CompMS vs Mahara

CORE CompMS is web software for higher education competency assessment, curriculum mapping, evaluations, accreditation, and reporting. It maps courses to competencies, accreditation standards, and program or institutional goals, with AI-assisted mapping and gap analysis. Student portfolios record competency achievements and learning evidence over time. Course and faculty evaluations support Likert scales and rubrics aligned with program outcomes. Reporting follows student progression, program outcomes, and accreditation compliance. The product lists alignment with ACPE, CCNE, ACEN, ARC-PA, CAEP, CAAHEP, CAPTE, and ACOTE standards. Single sign-on and LTI are supported, with Blackboard and Canvas named as LMS integrations. The maker highlights nursing, pharmacy, education, physician associate or assistant, occupational therapy, and physical therapy programs. PeopleGrove says it merged with CORE Higher Education Group in 2024 and now operates under the PeopleGrove brand; its history says CORE launched CompMS in 2007. PeopleGrove describes client-success support through implementation and beyond. Pricing is available on request.

Mahara is a free ePortfolio system for learning communities. Students and staff can collect evidence, reflect on experiences, and relate work to competencies or registration requirements. Listed uses include study, professional development, work-integrated learning, assessment, presentation, and employability. Portfolios can be shared with an individual, group, or the public, with access limited by a time frame or assessment task. Users can comment, give feedback, build portfolios together in groups, and take part in group forums. Portfolios can be submitted to learning management systems through LTI for marking. Mahara is open source, under conditions that include providing source code with copies and using the same license for derivative works. It can be hosted on a Linux server; the manual also describes Docker setup for development and testing, and advises securing that environment before live use. The manual describes LTI 1.3 Advantage as experimental and tested only with Brightspace. The project links to community forums, a manual, a wiki, an issue tracker, and extended security support; Catalyst is named as maintainer.