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37.

Introduction

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Welcome to the *Mahara User Guide*. This user guide is designed to provide documentation for people who will use Mahara on a day-to-day basis. This document is designed to be read by any user of Mahara, as most users will have access to the features documented here. Site and Institution Administrator functionalities are covered in a separate section of this guide.

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Without any further ado, let's begin!

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What is Mahara?

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If you're wondering what Mahara or an ePortfolio is, why you might want one and what it can do for you, then read on -- you're about to find out.

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At the simplest level, Mahara is two things: an `ePortfolio <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eportfolio>`_ and a `social networking <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network>`_ system combined. An ePortfolio is a system in which students can record "evidence of lifelong learning" -- such as essays, artwork or other such things they produce that can be stored digitally. Such things are known as *artefacts* in Mahara. Social networking systems need little introduction -- think `Bebo <http://bebo.com/>`_, `Facebook <http://facebook.com/>`_ or `MySpace <http://www.myspace.com/>`_. Basically, they give a way for people to interact with their friends and create their own online communities.

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But Mahara is much more than just a place to store files. Mahara also includes blogging, a resumé builder, and `Moodle <http://moodle.org/>`_ integration.

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The Mahara framework

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With Mahara, *you* control which items and what information within your portfolio other users see. Such items and information are termed artefacts. To facilitate this access control, all artefacts you wish to show to other users need to be arranged into one area. In Mahara this compilation of selected artefacts is called a 'page'. You can have as many pages as you like, each with a different number of artefacts, intended purpose and audience. Your audience, or the people you wish to give access to your page, can be added as individuals or as a member of a group. It can even be made publicly available.

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For example you could create: