Plugins/Artefact/My CPD

Continuing Professional Development log plugin

Many programmes of study, careers and professions have an expectation or obligation of Continuing Professional Development (CPD). For example, in the UK Further Education (FE) and Skills sector, the Institute for Learning (IfL) has a requirement that its members commit to at least 30 hours of CPD (or pro-rata for part-time teachers or trainers).

This Mahara plugin allows a simple log of CPD activity to be maintained. The code was based on the 'My Plans' Mahara artefact. Initial development was by James Kerrigan, a student on the Foundation degree in Computing and Internet Technology at the University Centre Yeovil.

It includes fields for the start date, end date (if appropriate), title, location and description of the CPD activity together with the time spent (hours). Also, a rolling total of time spent on CPD is calculated.

One rationale for this plugin was that if lecturers/teachers found Mahara useful to record and reflect upon their own CPD, they would be more likely to use Mahara with their students.

Use

In Mahara 1.4, the plugin adds a new 'CPD' tab, similar to 'Plans', to the 'Content' tab on the Mahara toolbar.

In Mahara 1.3, the plugin adds a new 'My CPD' tab, similar to 'My Plans', to the 'My Portfolio' tab on the Mahara toolbar.

From this tab you can add a new CPD

Give it a Title e.g. '2010-2011'

Then a description e.g. 'Continuing Professional Development for academic year 2010-2011'

You can then add individual CPD activities with a Location, Start date, End date (optional), Description, and No. hours.

CPD activities are sorted by reverse order of Start date i.e. the most recently started CPD activity is at the top.

A running total of No.hours is automatically calculated.

Multiple CPD instances can be created. So, you can create a new one for each academic year or for a particular programme of study.

Adding a CPD log to a Mahara Page (View)

When editing a Page, drag the 'Your CPD' icon (below) into the Page (View) from the 'General' tab of the Mahara toolbar

You can also add related resources and artefacts the CPD containing page, e.g. a blog reflecting in more detail on particular activity or activities in the CPD.

You can set the Page view permissions (Share page) to allow, for example, colleagues, tutors or line-managers access to your CPD.

It is possible to export a Page (View) containing a CPD as a standalone HTML Website. The code to export in Leap2A format is in place, but has not been tested.

Installation

This plugin is available from GitHub.

https://github.com/geoffrowland/mahara-artefact_cpds master branch for Mahara 1.4

https://github.com/geoffrowland/mahara-artefact_cpds/tree/1.3_STABLE 1.3_STABLE branch for Mahara 1.3 & 1.2

Download, unpack and copy the /cpds folder (and included files and folders) into the /artefact folder of your Mahara installation. Then enable the cpds and activities from the Site Administration > Plugin Administration interface.

The plugin creates a new artefact_cpds_activity table which is a 1:1 extension of the artefact table. Please test it on a development installation before production deployment.

ToDo

Add a 'Grand total hours'. Currently the CPD activity list is paginated after 20 entries. The 'Total hours' only totals for a particular page. Though this is not an issue if <= 20 CPD activities are added

Research/develop Leap2A export of the CPD or Pages/Collections containing CPD. This could allow export to other ePortfolio systems such as PebblePad. For instance, a Mahara CPD could, perhaps, be uploaded/migrated to Reflect, the PebblePad instance hosted by the IfL

http://www.leapspecs.org/2A/

http://www.pebblepad.co.uk/

http://www.ifl.ac.uk/