1. Carnegie Mellon Carnegie Mellon Web Portal v0.9 featuring Event Calendar and Headliners Publisher Andrew Web Group Infrastructure, Services, and Middleware Computing Services Carnegie Mellon University

2. Carnegie Mellon Who is this guy? Introductions Ryan Eberhard, Web Services Consultant Infrastructure, Services, and Middleware Computing Services Recent projects: Andrew Web Publishing System, My Andrew, Webmail, WebISO Contact info Partnership questions: eberhard@cmu.edu Support questions: webmaster@andrew.cmu.eduwebmaster@andrew.cmu.edu

3. Carnegie Mellon Welcome, early adopters! Today’s Agenda 1. Carnegie Mellon Portal 2. Event Calendar 3. Hands-on session Break 4. Headlines Publisher 5. Hands-on session

4. Carnegie Mellon Agenda What I Want to Accomplish Today Teach you Portal and it’s tools Get you early access You benefit from early access We benefit from feedback Users benefit - content for Fall Identify partners for in-depth work If you know what you want to do and You have the time

5. Carnegie Mellon Basic Concepts Portal vs. Conventional Web Sites Conventional web sites are static. Every user sees the same thing. http://www.cmu.edu/ http://www.cmu.edu/computing/ Some sites are dynamic. Content a function of variables. Webmail Andrew Calendar Portals are dynamic, but they also (i) target relationship segments and (ii) aggregate content and services from various sources. Let’s look at some examples

6. Carnegie Mellon Relationship Targeting An example RelationshipPortlets Displayed on Academics tab CIT undeclared freshmanCIT college headlines Univerity Libraries Cameo search Enrollment Services bookmarks ECE sophomore+ ECE department headlines + Robotics Club bookmarks ECE senior+ Commencement headlines + Alumni headlines Suppose the portal has an “Academics” section...

7. Carnegie Mellon Carnegie Mellon Web Portal Carnegie Mellon Portal Demo http://my.cmu.edu/

8. Carnegie Mellon Carnegie Mellon Web Portal Any Questions? Q&A

9. Carnegie Mellon Event Calendar Introduction

10. Carnegie Mellon Event Calendar Motivation The Problem: As your students, faculty, staff see it: Lack of a single source for information about campus events Examples: Laura J, George Soros As event providers see it: No single method for publicizing events Chaotic mix of bboards, posters, email

11. Carnegie Mellon Event Calendar Introduction We are developing a Portal tool where... Campus events are aggregated at a single, canonical source. Events belong to one or more calendars: Student Affairs Calendar (default: all) H&SS/Philosophy Lectures Calendar (default: H&SS) GSIA Recruiting Events Calendar (default: GSIA) Commencement Deadlines Calendar (default: graduating students) Users inherit these calendars by their relationship. Users subscribe to calendars of their choosing.

12. Carnegie Mellon Event Calendar The Killer App of Portal This makes a good web application: Gather user requirements Design an events database Build a provider and consumer interface Implement subscriptions, search, etc. This is a great portal application. Why? Information aggregation Interface consistency Traffic

13. Carnegie Mellon Event Calendar Nuts and Bolts: Calendars Event Calendar manages a set of calendars More examples: Official University Calendar (Enrollment) Chemistry Symposia (MCS Chemistry) CIT Homecoming (CIT General) Calendars contain events.

14. Carnegie Mellon Event Calendar Nuts and Bolts: Events Events have a name, description, date, time, fee, etc. Events belong to a category: Academic Calendar/Holidays Conferences/MeetingsOff-Campus Alumni EventsFaculty/Staff EventsReligious Events AthleticsLectures/ReadingsSocial/Dances/Mixers Concerts/Performance s/Exhibitions Movies/TV/RadioStudent Events

15. Carnegie Mellon Event Calendar Nuts and Bolts: Events More about events: Can be recurring RSVP information Contact information Interface icons

16. Carnegie Mellon Event Calendar Nuts and Bolts: Subscriptions From your user’s perspective: Default subscriptions Self-selected subscriptions Filter by event type

17. Carnegie Mellon Event Calendar A partnership We develop and maintain the tool We drive traffic to your calendars: Mandatory “My Events” portlet on Home tab Initial portal motivators: Magnet applications Default home page in Clusters Aggregating web applications Events Headlines (part two) Your part: Use the tool, send us feedback, and request calendars. Populate them with events.

18. Carnegie Mellon Event Calendar Demonstration Disclaimers: Pre-production tool ahead Search, browse by type, navigational trails other features not implemented. Recurring event creation is slow. If you get lost, click “Start Over”

19. Carnegie Mellon Event Calendar Hands-on Session Hands-On Session (30-60 minutes) Please raise your hand if you get an error. http://my.cmu.edu/

20. Carnegie Mellon Event Calendar Feedback Discussion

21. Carnegie Mellon Content management options Overview Conceptual review: Portals vs. Web sites Tempting to think about brochure-like pages in Portal Portal content targets user segments Portal content served in portlets on a certain tab

22. Carnegie Mellon Content management options Overview Content management options: Bookmarks (easy) Bboards (easy) RSS or XML file (medium) JDBC result (hard) Headlines publisher (easy)

23. Carnegie Mellon Content management options Option: Bookmarks Portlet You provide us a location in portal, a relationship target, and a list of URLs Example: Academics tab Students only “Enrollment Resources” portlet Live example: http://my.cmu.edu/http://my.cmu.edu/ Enrollment Resources On-Line Registration (OLR) Student Information On-Line (SIO) Course Information On-Line (CIO) Graduation On-Line (GOL) Academic Audit On-Line Faculty Course Evaluations (FCE)

24. Carnegie Mellon Content management options Option: Bboard Portlet You provide us a bboard, location in portal, and a relationship target. Example: official.job-postings cmu.career-center.hss cmu.misc.market Live example: http://my.cmu.edu/http://my.cmu.edu/

25. Carnegie Mellon Content management options Option: RSS or XML file (advanced) You provide a 0.9x RSS file or a XML file and XSLT stylesheet Example #1: “WRCT Daily Schedule” Reads http://wrct.org/daily.xml, does transformhttp://wrct.org/daily.xml Example #2: Slashdot, a popular technology news feed Reads http://slashdot.org/slashdot.rdfhttp://slashdot.org/slashdot.rdf Live example: http://my.cmu.edu/http://my.cmu.edu/

26. Carnegie Mellon Content management options Option: JDBC Result JDBC: A platform-neutral interface between databases and Java. The JDBC API encapsulates common database operations: Running queries (SELECT, INSERT) Formatting results (GROUP BY, ORDER BY) Example: Biology News departmental news database Interested? Contact us.

27. Carnegie Mellon Content management options Headlines publisher Today you will gain access to Headlines Publisher, a lightweight content management system. Strengths: Simple and straightforward Nice consumer interface Free (bundled with Portal) Weaknesses: Cumbersome provider interface Plain text only Cannot export headlines No room to grow Bottom-line: We expect to out-grow Headlines Publisher soon, but your content will be ported!

28. Carnegie Mellon Content management options Headlines publisher YourGroup Headlines Publisher Push (as provider): - News - Headlines - Press releases - Documents YourGroup Headlines Pull (as consumer): - Based on identity - Based on preferences

29. Carnegie Mellon Content management options Headlines publisher Three headline options: 1. Upload File (text or html) 2. Create Card (pointer to file) 3. Manual Input (text or html directly) Each lets you target your content by relationship:

30. Carnegie Mellon Content management options Headlines publisher Relationship Targets Relationship Types today Everyone Students Faculty Staff Students or Faculty Faculty or Staff Relationship Types tomorrow Academic majors Alumni “Let’s talk”

31. Carnegie Mellon Content management options Headlines publisher Option #1: Upload File (bad) You upload a HTML or text file into a content database Problematic: Local links break Local images break http/https problem Not recommended

32. Carnegie Mellon Content management options Headlines publisher Option #2: Create Card (bad) You add a pointer to a file on some other web server E.g. a course description: http://www.cmu.edu/bio/education/courses/03121.html Same problems: Local links break Local images break http/https problem Not recommended

33. Carnegie Mellon Content management options Headlines publisher Option #3: Manual Input (good!) Input or paste text Looks good Preferred! Local reference problem avoided. Browser remains in portal. Nice interface http://my.cmu.edu/

34. Carnegie Mellon Content management options Hands-on Session Hands-On Session (30-60 minutes) Please raise your hand if you get an error.

35. Carnegie Mellon Carnegie Mellon Portal The Road Ahead Partners wanted! Please contact: Doug Blair (blair@cmu.edu)blair@cmu.edu Ryan Eberhard (eberhard@cmu.edu)eberhard@cmu.edu