ENGAGED
or
NEGOTIATED
Bottom Up
STEERING GROUP ?
PARTICIPATORY

*: info@OssServices.com

(: 0333 10 100 89

Derrin Kent & Thomas W Bell - What's involved with a Mahara implementation

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