Portal Strategies and Issues at Georgetown Common Solutions Group Winter Meeting Duke University January 10, 2001

Options  Build Our Own Portal  Purchase a Portal Product  Deploy a Free Offering  Deploy a Vendor Offering  Adopt an Application Portal  Joint Development through JA-SIG

Requirements (JA-SIG discussions)  Most Visited Web Page for Community Members  Single Integration Framework - Administration, Academic, Community  Integrated Desktop  Integration Point for all Data and Applications  Customer-Centric  Accessible by all University Constituents  Single User, Graphical Interface  Single Log-on - Authentication & Authorization  Customizable and Personalized  Provision of Convenient Communication Services

Requirements (JA-SIG discussions)  Access to all types of data  Access to Internal and External Resources  Institutional Control of Appearance and Content  Vendor Independent -- Not Proprietary  Free of Commercialization  Adaptable - Integrate Legacy Applications  Flexible - Absorb New Technology & Applications  One-Stop Shopping for all E-Commerce  E-Commerce launch point  24 x 7

Adoption of JA-SIG uPortal -- Pros  Based on Open Standard --J2EE- Compliant Model  Reference Framework  Software Cost  Higher Education Specific  Leverage of Consortium for Ongoing Development and Sharing of Applications

Adoption of JA-SIG uPortal -- Cons  Lack of Vendor Support  Not Mature (Yet)  Institutional Resource Commitment to the Framework itself to training a wide variety of developers

Portals We Already Own or Have Built  Blackboard 5 - Level 3  Cognos  hoyasonline (online alumni community)  Access+ (Web to legacy applications)  Unsecured “Campus Community” Web Pages by Constituent Type (Student, Faculty, Staff, Alumni, Visitors, Applicants) and Campus (Main/Med/Law)  Campus Pipeline  PeopleSoft

“Portals” We’re Actually Using  Blackboard 5 - Level 3 Limited Use: 5 Blackboard Specific Channels ­My Courses, My Tasks, My Appointments ­My Announcements, My Organizations  Cognos Limited Audience: Data Warehouse Users for consolidation of demos and sample reports during data mart development and movement to production

Portals We’re Actually Using  hoyasonline (online alumni community) Alumni for access to the Alumni Directory, Career Networking, Class News, Events, University and Alumni Association News, Discussion Boards, Forwarding for Life  Access+ Student, Faculty, Financial Directory, NetID, Institutional Research  Unsecured “Campus Community” Web Pages by Constituent Type and Campus Public to the World

Portals sitting “on the shelf” (happily)  PeopleSoft  Campus Pipeline (still sealed in its FedEx envelope)

Our Current Strategy  Participate in JA-SIG to the extent possible  Implement a pilot uPortal site with assistance from IBS (primary developer) May do version “1.5” this Spring Small community of users ­100 Med School Faculty and Researchers ­1st Year Med School Class (200 students)  Deploy a version 2.0 test site  Move to production when ready

The Vision  Majority of initial JA-SIG requirements fulfilled  Integration of all portal sites now in limited use Blackboard, Cognos Access+, hoyasonline, Campus Community  Integration of portals to come PeopleSoft  Integration of Key Campus Services , Calendar, Three Libraries, others  Rich External Content Integration  Adjusts to Institutional Role over Lifetime

Some of the Issues  Developing a more granular roles database  Deploying a Beta Environment  Rearchitecting our own Application Middleware and retrofit as necessary  Badgering Vendors to Play in the Space (as required) Blackboard, Cognos, Steltor, PeopleSoft, others  Solidifying campus support or lead and let others follow