1. May 10, 2001An Overview of the Princeton University Web - Portals 1 Enterprise Portals  What’s a portal? –Web page customized for a particular user. E.g. MyYahoo, Amazon.com.MyYahooAmazon.com It knows who you are because of a directory of users and their attributes and/or cookies on your computer. –Also customizable by user. E.g. Gartner Group.Gartner Group

2. May 10, 2001An Overview of the Princeton University Web - Portals 2 Portal Initiatives at Princeton  DEMAND –Using JA-SIG uPortal “framework”, this is a collaborative effort between several universities and a vendor (Interactive Business Solutions.) –Originally intended to meet needs of DEMAND project to aggregate typical administrative applications in a single interface.

3. May 10, 2001An Overview of the Princeton University Web - Portals 3 Portal Initiatives at Princeton continued  Blackboard –Grew from Blackboard’s original CourseInfo courseware, it is powered by a commercial vendor’s software (Epicentric). –Currently used to integrate materials from multiple courses, etc. –Academic Services requires that “Princeton Portal” integrate this relevant Blackboard data.

4. May 10, 2001An Overview of the Princeton University Web - Portals 4 Portal Initiatives at Princeton continued  Alumni Portal Alumni Portal Alumni Portal –Outsourced. Working with two vendors - PCI and BSR. –Will be integrated with Advanced Web Community for attribute data.  USG “portal” – Though maybe not a portal in the technical sense, it was the FIRST site on the PU web that was targeted at a specific audience. USG “portal” USG “portal”

5. May 10, 2001An Overview of the Princeton University Web - Portals 5 Portal Initiatives at Princeton continued  PeopleSoft –Portal for Higher Education (financials, HR, student)  We OWN Oracle portal – used for access to Oracle data. Potential for use.

6. May 10, 2001An Overview of the Princeton University Web - Portals 6 Portal Initiatives at Princeton continued  Web Services “Meta Portal” Evaluation “Meta Portal”“Meta Portal” –Impartial evaluation of numerous vendors. –Implemented three (Epicentric, Hummingbird, Sequoia) to evaluate operation, functionality. –Frozen because: No immediate mandate from “higher authority” to implement. Content Management considered more of a priority and prerequisite to any portal efforts.

7. May 10, 2001An Overview of the Princeton University Web - Portals 7 Portal Considerations  Technical –“Single sign on” is important so users only have to authenticate ONCE. (DIFFICULT!) –“Data Sharing” between these systems is necessary but can be problematic. –“Buy or Build?” uPortal based on open-source code written by a cooperative. Commercial portal software is VERY expensive, but supported..

8. May 10, 2001An Overview of the Princeton University Web - Portals 8 Portal Considerations continued  Administrative –What is the value of multiple portals vs. a single “MyPrinceton” portal? –Several projects have moved forward with their own portals. How would attempting to standardized on one portal impact the existing portal projects?

9. May 10, 2001An Overview of the Princeton University Web - Portals 9 Portal Considerations continued  Administrative continued –How MUCH of a portal is needed? Role based? Level of user customization? Who are the communities? Princteon only?