Student Portal University of Twente History, use and experiences Carmen Olde Scholtenhuis, Project Manager ICT Service Center

Websites & Portals Universiteit Twente Agenda Framework Motive Starting point Student portal Project Demo Experiences so far What’s next? Questions Websites & Portals Universiteit Twente 2

Framework Part of a program for the redevelopment of the internet pages and applications of the University of Twente: New homepage including a new CMS New search & index New target portal for students (pilot) including a new CMS

Why a new portal? Information for students was hard to find: Too many places with the same info Too many search hits, where to start? Many information outdated (sometimes years…)

Background The desire to transfer information! (But do we know the information desires of our target groups?) Because of that: too many web pages (> 1.000.000!) Contain all sorts of information for the different target groups, but not well structured and because of that, not very accessible Multiple information (content) systems Overall control almost possible due to decentralized redaction and too many web publishers (>1000)

Ideas at the beginning of the Student portal Strategic communication goal: the perspective of the target group is leading Let’s start with the most important target group: the students! Every target group needs an entrance for all the relevant information What is relevant? Ask the target group! Information can be offered, but the individual at the end of the line decides for him/herself whether it is relevant A small part of the organizational information has to be pushed (changes in schedules, important messages)

Starting points (1) Technique follows functional requirements! The user at the end of the line decides for him/herself wat he/she sees, technology has to deal with this Easy to use for everybody (including administrators) If possible, use open source/ open standards (UT policy) Has to fit in the information architecture of the University of Twente (simple interfaces with source systems)

Starting points (2) Take into account the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 1.0) of the W3C Solution has to be future proof ‘The shop needs to stay open’ All this with limited budget…

Project Student portal Started with a target group research: what do the students want? One entrance with all the relevant information where they can do all the business Decide for themselves which information they see As few as possible clicks Entrance to administration, schedules, digital learning environment

Project steps Student portal Start in October 2008 Define functionalities based on the target group research Functional design Interaction design Architecture design Find supplier: Xopus/Q42 Development and testing Live since March 1st 2010

Websites & Portals Universiteit Twente Results? A Student portal that can be customized: Some information gadgets, including a feedback gadget: student can give input for improvements of portal Some gadgets interfacing backoffice systems A small amount of gadgets cannot be customized Login via Surf federation, customize, store Demo my.utwente.nl Websites & Portals Universiteit Twente 11

Technology Apache Shindig platform (Open Social Container) Mark Logic XML database Xopus Editor

Why not use iGoogle? UT wants to control content, interface and administration UT wants to transfer all the relevant information from other systems via the portal, and control this (including security)

Experiences so far Mostly positive! Students value the initiative and use the portal Many suggestions for improvement, mostly about the absence of SSO Editor is easy to use Stable technology But… It’s still a beta version, it contains a lot of small errors System administration is not fully equipped New development needed!

Websites & Portals Universiteit Twente What’s next? (1) Continue to develop the Student portal to a mature communication channel Improved user interface Improved CMS/ editor tool Use of Single Sign On English version of the portal Websites & Portals Universiteit Twente 15

Websites & Portals Universiteit Twente What’s next? (2) Development of web services to access the information of the relevant backoffice systems Users don’t need to know the name of the backoffice system, only the name of the transaction Improved organization of the system and content administration (Re)development of other target portals: for employees, prospective bachelors and masters, alumni Websites & Portals Universiteit Twente 16

Questions?