Create. Share. Engage.

Soropepeli Ramacake: Know, grow, and show through your portfolio

• Kristina Hoeppner, Soropepeli Ramacake • Season 1 • Episode 84

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Soropepeli Ramacake, MSW Applied, PGDip in Supervision, Dip in Counselling, BTheology works at the University of the South Pacific (USP) in Fiji as Assistant Lecturer. He is also a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney.

Soro uses Mahara as portfolio platform with his social work students who are on placement in various South Pacific countries, supporting them mainly from the distance.

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Production information
Production: Catalyst IT
Host: Kristina Hoeppner
Artwork: Evonne Cheung
Music: The Mahara tune by Josh Woodward

Kristina Hoeppner:

Welcome to'Create. Share. Engage.' This is the podcast about portfolios for learning and more for educators, learning designers, and managers keen on integrating portfolios with their education and professional development practices. 'Create. Share. Engage.' is brought to you by the Mahara team at Catalyst IT. My name is Kristina Hoeppner. My guest today is Soropepeli Ramacake from the University of the South Pacific, who now lives in Fiji. I met Soro at the ICDE World Conference in November 2025 when it was here in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, where he and his colleague, Dr Irene Yee Chief, presented on their Mahara portfolio work in their social work programme. Bula, Soro. It's good to speak with you today.

Soropepeli Ramacake:

Bula Vinaka, Kristina, wonderful to be part of your podcast and to continue to lift the profile of Mahara and the work that you do and accentuate the strengths that are contained within Mahara and how we can support students continue to develop and learn.

Kristina Hoeppner:

Thank you so much, Soro. I'm really excited to talk with you today because at the University of the South Pacific, where you teach, you have been working with portfolios for a long time, so it's high time that we also share some of the practice that you do there. Can you please tell us a bit about the role that you have at the university?

Soropepeli Ramacake:

Before I joined the University, I was in New Zealand, and I was doing pretty much the same thing that I'm doing now, lecturing and also engage with internship or what we call field work placements. That naturally transitioned me well into this current role that I'm in because it's something that I'm familiar with. I'm the Assistant Lecturer and also organising internship, but in this case, it's across the region, the Pacific region, working with 12 to 14 countries where registered students have come from. Part of my work within the university is networking, sometimes consulting in the area that I'm in, but also increasing out into other areas.

Kristina Hoeppner:

I think a number of our podcast listeners might not know the University of the South Pacific much. You mentioned that you work with students in 10 to 14 different nations, so they are all still part of the University of the South Pacific, though, because it serves different countries in contrast to, say, a regular university that most of us know, that is within a city or within a country, you are actually working multinationally?

Soropepeli Ramacake:

Yes, definitely. I mean, other universities are talking about global curriculums and also global focus and transnational or transglobal kind of work, but we're already doing that here in Fiji, only because USP is a regional university. What it means is that the main campus is in Suva, Fiji, in a campus called Laucala, and then we have other satellite campuses across the region that we work with. We partner with those nations that have students that are interested in doing studies in our area to support them so that they can get schooled up and also learn how to transition the learning they're doing in the classroom out into the workforce. We work with nations such as Samoa, Tonga, Cook Islands, Tokelau, Nue, some students from Tahiti, although Tahiti, New Caledonia, might go to France, but we do have some students from there, from the Solomons, from Vanuatu, from Kiribati, from Nauru, from Guam sometimes, although Guam has a university themselves and a social work programme. We can get students from across the three areas of the Pacific triangle, which is Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia.

Kristina Hoeppner:

That's quite a big reach that your university has across the region, supporting people also, oftentimes in very remote areas, which presents its own challenges, doesn't it?

Soropepeli Ramacake:

Oh, definitely. And you know, not only the reach, but also the isolation for some of those students, the technological problems or connections that they might encounter. Those are all things that we're facing, and because of the isolation, some of our students have to catch three busses to get to certain places. And so here we are in our comfort zones, and we're having to support those that have to navigate those challenges, and so it's never easy, but that's where empathy, and I suppose our sense of unconditional, positive regard comes in to support our students to succeed.

Kristina Hoeppner:

Is that then also why you introduced portfolios into the field work, into the Social Work practicum that you offer to your students?

Soropepeli Ramacake:

Yeah. I mean, for me, I was doing, I suppose, manual portfolios where students have to gather all their material and do folders and then submit the folder for marking. Once, I came to realise that there was an ePortfolio that made certainly my work easier because with a manual portfolio, there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing. There was a lot of documents that had the potential to go missing, and in some cases, they did, and so the students would have to do some of the documents again, and then discovering that there were ePortfolio, it certainly made my life of double handling, triple handling bit easier. Also, this was a way that I could track the students' learning, not only for myself, but more importantly, for the students, to track their own learning. And then here's something that can be exported. They exported themselves, so that they can then hand to the organisations that are interested in employing them and saying, 'Hey, look, this is all of the work that I've done in the years of my study.' That's the beauty or the benefit that I've seen in ePortfolios, and certainly the student making sense of their learning, critically reflecting and also analysing, you know, the things that they have been learning and informing them why they do what they do, and for what purpose.

Kristina Hoeppner:

What does an actual portfolio task look like for the students that they have to complete? Because you also mentioned that they are often working in remote areas of the world, and so I suspect that while the electronic portfolio is quite nice when you have access to the internet, you might also come across certain challenges.

Soropepeli Ramacake:

Yes, that's so true, what you've picked up, and it's very poignant because English is a second language for a lot of our students, if not all. It was really difficult to try and socialise, although there are guidance, you know, there are video instructions around the creation of a ePortfolio, one thing that I'm starting to understand that's a need for us here in the Pacific is having simple video instructions or recording that explains the process really, really simply. We're giving our students the PDF instructions. We've got the videos there. We have one of our academic instructors do a recording to explain the process, but some of our students are still lost. So I think communication at a simple level is really, really important for me as I move forward into next year and the following years. If there's any way that we can collaborate to create those for our students here in the Pacific, that will be really, really great. That's one area. And then another area that we introduced the ePortfolio to benefit our students is that it's a repository where all of their study can be captured, but not only that, so that they can also have a track record of their reflection and critical analysis along the way, which captured within that repository. I'm happy with where we are at at the moment, but I know that I'm not completely satisfied that that's the final picture for me. I want to move to the next level and make it really, really robust, and if a tool allows for us to do that, then let's keep talking and create something that will be beneficial for our students, and that'll capture all of their learning and development and growth really, really well.

Kristina Hoeppner:

What you're just saying is, I'm wondering also with your students working in different contexts, working with different families during their practicum or in other situations for their social work practicum, that they can then really have all of that in that one place, easily accessible, and they know all that I need to look at is always in my portfolio, is in Mahara, and they can go back to it rather than having something written down in one place, maybe not having those notes available when they need them, but they always know I can go online and I can find things.

Soropepeli Ramacake:

That's exactly right. I think, you know, with AI and advancement of technology that we're currently under, I think there is an opportunity here for us to trial some things of how we can take stuff to the next level. I'll give you an example. At the moment, we've got reports that students would have to get from the organisations, and then they have to bring it back, scan it, and then upload it to Mahara. So at the moment, there's a lot of double, triple handling of documents. If there was a streamlined way or automated way that we just click a button and put up a few comments and the stuff is held in the repository by an external organisation, and so if we can find some way where we naturally have a smoother process where we can have those reporting not be doubled or tripled handled that'll be really helpful for me. And so the student doesn't have to handle the document again. The organisation has a link that they can just tap into and upload the reports or whatever other documents that are required to be uploaded. And likewise, for the students, from their end, instead of uploading it through Moodle, it can just go straight to Mahara. Or there is a way that it can be exported from Moodle to Mahara. Those are some of the things that I'm having to play around with and look for ways, smoother ways, to be able to do the work more efficiently and effectively.

Kristina Hoeppner:

Mahara being open source, we can make changes to it. We can integrate it with other systems if the other system allows for an integration, and therefore we do have all of those possibilities, along also with you being able to install different languages that have already been translated by the community. Fijian is not quite there yet, but others are already there. So if somebody in Fiji wanted to translate Mahara, then we would certainly help them get started with that so that it can even be more localized. Soro, you mentioned that your students upload files into their portfolio and that they are doing reflections. So what do the portfolios of your students look like? Do they also incorporate multimedia elements, or are they primarily text?

Soropepeli Ramacake:

They import directly into Mahara. We're using the STARL-P reflection process, and so they create a profile, and then they have to write a bit about themselves. So even that, for me, I'm seeing that it's really, really good for the students to start to talk about themselves, but I think to accentuate their strengths a bit more, which is something that's lacking, I need to strengthen that so that we give the opportunity to the students to be much more confident in selling themselves. Because this is an opportunity that I see using ePortfolios, it's an opportunity for the students to sell themselves to the prospective employers. Everything that we're doing with ePortfolio is really for work readiness.

Kristina Hoeppner:

Tell us what the STARL-P framework is.

Soropepeli Ramacake:

So STARL-P is a reflection framework that's embedded within Mahara. It gives an opportunity for learners to really reflect on their learning. They use the STARL-P talking about the situation. That's the S. So whatever situations that they faced within their placement, they reflect on that. And then the T is talking about the tasks that they undertook within those situations. The A is talking about some of the actions that they might have done in relation to the situation and the tasks that they've encountered. And then we move into R is really reflecting on those things, you know, for them to bring in the reflection. 'Okay, in this situation, I encountered these clients, and within that situation, these were some things that I discovered or that resonated well with me, or that challenged me, or that triggered me.' So there the students are starting to now reflect on the things that they've encountered. And then the L is around the learning that they've gained from that reflection. And then the P is really, I suppose, they then move on to future possibilities or practices that they come to understand that'look, these are the limitations that I've gained from my reflection on those situations and the actions and tasks that I've done, and these are the areas of practice that I want to develop.'

Kristina Hoeppner:

You said that this framework is built into Mahara, so just for everybody else using Mahara, who is listening, USP built that into Mahara to have available for their students. You've presented on your work at the ICDE conference and had mentioned that you worked with 10 students who created their portfolios as part of the social work practicum. Did you give them a template that they could start out with or did you give them the instructions on the PDF and they then went off and created their own portfolio all by themselves?

Soropepeli Ramacake:

It was like the blind leading the blind for me. Because I was new to it, I had to try and make sense of it myself. Then I involved what we call instructional designers here in the University of the South Pacific, and the organisation that we work with is Continuing Future Learning(CFL). I utilised their team to help me create ePortfolios because I was new to it. The students were given instructions from me around the creation of ePortfolio and what I was looking for as an instruction. There were really two areas. The first was the creation of two reflections from weeks one to six and week seven to 12 because there's 12 weeks in a placement. That was the first part. The second part is that they had to upload the key documents from their placements and some images that proved that they were in, with the consent of the organisation that they were doing placement in for those images to be used. They got those instructions, and then we then started to create the Mahara to be able to house the stuff that we required the students to do.

Kristina Hoeppner:

How did the students like the portfolio activity?

Soropepeli Ramacake:

I think there was a lot of confusion initially. I think for some there was on top of the confusion, there was a lot of probably, I wouldn't say resistance, but I would say not being motivated to do it right away, so a lot of procrastination, until we got closer to the due dates, and then people started moving. I've just got to look for better ways where we can help the students to build their confidence so they're not procrastinating and making the system more user friendly and easier to navigate and for the students to feel a sense of, I suppose, confidence, to be able to do it the first time they see it and not get overwhelmed.

Kristina Hoeppner:

We are working on making Mahara easier to use through the redesign work that our team is currently engaged with to improve workflows and also how to find things so from next May on - because the release will be at the end of April - from next May on, then you will be able to see that this will also improve how your students interact with the portfolios and in other institutions, we have seen that also the creation of templates helps so that students can have the instructions right in the portfolio and then know what the minimum requirements are to fill in.

Soropepeli Ramacake:

Wonderful that's great.

Kristina Hoeppner:

Soro, in your paper, you talk about a number of recommendations because you're also working across so many different nations and so many different cultures at USP that your teaching always needs to be contextualised and also reflecting the cultures in which the students operate. How has the portfolio helped you achieve that? How has it contributed to it?

Soropepeli Ramacake:

When we're talking culturally competent, it's still done in the first language, in English. Students still have to reflect in English. So it defeats the purpose if we were to be really culturally competent or responsive. But in saying that, students are given an opportunity to reflect on practice that's happening in their own nation, and they put forward different practices or different services that are involved in the work that's being done on the ground in their own nation. So that's lifting the profile of those services and what's being done on the ground to help in that humanitarian level. But I think to be truly culturally responsive, we need to allow students to be able to reflect in their own language, and then that is able to be translated into first language, so that they can be marked, or even if they can just reflect in their own language, which is natural for them, and much freer, then we are truly meeting the student at their level and working to genuinely support them to thrive and succeed. They just reflect at that level and contextualise at that level, and then we then can then market from our end, in just that natural environment that they be allowed to present in that's still a progression. And for me, that's an area where, instead of them meeting university standard in English, why can't we do it in other ways, where the university comes down to their level, allows them to do presentation in their own language and culture and then still mark them from their area?

Kristina Hoeppner:

Yeah, especially also thinking about the reflections that they can, as you say, express themselves really of what they want to say. They might not be as proficient in English, and therefore you have that language barrier to not being able to really say what you do. Do you know if any students used a translation service so that they did reflect in their language first, and then had it translated into English before they submitted their work.

Soropepeli Ramacake:

Yeah, we haven't got that provision here, but what I've allowed students to do in the past is to do work in their own language, and then I've organised translation. Say you got a student from Kiribati. Coming in in the mode of learning for them to pass is in English, which is not what they used to once they pass that language, mode of English, then they go back to deliver to their people in Kiribati, not in English. If we can meet them in their natural environment and mark the work in their natural environment, we're helping each other because they're meeting a need academically, but also we're supporting them to do really well in their natural environment at the end of their study.

Kristina Hoeppner:

Yeah, and that way you also have the opportunity to personalise the learning more to the students and also make it more relevant for them because they continue to work in that context.

Soropepeli Ramacake:

Definitely.

Kristina Hoeppner:

Soro, where do you see the long term benefits of creating a portfolio for your students? At the beginning, you had already mentioned a couple of benefits in regards to them reflecting, talking about their learning. Are there any other benefits that you have either already seen as part of the work you've done with your social work students or that you have by now, maybe also already seen through the other portfolio work that is happening at USP?

Soropepeli Ramacake:

I think it's a really, really good tool, the ePortfolio, that captures students' learning and also reflections. But I think I really want students because we're not doing it from the 100 level. I would rather that they use it from the 100, 200, and 300, so that we have a comprehensive repository available for students to be able to track their learning and evidence their learning and also be able to export that to future employers. If we can get to a level where we can start to utilise that more smartly, I think we're on to a winner, so that students can have an opportunity to track their learning from when they started at the 100 level. They were novices, or they were struggling. Then get to the second year, they're starting to grow and know, and then at the final end, they are able to show. So know, grow, and show, if I can put it in transition from not knowing to knowing, and then being able to show that knowing, yeah. So I would use those words, no grow show. I would like that because then that gives me the evidence that what I'm teaching them and what they're learning is making sense, and they can transition right throughout, so that we are creating work-ready students at the end of the third year. That's one thing. Another thing that I would love is if Mahara had way, and you can tell from what I'm sharing with you, I'm all about development, growth, progression. I would love if we had functionality within the tool where we can just tap on a or click on a checkbox and create reports or statistics or analysis, analytics like that, where it spits out onto a report, summarises a learning for the student that's happened in the last three years. And then you just print that out, maybe a two pager that you hand over to whomever is willing to employ you. That way, the tool is becoming a smarter tool that can populate all that information that you want more like a reporting document. So I would love that. I'm a development myself, and so when there's something lacking, I try and develop something to meet that. And hopefully, if there's opportunities to integrate some of those developments into Mahara. That'd be really good for us. Rather than reinventing the wheel, we just integrate something in the tool to piggyback off.

Kristina Hoeppner:

We should talk about that in order to see what your developments are, and how we can support these along also making them then available to everybody, so everybody can benefit from them. Now, Soro, what do you wish everybody knew about portfolios?

Soropepeli Ramacake:

What I would like everyone to learn? It's a really good and effective tool to capture your students' learning and voice around their perspective, around their learning, and that it's a wonderful way of tracking what they've been doing. I've found that the ePortfolio does that for me, and it also shows me whether the students are able to reflect well. You can tell by reading their reflections whether the student is going in depth in their reflection and critically analysing things. So from that lens, I can tell whether a student is able to think deeper or really just giving me what's happening at a surface level. I want students to be going deeper into why they're doing what they're doing, and so the tool for me does that.

Kristina Hoeppner:

It makes that learning more visible because it can be shared with you as lecturer and also with others, and then you can feedback on it.

Soropepeli Ramacake:

That feedbacking loop is really, really important. When I mark the students' work, that's exactly what I'm doing. I'm saying, 'Thank you for your reflection. I'm so glad to know that these things are resonating well with you, and these things have challenged you, or these things have triggered you, and that you've got ways to work through a strategies to work through those things.' And then complementing them so they're reflecting, and I'm reflecting on their reflection and then giving them feedback.

Kristina Hoeppner:

Fantastic. So that takes us already into our quick answer round. So the last three questions for you are, first one, which words or short phrases do you use to describe portfolio work? We kind of probably already have them with, know, grow, and show or do you want to add some others?

Soropepeli Ramacake:

I was thinking about what ePortfolio and the work that we do within Mahara is all about, and match it with what we're trying to do with our students. And that's what I came up with. You know, just to make things easier for me and to be able to pass on to the students is that first what we're trying to get you to do is to know what you're doing and learning. And then once we're doing that, we're wanting to monitor and track whether you're growing in that learning. And so the practice, practice knowledge. So you know the theory, you then grow into your practice knowledge, and then you show. The evidence is really you being able to do the knowing when you're out in the organisation, and that's through the reflection that they are giving within Mahara. And so for me, yeah, those are the three key terms, the know, the grow, and the show.

Kristina Hoeppner:

Thank you. Soro, what tips do you have for learning designers or instructors who create portfolio activities?

Soropepeli Ramacake:

For me, it's just keeping it simple for your students. Also utilise what's already there, rather than reinventing the wheel, and don't make it too difficult or onerous for your students. Simplicity is always good, as they say, you know, the KISS principle - keeping it simple and understandable for our students, easy to navigate, and the platform has to be easily navigatable for them as well to be able to understand where I need to put stuff that I need to evidence into.

Kristina Hoeppner:

Now on to the last question, Soro, what advice do you have for your portfolio authors, for your students?

Soropepeli Ramacake:

The advice that I would give them are these, read the instructions carefully [Kristina laughs]. Do not rush things. Do not be overwhelmed. Take your time and utilise the ePortfolio because it's to your benefit. Those are the five things that I want to pass on to the students.

Kristina Hoeppner:

Those are really, really good concise tips for the students that wouldn't just help them with their portfolio work, but in general, for anything they do in their educational journey. Thank you so much for the conversation today, Soro. I really appreciate you sharing what you have learned so far having used portfolios at USP with your social work students, still being on the journey and not yet being done, and therefore also sharing some of the things that you would like to see improved and being the spark for future conversations between the two of us and also Irene and the rest of the learning design team at USP. Thank you so much.

Soropepeli Ramacake:

Thank you for having me, Kristina, and thank you for the work that you're doing and the team behind you. I love utilising the tools that you have, and I'm willing to collaborate and support you so that we can keep growing and keep helping our students in whatever they do through your platform. And I'm really honoured to be part of this podcast and wish you well for the upcoming Christmas and New Year.

Kristina Hoeppner:

Thank you so much, Soro. Now over to our listeners. What do you want to try in your own portfolio practice? This was 'Create. Share. Engage.' with Soropepeli Ramacake. Head to our website, podcast.mahara.org, where you can find resources and the transcript for this episode. It would be great if you shared our podcast with a colleague of yours so they can listen as well. I'll be back with a new episode in the new year. Have a wonderful holiday break and see you in 2026. Until then, create, share, and engage.

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Kristina Hoeppner

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Soropepeli Ramacake

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