TechTalks: Preparing for Campus Portals

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TechTalks Event

Preparing for Campus Portals

with guest experts Christine Geith and Collette Wagner

March 30, 2000

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Who is clamouring for portals? What is the audience? How do we begin to plan a portal? And the related question: is now too soon?How do we decide what channels and data there should be for different cohorts and roles? What are the key elements of portal building that should be occupying our attention? How do portals differ for on-campus and distance learners?

Our experts and our cohosts took this show on the road at last week's Blackboard Summit - but each live event is different and you can plan now to send in your questions to expert@cren.net and join Howard and Judith on Thursday, March 30 as they quiz our guest expert portal builders.

Guest Experts

Christine Geith is Director of Distance Learning and Co-Director of the Educational Technology Center at Rochester Institute of Technology. Chris leads the planning, budgeting, and implementation of RIT's 5-year Distance Learning Strategic Initiative and RIT's Classroom Technology Initiative. She directs RIT's Distance Learning program which is the one of the largest providers of online degree programs in the US. RIT is noted for its use of online collaborative tools and for its more than 26 degrees and certificates offered through distance learning. Chris also directs RIT's Instructional Services including classroom technology support and facility design, media services, and the university's Media Resource Center. Chris has an MBA from Rochester Institute of Technology.

Colette Wagner is the Assistant Dean and Director of Education, Training and Staff Development in The City University of New York's Office of Computing and Information Services. She directs CUNY Online. She coordinates the development of web-based instructional resources for CUNY/CIS, chief among which is the CUNY WriteSite, a network-based resource for writers at CUNY from basic to professional. In addition, she manages the CUNY Faculty Fellows in Technology program (a core group of CUNY faculty recruited from across the University, representing a variety of academic disciplines, who promote the effective use of instructional technology at CUNY through demonstration projects and coordinates special programs such as a new e-business joint study being conducted in conjunction with IBM. She is a Professor in the Library Department of LaGuardia Community College and holds the MS in Library Science from Columbia University and the MPA from John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Co-Hosts

Howard Strauss, Manager of Academic Applications at Princeton University, is TechTalk's Technology Anchor.

Co-Host Judith Boettcher is CREN's Executive Director. Together, Howard and Judith will ask the really tough questions—and relay the questions you email to them at expert@cren.net.

Background & Resources

We're building this event's resource list right now and we'd welcome your contribution.

Mentioned during the audiocast as useful, Traffick calls itself "The Guide to Portals." Also shared during the event, campus portals from Mascot Network.

The first place to go for background is our archived Tech Talk - audio, transcript, and resource list - from January 20. It was called What Is a Portal, Anyway?. Both there and on this page, below, you will find a set of 28 brief questions and answers about "portals" written by Howard as a resource for our January session.

And, here's an interesting slide show Howard has put together on portals. It may not work for you in Netscape, so turn on your MSIE to view it. He also has a couple of late, commercial "portal" additions for your perusal: Bell South My Way and SAP. And here's a portal of another type altogether: "Audiences can listen, view, and experience UCLA through the Portal�s visualization theater, which is remotely connected to a network of labs at schools and departments throughout UCLA."

Some other links:

The JA-SIG is a higher-ed organization devoted to issues of Java in administration which has launched a collaborative effort to develop a free (no license fee, no charge), shareable portal for higher-ed. Here is some work from JA-SIG: UD&me.
From Chris, we have RIT's main distance learning student page. RIT has developed special services to support students all over the world in its extensive (third largest in the US) online distance learning programs.
RIT's current resources and services also include a virtual union, used as the student portal off of RIT's main page, an online bookstore for ordering materials for distance learning courses, extensive online library resources, and an alumni network.
Colette suggests that you take a look at NYmentor "the nation's most comprehensive use of the Internet for higher education" and discuss its portal like qualities - i.e., its user-centric approach to higher ed in NYS - a one-stop, customizable shopping center for college applicants who live in the state of NY or are interested in attending a college in NYS. It serves as a gateway to the admissions process at over 200 colleges and universities statewide and allows an individual to apply once online for a set of colleges as well as for financial aid.
Howard wants to share the University of Washington portal with you. It's at http://myuw.washington.edu/ and from there you can gain access to guest use of it.

Finally, the University Web Developer's List, uwebd, not only has a currently active thread on campus portals, but is a resource of interest to all of us who develop Web resources for higher education.

Books

Judith recommends Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity by Jakob Neilsen.

Questions and Brief Answers on Portals by Howard Strauss, January, 2000
1. What is a portal?
  1. A gateway to web access.
  2. A hub from which users can locate all the web content they commonly need.
  3. History
    1. ISPs - AOL, Prodigy, CompuServe, MSN
    2. Search engines
    3. Intranet portals - VEPs
  4. Required: (my opinion) Personalization, Search, Channels, Links, Desirable: Customization, Role-based models, workflow
2. What different kinds of portals are there?
  1. Vertical (VEPs or Vertical Enterprise Portals or Vortals)
    1. Gartner says: CNET.com (shopping mall), animalhouse.com (college), MP3.com (music), pets.com (pets), webmd.com, women.com - women's issues , Intelihealth.com, Ivillage.com, sportsline.com, tucows.com
  2. Horizontal (HEPs or Horizontal Enterprise Portals aka MegaPortals)
    1. (Excite, Yahoo, AltaVista, Netscape's Net Center, AOL.com, Infoseek �)
  3. Intranet (also called Enterprise portals)
  4. Internet (internet gateways or libraries - not focused on internal enterprise functions)
  5. The Gartner Group says Level 1,2,3, and 4
    1. 1 Intranet Entry Point - University info, Misc content, Search, Links
    2. 2 Content Integration - 1 plus Extensive info, Advanced search, Directories, personalization
    3. 3 Workplace Integration - 2 plus Customer support, Transactions, Collaboration, Role-based profiles, ERP (enterprise resource planning) integration
    4. 4 Marketplace Integration - 3 plus Procurement, Supply chain mgmt, e-marketplace integration, Advanced personalization, EDI, XML, Java
3. Why have a portal?
  1. Different roles require different information. Someone from grounds and buildings needs different info than the chair of computer science. (Customization)
  2. Different people with the same role work differently. (Personalization)
  3. Efficiency - people get directly to the info they need. (Work Flow) Customization insures they don't miss anything.
  4. Link Integrity - Software insures that links work or go away.
4. Is a homepage a portal?
  1. Corporations are replacing their internal homepages with portals. Ford Motor Company (e.g.,) has replaced its supplier extranet (FSN - Ford Supplier Network) with a business portal (Internet Week 5/14/99).
  2. Web and entertainment companies are building bigger and bigger horizontal portals (HEPs).
  3. Not every company or university needs a HEP - but maybe they need a VEP.
5. Does a portal replace a homepage?
  1. No. Outsiders will still need your home page.
  2. No. You'll still need the info on your home page.
  3. No for a while. You'll need your home page as you transition to a portal.
  4. Yes. Give your outsiders a portal based upon their role. See www.umich.edu for an example of a homepage that lets outsiders select their role - though this is NOT a portal.
  5. Yes. Provide the general info on your homepage as part of your portal.
6. Should you build your own portal) or buy "portalware" from a vendor?
  1. Build - expensive, large maintenance burden, training, cross departmental involvement, tech support, may need new skills
  2. Buy - expensive, vendor needs to know details of your university, dependent on specialized vendor - no standard or open systems yet, advertising on portal, privacy, local customization
7. What are some of the elements that might be on a portal? Updateable by the user where appropriate.
  1. Calendars and to-do lists - schedules, hours of operation
  2. Discussion groups and chat
  3. Announcements & alerts
  4. Job openings, career opportunities
  5. Reports and documents
  6. Personal HR info - benefits, medical info,
  7. Access to data warehouse
  8. Search
  9. E-mail and address book
  10. Collaboration - intranet and internet
  11. Applications - including access to legacy systems
  12. Work flow
  13. Course schedules, grades, GPAs, transcripts, etc. , degree audit
  14. Residence hall menus
  15. News - campus and world
  16. Weather
  17. Maps and images
  18. Org charts
  19. Finance - stocks and investments, expenses, budget, credit union, bank accounts
  20. Access to online shopping and vendors
  21. Links - reference material, bookmarks
  22. IP telephony
8. Can't we just have links to all these things? Doesn't that just make a portal a personalized list of bookmarks? What makes a good portal UI (user interface)?
  1. DB and application windows - in addition to links
  2. General, site, role specific, and channel specific searches
  3. Personalization and customization - user specific views
  4. Profiles
  5. Single sign-on
9. Since portals need to access financial information, student and faculty information, and other information from all over the university, can the same folks who built our university homepage(s) build our portal?
  1. Unlikely. You'll need both the folks who normally build web pages AND the folks who know how to manage the specialized data (likely financial data, student information, etc.) needed for personalization.
  2. The folks who normally build web pages will have to deal with much more dynamic, customized and personalized data. They'll also have to establish relationships with outside databases and information sources)(e.g., the NYT news service).
10. What "roles" might a portal support?
  1. Student, faculty, staff
  2. Manager, worker, temp, Provost, � for Controller's office, Chemistry dept, IT, Facilities, etc.
  3. Scholars, researchers
  4. Prospective student, alum, person planning to visit, friend, vendor, �
11. What's a portal channel?
  1. A customizable page container (small window) where specific information or an application appears (weather, news, search, reports, stocks, etc.)
12. Does a university need more than one portal?
  1. Yes - You can't avoid it. Course Info has its own portal as does many things you'll buy. Many departments will write their own portals. Folks will use commercial portals.
  2. No - You'd lose single sign-on. Folks have several roles (student and employee, worker and softball team member) so one portal is better. Lose single source for web info. Keeping data in synch is messier.
  3. No - You'd lose consistent look and feel and common navigation, etc.
13. Can outsiders use a university portal?
  1. They should be able to. See www.umich.edu for a hint at what this might look like.
  2. Outsiders could select their role. Portal could remember their role with cookies or some such scheme and offer customization and personalization.
14. How do commercial portals differ from University portals?
  1. Commercial portals are horizontal and don't include university info.
  2. Commercial portals don't know the various roles of a user - just one, a customer.
  3. Some commercial portals use cookies to hold state and customization - not good for shared computers.
15. Can we use a commercial portal as our portal? Should our portal point to a commercial portal?
  1. No. Commercial portals do not have access to our internal data.
  2. Yes. We could point to or incorporate commercial portal channels.
16. Can we use CourseInfo (or software like that) as our portal? What about just using it as a student portal and using something else for other types of people?
  1. Version 4.0 of CourseInfo has a portal-like interface as does CampusPipeline and others.
  2. All of these vendor solutions limit customization and personalization.
  3. You may want to have a single portal. These can't do that.
  4. Some of these solutions have advertising on them that you do not control.
17. What's the difference between portal customization and personalization?
  1. Customization is done by a portal based on what it knows about you (e.g., your role). Customization will probably be different for your different roles, or a portal might give you a view based on all your roles.
  Some roles demand very specific customization. The registrar, e.g., subscribes to the student info channel, but has access to all students and has global update privileges. A student subscribes to the same channel but can only see her own info and has no update privileges.
  1. Customization includes what initial channels you subscribe to, what privileges you have to read, search and update items, what channels you can add, what personalization you can do, etc.,
  2. You do personalization to a portal to make it work the way you do.
  3. Both customization and personalization must be saved for each of your roles. These may be saved with the same or different technologies.
18. What kinds of personalization should you be able to do?
  1. Subscribe/unsubscribe to a channel
  2. Position the channel on a portal page
  3. Personalize the channel content (profiles)
  4. Personal calculations, reports, and display (e.g., how much money do I have left in my capital account? What's the value of my portfolio? What's the P/E of HD? Display negative numbers in parens in red, etc.)
  5. Colors, backgrounds, fonts, when to update, defaults
19. Should portals be aware of the device they run on and have device dependent customization? Should my portal look different, for example, on a palm top than on a desktop than on a wireless laptop?
  1. Yes. Oracle and MicroStrategy plan to build portal software for palmtops (InfoWorld Electric 3/19/99). Others will follow.
20. How can portals be implemented? CGI? Applications servers? EJBs? Java servlets?
  1. Yes - all of them and more, though CGI alone may be very difficult to do.
21. Are portals less secure than our old homepages?
  1. Authentication required for most vertical portals
22. Are application servers required? Context management engines (an app that collects, analyses and distributes personalization and customization information)? Integration brokers (middleware that enables applications to share data)?
  1. These all are part of a comprehensive portal system. For a portal that includes customization and personalization, all of these components, at least functionally, will be required.
23. What role will XML play?
  1. Data tagging for shared fields.
  2. A common database data format.
  3. If we ever expect to share code (EJB, servlets, etc.) we will need some way to share the meaning of the data elements in channels. XML makes that possible.
24. How do portals maintain state, keep customization information, manage authentication and authorization, and manage timeouts? Databases, cookies, global variables, persistent objects? Pros and cons of these?
  1. Cookies - Stored on the client computer. Can be shared by other portals. Potential security problems. Limited amount of data. Not appropriate for shared computers.
  2. Databases - most versatile, but may not be shareable across different portals. Performance and security problems.
  3. Persistent objects and global variables - Fine for EJBs, servlets, etc. Update synchronization issues.
25. Brown University hosted a JA-SIG working committee meeting on Wednesday 1/12. The purpose of the meeting was to begin to create specifications document for a free, sharable portal framework. Folks from Brown, Boston College, Delaware, Cornell, Princeton, George Washington and Yale and a few others were there. What is this framework all about?
  1. starting point.
  2. Create a JA-SIG clearinghouse for code sharing.
  3. Determine which universities have what interests and resources to contribute to building EJBs, defining UI, publish/subscribe, etc. and request volunteers from institutions (not limited to those who attended the meeting)
  4. Keep JA-SIG and others informed of progress.
26. Before we get started building our portal, are there some major issues we should consider?
  1. Plan, plan, and plan, before you code a line of HTML.
  2. A portal will change the way the university treats its data. This will require cooperation between many departments related to the use (read, update, fix, etc.) and ownership of data. Include those folks and representatives from all groups who will use your in your portal planning.
  3. Specify the division of labor. More than one technical group and many user groups will be involved. Make sure they all know their roles.
  4. Leadership and commitment. This is a big undertaking. Get someone that is a good leader to run it. (He or she will need some good managers to make sure things get done.) Get some high-level commitment for the time and resources you'll need to get this done.
27. How do we get started on building our own portal(s)?
  1. Decide who it will serve. You may want to pick just one constituency first - e.g students.
  2. Get the right people involved early. Decide how you'll divide up the work.
  3. Decide what services you'll offer now and in the future.
  4. Watch the JA-SIG framework plan. If they have something you can use, use it.
  5. Consider commercial services. Consider specialized software for limited constituencies - e.g. CourseInfo for students, but do that only after you've thought thru your grand plan.
  6. Look at commercial portals and other universities for UI and content advice.
  7. Consider evolving your homepage into a portal, but do that as part of an overall plan. Evolve your portal a few features at a time.
28. Is now too soon to get started?
  1. Start planning now.
  2. Over the next two years all middleware vendors will announce portal packages.
  3. Move slowly and watch developments.

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