Mahara/Moodle double accounts
We are setting up Mahara for use next semester. We have got Moodle allowing for single sign on. We are using LDAP to manage authentication.
Our problem is this (we must have set something wrong):
When a person logs in to mahara directly, it creates an account with the default avatar icon and the institutional email address.
When a person logs in from the moodle block, Mahara creates ANOTHER account. It adds a 1 after the username and appears to pull in the avatar and email from the moodle instance.
We certainly do not want two accounts for every user depending on how they logged in!!
The is additionally complicated by the fact that if this is really a portfolio, students will need access to it for some agreed-upon time after graduation (I am thinking 12-24 months). Once they matriculate, they will not be able to log in through moodle because those courses are open to enrolled students only.
Things I need to figure out:
- If a person has two different accounts in Mahara, won’t the content they add be unavailable from the alternate account? Surely so, but worth testing.
- Can students be migrated from one authentication method to another without losing their content? If not, maybe we don’t want the portfolio so tightly integrated with moodle (even if SSO is a giant convenience).
- Can you mix authentication methods? We might need some manual accounts as well as LDAP accounts.
- How do you lock mahara so that students can ONLY enter through the moodle block?
If it is one or the other, we have some policy thinking to do. I hate to think that the whole system will be completely tied to course enrollment. That wasn’t what I had in mind, so we will need to discover the work around. I see pleas for assistance to Tony in my future. . . 
