We would like to finish our series of articles looking at the different solutions organisations may wish to consider for recording performance appraisal, in light of the e-KSF core contract coming to an end on the 31^st March 2012, by looking at Mahara.

Mahara (meaning ‘think’ or ‘thought’ in Te Reo Māori), uses Open Source technology and is an ideal tool to support the evidence-based appraisal requirements of the NHS and wider healthcare organisations. Click here to read more about the UK governments’ encouragement of the procurement of Open Source systems.

We identified a need for a portfolio-based approach to learning and development in the NHS. Historically, portfolios may have brought to mind the “evidence mountain” of copied paperwork and written notes. Coincidentally, there is a similar perception of some NHS appraisal systems. Mahara is a versatile, online system which gives you the ability to design your own appraisal processes and workflows within an extremely configurable, secure framework.

We can help you to design pages based on a set of user-friendly, online templates (journals, a document library, plans, and tags), which individuals use to record, upload and classify evidence. They can then provide appropriate access to Managers, Appraisers, Peers, Mentors, Responsible Officers for validation etc.

Employees control the specific information they enter into Mahara and how this is shared, and organisations control who can access the system and what types of information employees store. For example, an employee could create an e-portfolio, then share part of it with their manager as an input to ongoing appraisal; request feedback from their mentor; give access to their professional body for their CPD record for registration / revalidation, and / or share a blog with professionals in the same community of interest.

Mahara is a learner-driven, organisationally-configured e-portfolio tool, where individuals can:

• Record evidence of their continuing professional development in a very flexible way; this can include documents, images, blogs, written reflections and hyperlinks).
• Create “tags” to group, sort, identify and label evidence (e.g. competencies, behaviours, activities). These can then be used show that one piece of evidence is contributing to demonstrate the achievement of multiple competencies.
• Create blogs and share these with other colleagues using the same system, creating a social learning environment.
• Combine items of evidence into pages, each page can then be shared with different audiences.
• Ask for 360 degree feedback and comments, to receive a rounded view of their evidence.
• Record CPD evidence/reflection/events in a personalised ‘journal’ format.
• Upload and export documents in a wide range of formats.

• You define who has access to items within your system:
• Give access to specific individuals inside (and outside) your organisation.
• Sharing can include the rights to view-only, or view-and-comment, on evidence.
• Specify start and end dates for access.
• Completely customisable design and on-screen text to reflect your local policies and requirements.
• System flexibility enables you to incorporate ‘Job Planning’ and the ‘GMC Good Practice Medical Competencies’ in a range of meaningful ways.
• The system can store GMC numbers and keep Doctors updated with RSS feeds from professional websites and journals.
• The software is Open-Source, so there are no licence fees to pay, ever (you only pay for hosting, support and implementation).

Mahara is based on the following infrastructure:

• A secure, hosted solution, or the option to install on your intranet.
• Confidentiality – password protected access and industry-leading technical security ensure that only authorised people see sensitive appraisal and development information.
• Mahara is Leap2A compliant, which is the emerging standard for e-portfolio systems. This means that evidence data can then be imported into other standards-compliant portfolios, minimising the need to re-type data for regulatory and professional body requirements.
• It is very configurable – in general, if you can describe a function, that function can be built in a quick, cost effective way. So, as more becomes known about revalidation requirements, and how these link to your local organisational requirements Mahara will extend with your processes.
• It interfaces with Moodle/Totara, giving your organisation a complete Open-Source solution to learning and evidence gathering if you so wish.

We can help you to:

• Create a business case for portfolio-driven learning and evidence.
• Understand how the Qualifications and Credit Framework and Quality Assured Lifelong Learning provide significant opportunities for moving from “measuring training” to “measuring achievement”.
• Configure and implement Mahara to reflect the exact needs of your organisation.
• Create a design theme so that Mahara matches your organisational branding.
• Host and maintain Mahara for you, or advise you on what resources and skills you’d need to maintain it yourself.

We think that Mahara can provide a good organisation-wide solution for the light touch recording performance appraisal, along with meeting a range of Medical and non-Medical CPD and revalidation purposes, to record, organise and securely share CPD and competency evidence information. In addition, due to the low cost nature of this system, we also think that it could provide an ideal solution for organisations looking for a solution for particular staff groups who are more engaged with appraisal and recording evidence for their CPD portfolios and need to have something available for use within short timescales.

If you would like more information or a demonstration of Mahara please contact us.