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Submitted by Jez on Wed, 09/24/2008 - 03:30.

Hello All,

I have a few broad questions I would like to try and get answers to if possible:

1) Roughly how much money has been invested in Mahara to date?
2) How many organisations are believed to be using it?
3) Was Mahara designed with a particular type of education in mind, for example secondary school / HE?
4) Does anyone have any experiences to share regards the social networking element within their organisation, i.e. was it popular, were there problems with in-appropriate use etc?

Would be great to hear from some more experienced users... if there are any :-D

Jez

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Answers to Jez' questions

Submitted by richard on Wed, 09/24/2008 - 12:20.

Hi,
1)Investment has come from different areas including international contributions for specific functionality. The initial investment was close to NZ$250,000 and subsequent work combined has been in the order of $150 - $200,000. These calculations are purely for development and do not count project management or steering group inputs.

2)We don't yet have a site registration function like Moodle does. There are around 1000 downloads per month and we know through the grapevine that some big universities are using Mahara - University of Glasgow, massey University, University of Illinois, University of Southern Queensland...In New Zealand we are establishing a national eportfolio service at www.myportfolio.ac.nz and www.myportfolio.school.nz

3)Mahara was established for the HE environment. However, we have since been piloting it across secondary schools where there is a lot of intereste for a flexible solution (school leaver profiles, career planning templates etc.)

4) Hopefully an organisation that has adopted Mahara might answer this one.

cheers
Richard Wyles