Create. Share. Engage.

Developer Doris Tam, BE, and Senior Visual Designer Evonne Cheung, BDes, from Catalyst IT talk about the redesign of Mahara that went live at the end of April 2026. The redesign marks a milestone in the almost 20-year history of the Mahara project. It overhauled the look and feel of Mahara entirely, aligning it to modern principles of design-led and responsive web design. This makes it easier for portfolio creators to use and interact with.

Learn about some of the thinking and the process that went into this release as we pull back the curtain from the software development lifecycle that is typically hidden.

Resources

• Open Source Academy
• Summer of Tech
• Mahara UX review 2024: Wireframes
• Mahara 26.04 highlights
• Mahara demo site

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Production information
Production: Catalyst IT
Host: Kristina Hoeppner
Artwork: Evonne Cheung
Music: The Mahara tune by Josh Woodward

Host Kristina Hoeppner looks back at the advice that the learning designers, faculty, and students from the past year have for learners who create portfolios. Their advice can be put into five different categories:

• Authenticity and identity
• Embracing creativity and risk
• Purpose and audience
• Reflection and growth
• Ownership and pride

Interviews in alphabetical order:

• Amy Cicchino and Brandi Gilbert: Portfolios as high-impact practices
• Amy Cicchino, McKenna Slaughter, Nghi Chau: Students support students in creating portfolios
• Antje Koenen: Engage with your students as partners through a portfolio
• Christina Mayes: Portfolio support through peer mentors
• Cordula Schwiderski, Hannah Brodel, Martina Osterrieder, Martin Sticht: Planning and decision making guide for portfolios
• David Hicks: The portfolio tells the story of growth
• Debbie Oesch-Minor and Salsabil Qaddoura: Foster student ownership and empowerment through a portfolio
• Jack Rice: The portfolio as the space for growth in between stimulus and response
• Jaye Ryan: Showcase yourself through your portfolio
• Lindsay Richardson: Portfolios in large courses with a side of AI
• Marie 'Bernie' Fisher: Reflecting on portfolio practice
• Megan Mize: Ramping up to support 18,000 students with portfolios
• Mike Altieri: Use reflection bot Riff for deeper and more meaningful portfolio reflection
• Mpho-Entle Modise and Norm Vaughan: The portfolio as enabler of change
• Pablo Avila: Portfolios at scale at LaGuardia Community College
• Rob Lowney: Create collaborative portfolios to surface group learning
• Soropepeli Ramacake: Know, grow, and show through your portfolio
• Sue Schibeci: Portfolios in work-integrated learning experiences
• Tessa Forshaw and Rich Braden: Unleash your innovation and creativity with a portfolio
• Vickel Narayan: Portfolios in the age of AI: A rethink to the approach?
• Yvonne Moore and James Pearce: Skills portfolios encourage continued reflection

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Production information
Production: Catalyst IT
Host: Kristina Hoeppner
Artwork: Evonne Cheung
Music: The Mahara tune by Josh Woodward

Dr Rob Lowney, SCMALT, SFHEA, SFSEDA, is a Senior Learning Technologist in the Teaching and Enhancement Unit at Dublin City University in Ireland. He's been working with digital technologies for many years and supports students and staff at DCU in their work with them. Rob is also active in the Mahara and Moodle communities because DCU contributes knowledge and features that benefit everyone.

Rob talks about the use of group portfolios at DCU as the university has been sponsoring an update to Mahara and the Mahara assignment submission plugin for Moodle to streamline the submission of group portfolios and administer the managing of groups for submission purposes. He also discusses how students and staff are supported on their portfolio journey at DCU.

Resources

• MoodleMunch
• DCU's reflective practice guide and resources
• DCU's transversal skills framework
• DCU portfolio help, including student examplesLowney, R. (2025, June 10). Enhancing engagement with group portfolio submissions. Mahara Hui Online, Online.
• Scully, D., O’Leary, M., & Brown, M. (2018). The learning portfolio in higher education—A game of snakes and ladders. Dublin City University, Centre for Assessment Research, Policy & Practice in Education (CARPE) and National Institute for Digital Learning (NIDL).
• Donaldson, L. (Ed.). (2018). Eportfolio based assessment—Inspiring exploration and supporting evaluation for practitioners. Dublin City University, National Institute for Digital Learning, Dublin City University.
• Donaldson, L. (Ed.). (2021). Exemplars of DCU best practice with eportfolio based assessment. Dublin City University, National Institute for Digital Learning.

Upcoming events

• EdTech Conference, 3-4 June 2026
• AAEEBL Annual Meeting, 10-12 June 2026
• AAEEBL Symposium, 16-17 June 2026
• Catalyst Moodle Community Day, 16 June 2026
• Upcoming Mahara events

Related DCU episodes

• Lisa Donaldson: From 0 to 6,000 in six weeks
• Orna Farrell: Supporting learners and lecturers alike in their portfolio journey
• Mark Brady: Journal regularly for profound insight

Subscribe to the monthly newsletter about Mahara and portfolios.

Production information
Production: Catalyst IT
Host: Kristina Hoeppner
Artwork: Evonne Cheung
Music: The Mahara tune by Josh Woodward

Take out your planner or open your digital calendar and get ready to enter the upcoming events that give you the opportunity to chat with other portfolio practitioners because you don't want to miss any of them. There's a mix of Mahara focused events and wider portfolio community events and a mix of free and paid-for events.

Here they are in chronological order:

May 2026

• 6, 7, and 12 May: Unveiling Mahara 26.04: A fresh look and exciting new features
• 13 May: Mahara Ask Me Anything May 2026
• 14 May: Mahara Hui Schweiz
• 19 May: Mahara 26.04: Ein neues Erscheinungsbild und aufregende neue Funktionen
• 20 May: Building digital resilience through ePortfolios: Lessons for the future
• 26 May: PARE - Plan, Act, Reflect, and ePortfolio

June 2026

• 10-12 June: AAEEBL Annual Meeting
• 16-17 June: AAEEBL Symposium
• 18 June: Mahara Ask Me Anything June 2026

September 2026

23-24 September: Eportfolio Forum - subscribe to updates for more information

Resources

• Podcast episode 'Mpho-Entle Modise & Norm Vaughan: The portfolio as enabler of change'
• Mahara 26.04 highlights

Subscribe to the monthly newsletter about Mahara and portfolios.

Production information
Production: Catalyst IT
Host: Kristina Hoeppner
Artwork: Evonne Cheung
Music: The Mahara tune by Josh Woodward

Pablo Avila, MA, is the Associate Director of The Center for Teaching and Learning at LaGuardia Community College (City University of New York). He's been creating portfolios and supporting students and faculty with their own and the strategic implementation of portfolios at LaGuardia since 2008.

In this episode, Pablo talks about his own portfolio journey, how it influenced his work with portfolios, and how students and faculty at LaGuardia are supported in their portfolio work.

References

• Pablo's website
• ePortfolios at LaGuardia
• HIPs in the States
• AAC&U list of high-impact practices
• AAEEBL
• Eynon, B., & Gambino, L. M. (2017). High-impact ePortfolio practice: A catalyst for student, faculty, and institutional learning. Routledge.
• Eynon, B., & Gambino, L. M. (2018). Catalyst in action. Routledge.
• Taxonomy of Reflective Inquiry
• AAC&U VALUE rubrics
• Riff
• AAEEBL webinar series on artificial intelligence
• AAEEBL Annual Meeting and Symposium 2026
  
  Related episodes
• Amy Cicchino & Brandi Gilbert: Portfolios as high-impact practices
• Leticia Britos Cavagnaro: Make learning visible

Subscribe to the monthly newsletter about Mahara and portfolios.

Production information
Production: Catalyst IT
Host: Kristina Hoeppner
Artwork: Evonne Cheung
Music: The Mahara tune by Josh Woodward

Associate Prof Dr Amy Cicchino, the Director of the Writing Center at the University of Central Florida, is back for another interview. This time it's all about student support and the student perspective. Two of her students, McKenna Slaughter, BA, and Nghi Chau, join her to talk about their experiences creating portfolios themselves in the Department of Writing and Rhetoric and as Graduate Assistant and Undergraduate Peer Tutor respectively in the UCF Writing Center.

Resources

• AAEEBL Digital Ethics Principles in ePortfolios
• AAEEBL Field Guide to ePortfolios
• Watson, C. E., Kuh, G. D., Rhodes, T. L., Penny Light, T., & Chen, H. L. (2016). Editorial: ePortfolios – The eleventh High Impact Practice. International Journal of ePortfolio, 6(2), 65–69.

Related episodes

• Amy Cicchino & Brandi Gilbert: Portfolios as high-impact practices
• Amy Cicchino, Megan Mize, Sarah Zurhellen: Visibility of labour
• DiKuLe: Planning and decision making guide for portfolios
• Debbie Oesch-Minor and Salsabil Qaddoura: Foster student ownership and empowerment through a portfolio
• Christina Mayes: Portfolio support through peer mentors
• Mario A. Peraza: Use AI to help curate your digital presence

Subscribe to the monthly newsletter about Mahara and portfolios.

Production information
Production: Catalyst IT
Host: Kristina Hoeppner
Artwork: Evonne Cheung
Music: The Mahara tune by Josh Woodward

Associate Prof Dr Mpho-Entle Modise and Prof Dr Norm Vaughan are the editors of the book 'Digital resilience of ePortfolios during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic: Lessons for the future', which was published in 2025 and brought together 85 authors from around the world who shared their diverse portfolio stories. In this episode, Mpho-Entle and Norm share highlights from this publishing experience and themes from the book.

Mpho-Entle teaches in the Department of Curriculum and Instructional Studies in the College of Education at the University of South Africa. She has classes of upwards of 12,000 students and incorporates portfolios into each of her classes.

Norm has been teaching with portfolios in the Bachelor of Education programme at Mount Royal University in Alberta, Canada, since 1996. He's passionate about portfolios and considers them the backbone of the programme.

Resources

• Mpho-Entle's public portfolio
• Norm's public portfolio
• Modise, M.-E., & Vaughan, N. (2024). ePortfolios: A 360-degree approach to assessment in teacher education. Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology, 50(4), 1–18.
• University of Maryland Global Campus
• Commonwealth of Learning Mentorship Programme

Meet the editors

Join the AAEEBL and FLANZ webinar 'Building digital resilience through ePortfolios: Lessons for the future' on 19/20 May 2026.

Related episodes

• Vickel Narayan: Portfolios in the age of AI: A rethink to the approach?
• Soropepeli Ramacake: Know, grow, and show through your portfolio
• Amy Cicchino & Brandi Gilbert: Portfolios as high-impact practices
• Zala Volcic: Develop community, relationships, and compassion
• Bob Reuter: Externalise your thinking with portfolios

Subscribe to the monthly newsletter about Mahara and portfolios.

Production information
Production: Catalyst IT
Host: Kristina Hoeppner
Artwork: Evonne Cheung
Music: The Mahara tune by Josh Woodward

Dr Vickel Narayan is a Senior Lecturer in Digital Learning in the Institute of Education at Massey University in Aotearoa New Zealand. He's been working with portfolios for nearly two decades at various institutions of higher and tertiary education in Aotearoa and Australia.

Vickel shares his thoughts around the use of artificial intelligence, in particular large language models, in education and portfolio practice. He highlights AI use to support student ownership and giving students tools on hand to create multimodal content more easily than they'd been able to do otherwise.

Resources

• Vickel's Massey University page
• Narayan, V. (2017). The mobilised learner: Heutagogy and mobile social media—Murdoch University [Doctoral Thesis, Murdoch University].
• Massey University graduate profile
• UDL guidelines
• Korowai Mokopuna programme
• Webinar series on portfolios and AI, organised by AAEEBL
• EPEPLA workshop: ePortfolio Evolution Powered by Language Analysis

Related episodes

• Mandia Mentis & Wendy Holley-Boen: Bringing the personal to the professional
• Allison Miller: The portfolio is a process
• Michael Sankey: The portfolio as the place of representation for emerging professionals
• Mike Altieri: Use reflection bot Riff for deeper and more meaningful portfolio reflection

Subscribe to the monthly newsletter about Mahara and portfolios.

Production information
Production: Catalyst IT
Host: Kristina Hoeppner
Artwork: Evonne Cheung
Music: The Mahara tune by Josh Woodward

Dr Megan Mize is the Director for ePortfolios and Digital Initiatives in the Academic Success Center (ASC) at Old Dominion University (ODU). She's been supporting portfolios at ODU since 2012 and is currently involved in a couple of strategic initiatives at her university that incorporate portfolios to support students.

Resources

• Monarch Humanities Internship Academy
• ODU General Education Reform
• AAEEBL Digital Ethics Task Force and Principles
• High-impact practices
• ODU ePortfolio support and resources
• Gresham, M., Mize, M., & Zurhellen, S. (2023). High-impact practices and third spaces: Connecting across disciplines. Across the Disciplines, 20(3/4), 157–176.
  
  

Related episodes

• Amy Cicchino, Megan Mize, Sarah Zurhellen: Visibility of labour
• Amy Cicchino & Brandi Gilbert: Portfolios as high-impact practices
• Lisa Donaldson: From 0 to 6,000 in six weeks

Subscribe to the monthly newsletter about Mahara and portfolios.

Production information
Production: Catalyst IT
Host: Kristina Hoeppner
Artwork: Evonne Cheung
Music: The Mahara tune by Josh Woodward

Yvonne Moore, MA, is the Digital Education Developments Lead, and James Pearce, BA, is the Educational Software Development Manager in the Centre for Learning & Teaching at University of Bath. They support faculty at the university to implement educational technologies meaningfully and effectively - Yvonne from the pedagogical side and James from the technical side.

The university has been using Mahara for many years and focussed on skills portfolios and work-integrated learning portfolios in more recent years. Yvonne and James detail how skills portfolios support reflection, an important ingredient of lifelong learning, and how they make use of existing functionality in Mahara, like SmartEvidence, and also enhance it further, contributing their changes back to the community.

Resources

• Public resources on Mahara by the University of Bath
• Planning and decision making guide for the use of ePortfolios in academic teaching from the DiKuLe project
• AAEEBL Digital Ethics in ePortfolios Principle 'Support'
• SmartEvidence
  • Nuessler, S., & Kirby, M. (2014). SmartEvidence: Improving ePortfolio quality through intervention [Presentation]. Mahara Hui, Wellington, NZ
  • What is SmartEvidence?
  • Case study on how AP Hogeschool Antwerpen enhanced SmartEvidence

Related episodes

• DiKuLe: Planning and decision making guide for portfolios
• Shari Bowker: Establish good feedback practices in your portfolio

Subscribe to the monthly newsletter about Mahara and portfolios.

Production information
Production: Catalyst IT
Host: Kristina Hoeppner
Artwork: Evonne Cheung
Music: The Mahara tune by Josh Woodward