The OUCS Portal Project

OUCS Portal Implementation Group

29 April 2003

Essentials of a portal

• Provides a framework for– Retrieving, aggregating (and integrating) information

• From distributed remote services

– Presenting information according to user preferences

“Building portals is not about creating content. It is less about developing functionality than it is about building a coherent presentation of existing content and applications

tailored to specific users.”

Portal hypertension(The Cleveland Clinic)

Essentials of an institutional portal

• Portal providing an integrated view (“pocket guide”) of a university’s information resources– For students, teachers, researchers,

academic-support, alumni…– From information exposed by departments,

colleges, academic services, VLE, student/staff records, external resources

Claude MonetLe Portail (Effet de Matin). 1894

And what a portal is not

• Not– Content creation/management system– Replacement for existing processes

• A portal is only as good as its content.• The content is only as good as the

processes to create/manage it• Developing a portal may result in

changing processes but it is not an aim.

Information sources in OxfordStudent

Information sources in OxfordStaff

Information sources in OxfordEveryone

Aims of the OUCS PIG

• To gain more experience of portals, Web Services and associated standards

• To investigate streamlining existing services and offering a user-centric view of OUCS+ information

• To encourage the migration of OUCS internal office processes to the digital information age

• Disseminate our and others experiences to the University

Project Plan• Establishing a hardware and software base

– Development/demonstrator environments

• Service definition– Consultation and catalogue of services

• Service standards– How to expose content for channels

• Layout and delivery design– Developing XSLT styesheets etc

• Access management– Integrating authentication/authorization

• OUCS internal office– Audit of information flow

Service definitions

1. Search your favourite resources

2. Library administration3. Access/update teaching

materials4. Personal information5. Digital resources alerts6. Email access7. Handbook8. Deadline alerts9. Access/update reading

lists10. Campus news

1. OUCS news of all kinds

2. Alerts/Access to Weblearn

3. Access to WING

4. My OxLIP/OLIS

5. Themes/channels by college/dept.

6. Events aggregator

7. Job vacancies

8. Bookmarks

9. Classified adverts

10. Weather

National survey said: Our survey* said:

* Survey based on small number of interviews combined with usefulness and feasibility

uPortal

• Open Source portal framework

• Developed by JA-SIG HE institutions (with help from Mellon)

• Co-ordinates output of content from channels

• Implemented as Java servlets; XML/XSLT

Joining it all upEdris EckhardtPortal to Immortality

NewsOUCSData

LibraryData

Courses

Personalised portal interface

People

XSLT

Data Channels

Authentication

Authorization

Metadata

Data

RSSSOAPXHTML…

VLE, OXAM, Herald, OUCSweb, Admin, OLIS, OXLIP, etc Services

Athens

Progress to date• Assembled a PIG from across OUCS

– (Lou Burnard (chair), Sebastian Rahtz (secretary), Matthew Dovey, Francisco Pinto, Chris Cooper, Peter Robinson, Bruce Shakespeare, Stephen Quinney)

• Defined a potential list of services for integration• Parallel investigation of authentication services• Installed uPortal and enrolled in uPortal training• Commenced configuring a demonstrator• Organised a series of portal talks

Eugène AtgetOld Courtyard, rue Quincampoix

DemoScreenshots in case the demo failshttp://charlotte.oucs.ox.ac.uk:8080/uPortal

uPortal and Weblearn

• FAQ: what is the proper relationship?– Weblearn = VLE = place where learning takes

place– Portal = framework = channel for alerting;

access; based on common AMS– VLE might offer portal-like functions

• E.g. what is the relationship between the VLE and Library resources?

• Avoid locking content into blackboxes– Does the VLE/Portal/Records System support

Open Standards?

Timetable

• Feb 2003: planning

• March 2003: basic templates & RSS

• April 2003: integration of LDAP

• May 2003: development of selected Web Services

• June 2003: demonstrator launched

Charles MarvilleCathedral de Reims, figures du Grand Portal

How you can help

• Are you an information provider?– Consider supporting RSS newsfeeds or other XML

standards - talk to us about your services

• Are you a likely portal user?– Consider expressing an interest in evaluation or

consultation - we want to know your needs

• Are you a technical developer?– Consider assisting with channel development

Fragment: Man in a Portal4th-6th century

A different type of portal