Portal Vision Document

Introduction

An institutional portal is intended to provide a seamless, web-based interface to a range of university systems and services. Key benefits of an institutional portal may include:

simplified sign-on and authentication to a number of different campus IT systems,
easier navigation of the local web environment,
customised and personalisable view of the local web environment,
better integration of internal web information resources with external resources.

Institutional portals are currently under development in a number of HE institutions in both the UK and the US - primarily student-facing portals. Many of these institutions have developed their own software in order to implement a portal and a large community of portal developers has developed an open-source (free) repository of portal software. An increasing number of institutions are looking for third party support for their open source portal implementations whilst the portal software market has matured during the last 2 years.

At the University of Leeds, portal implementation is likely to be undertaken by purchasing a portal solution, or by adopting an open source solution with development/support undertaken by a well-established third party.

The University of Leeds Academic Services appointed a Project Manager, in July 2003, to oversee a 2-year project to explore the development of an institutional portal solution for the University. The Project Manager will undertake a range of activities, including a business analysis of the University's requirements; a user needs analysis and evaluation of portal software.

What is a portal?

"A portal is a personalised and customised gateway designed for useful and comprehensive access to information, people, and processes. While portals have a rapidly evolving set of features and characteristics, they can be described as personalised and customised user interfaces providing access to both internal and external information. Portal content can include a wide variety of features, information, tools, and communication devices". [1]

"An [sic] network service that provides a personalised, single point of access to a range of heterogeneous network services, local and remote, structured and unstructured. Portal functionality often includes resource discovery, email access and online discussion fora. Portals are intended for (human) end-users using common Web 'standards' such as HTTP, HTML, Java and JavaScript. In the context of the JISC IE, portals interact with brokers, aggregators and content providers using Z39.50, the OAI-PMH and RSS/HTTP." [2]

A portal has many characteristics, but essentially just one concept – that of integration. Relevant information is consolidated together into one cohesive page, or set of frames, as a set of channels. The user is able to subscribe to those that they find useful and unsubscribe from those they don’t consider important.

What does a portal look like?

The screen shot shows what a student portal could look like on a web page.

What are the advantages of a portal?

As a student :-

Single sign on 'one stop shop' access to many applications, eg log in once and then get access to your library record, Bodington, email, online fee payment etc, without having to log in to each of the applications.
Secure, personalised environment - giving you up-to-date information relevant to you, eg your personal details, your module information, careers information etc.
Access to an electronic library, ie access to electronic databases, journals and books.
Search across many resources simultaneously.
Clubs, societies and LUU news/announcements.
Virtual communities and discussion boards.
News and language channels.

As a member of staff :-

Single sign on access to many applications.
Secure, personalised environment.
Focus on research communities, processes and opportunities.
Integration of online journals, textbooks and bibliographic data into an electronic environment to create an electronic library on the desktop.
It creates an electronic delivery mechanism to support our distance education courses.
Central file store for collective information.
Service customisation i.e. the tailoring of information to an individual’s needs will improve the learning experience and create a culture of personalised support.
Virtual communities.

Outline of the portal project

The University of Leeds portal project has one key aim - to plan for and develop a University portal including the following key objectives:

To undertake a business analysis of the University requirements for a portal product and scope a detailed business case for a portal service.
To identify and consult key stakeholders on needs and undertake a user requirements analysis.
To identify and prioritise the key areas for portal development.
To review current portal products on the market and make recommendations for a product that will meet the needs of the university.
To undertake site visits to institutions currently deploying/developing institution-wide portals.
To review existing systems and projects within Academic services and elsewhere, and identify potential for synergy, overlap and/or duplication of effort.
To work with ISS teams to evaluate the technical options for construction of a portal architecture.
To consider how existing services could be integrated into the portal framework.
To work with University staff to explore the role of content management systems in relation to a portal.
To make recommendations for staffing requirements to establish and run a portal service.
Develop and implement a portal pilot.

Further information about University of Leeds portal project

VKP site (members of University of Leeds only).

Portal project website (external access).

Portal web survey.

Student portal demonstrator.

Staff portal demonstrator.

If you require any further information please contact Bo Middleton on x36386 or e-mail Bo Middleton

References

[1]. Provosts on Portals: A web seminar developed for American Association of State Colleges and Universities provosts.

[2]. JISC IE Architecture Glossary.